Response to comments on my cold fusion status report.
Douglas....@cern.ch
REPLIES TO MAIL ABOUT THE STATUS REPORT ON COLD FUSION
Douglas R.O. Morrison
INTRODUCTION
If one writes a 28 page review of a subject, it is natural that
there should be some errors that should be corrected. I would like to thank
those who wrote to me with the intention of being helpful. However certain
other comments received seemed less helpful, and this hate mail will be ignored.
GENERAL COMMENTS
1.NOT ENOUGH EXPERIMENTAL DETAIL
Sorry, but I had assumed that the five Concluding Speakers' accounts would
cover this - after all, it was their job to select and give the highlights.
2. BIAS
A response to this was posted yesterday in Sci.Physics.fusion.
Everyone has some past experiences which colours their approach.
Here the Baysian ideas of bias are used and it is assumed that the reader
has some notions of the deep fundamental ideas of statistics. First one
asks what one expects and goes from there to derive probabilities.
PERSONAL RESPONSES
3. THOMAS VALONE
Thomas Valone has sent me a message regarding section 8.1 about
the US Patent Office in the status report.
He does not dispute most of the section, but complains that when I wrote
about the Conference On Future Energy, COFE, that he organised, I had said
that there was a talk on anti-gravity and there was no such subject.
He is correct - what I should have said, was that there was a talk where
it was "concluded that space travel faster than light may be possible
because experiments show that the force of gravity itself propagates
orders of magnitude faster than light". Later "gravitational heat energy"
is discussed as a "free energy source". I apologize for writing anti-gravity
but must consider that the talk on gravity described here is completely flawed.
The overall point that I was trying to make, is that it is an excellent
objective to have a conference on new energy sources, but it should not be
discredited by having such doubtful papers presented.
Thus as I wrote, COFE "had some serious talks about wind energy etc.".
Mr. Valone also wrote that there were many good talks. In my brief note,
I clearly had no space to list his conference in detail, only to convey that
the serious talks were given in bad company. A complete account of the
conference can be found at; http://www.alterenergy.org/News/COFE.html
Dr. Vallone kindly offered to send me a copy of the proceedings - I am
pleased to accept his offer. I will send him a review "World Energy and
Climate in the Next Century" which has been copied and distributed to
working groups of The Royal Society, Pugwash, and the World Federation
of Scientists, and also translated into Arabic and published by OAPEC.
Also am sending an extension "Energy in Europe; Comparison with
Other Regions" which was presented at the Millennium Clean Energy Congress
which was sponsored by an incredible number of UN, governmental, and
Non-governmental organisations (Vice-President Gore was supposed to attend
but this was at the time of the New Hampshire primaries).
The Alternative Energy Institute (like COFE) should make a decision;
do they wish to be considered as a serious organisation or to be considered
as a home for fringe activities propagating discredited ideas and which
also has some serious people?
4. ED STORMS
I would like to thank Ed for the serious tone of his letter - so different
from some other communications. On the other hand, was surprised by some
of his phrases which seemed out of character, such as "you distort the facts
and give a completely false impression", "you completely ignored", "you should
at least represent the controvery honestly". Well, I will try and respond
to his points paragraph by paragraph;
Para. 1 and 2 - no comment - expressions of opinion.
P3. You asked where is the "Overwhelming evidence" against cold fusion? For
this see the paper "Review of Cold Fusion" which I presented at the ICCF-3
conference in Nagoya - strangely enough it seems not to have been published
in the proceedings despite being an invited paper - will send a copy if
desired. As Dieter Britz has shown, most cold fusion papers were published
before 1993 and are therefore in my summary. There it is shown that for
every subject (excess heat, neutrons, tritium, 4He, 3He, Gammas, protons)
there are more null papers than positive papers. Further, and which is
very damning, the quality papers almost all show null effects. The fact
that cold fusion is in contradiction with a vast body of research, is
expressed by saying that from this research work, theories have been
developed which are in agreement with the experimental results. Thus when
it is written that cold fusion is in disagreement with theory, this basically
means that it is in disagrement with the overwhelming experimental evidence
on which the theory is justified.
P4. Sorry for my mistake in misquoting you. I appreciate you making the
point that theories should take into account metals other than palladium.
P5. Harwell - "subsequent work revealed the presence of overlooked excess
energy". This is a completely misleading statement.
What I wrote was "Harwell did 127 varities of experiment, and searched
for excess heat, neutrons, gammas and tritons, but did not find any
significant signal in any of them". Please note the phrase "significant
signal".
Remember what happened; Before the press conference of 23 March 1989,
Fleischmann talked to his friend David Williams, an electrochemist, and told
him of a simple experiment that would verify his Utah work. Harwell
assembled a multi-disciplinary team which spent half a million pounds on
this "simple experiment". They tried to repeat Fleischamnn and Pons work
and could not get the same results - despite having Fleischmann's help!
Also there is the problem of analysing these different results. For example,
should they use Newton's Law of Cooling as Fleischmann and Pons did at that
time with a T to the power one term, or should they guess that they should
switch, as F&P did later, to using Stefan's Law with a T to the power
four term? Strangely enough, this did not seem to worry Fleischmann and Pons!
I wrote "When they used the best technology, they found no excess heat".
Now "best technology" is not the Fleischamnn and Pons technique. Hope you agree
that when they used best technology (the null method), they found no excess
heat? Would it be fair to ask you why did you "completely ignore", in your
phrase, the best technology results of Harwell?
Now some desperate people looked at the data using not the best technology,
and claimed that they had found excess heat - which David Williams et al. deny -
they say that there were minor statistical fluctuations but when all the
results were combined, there was no significant signal. And what I wrote on
page 16 was "did not find any significant signal".
I am sorry that you have adopted the position of certain people who
search for the slightest fluctuation and claim that this particular run
showed excess heat while neglecting all the other runs which show that
there is no significant signal. Further, and what is worse, they neglect the
very careful work done with one of the world's best calorimeters where
they have three temperature controlled water baths round the object
being studied - this is a super-Wheatstone bridge technique. The major
point is, that it is much better to do a good experiment to show that
outside (room) temperature effects are not important by eliminating them,
rather than doing a poor experiment where one has to do doubtful calculations
to try to prove that heat exchange with the environment is not important or
is adequately corrected for..
The Harwell series of experiments were magnificent and it is pretty
mean to look for a fluctuation and to try and ignore the totality of their
results on neutrons, tritium. gammas and tritons, apart form excess heat
with what was probably the world's best calorimeter.
P5A. Similar comment about the NHE lab experiments in Japan. But here we can
make a more precise statement - which in fact is in my report but I see
it needs expanding to make it clear to all.
I wrote two paragraphs about Miles's visit to NHE lab. He and
Fleischmann claimed to find exceptional excess heat peaks. But they were all
very small (much smaller than the Fleischmann and Pons claims incidentally).
This was answered by the NHE people at ICCF-7 when they said that there were
fluctuations but these fluctuations were always within a few stndard deviations
and therefore did not represent significant signals of excess heat. In my report,
I quoted that Miles claimed errors of +/- 20 mW while NHE people said the
errors were ten times bigger, +/- 200 mW. Now the General Electric group
who did a thorough analysis of the Fleischmann and Pons work, concluded that
F&P's calculated errors were far too small (the reponse of F&P did not answer
the points made by the GE group of Wilson et al.).
However this question may be settled another way. It is universally agreed
that the excess heat claimed is not reproducible - even by True Believers.
Then for a True Believer, the result of a series of runs should be a
combination of two sets of results - firstly, a Gaussian distribution of
random fluctuations with a certain standard deviation, and secondly, some
runs where excess heat occurs and this would have a different distribution
with a significantly higher average value. So, combining these two sets of runs,
one would expect a messy distribution of excess heat values. But the actual
results found as I wrote, "the distribution of fluctuations gave a perfect
Gaussian distribution with three standard deviation limits of +/- 2.3%
with no indication of excess heat occurring spasmodically".
I hope this is clearer to all now.
P6. I am sorry that in one place I missed out Russia as an important
collaborator. However, I did mention them extensively elsewhere and indeed
Appendix 3 is devoted to them.
Incidentally, I had lunch today with the Director of a major Russian
Laboratory who is an excellent physicist, and he was very surprised to hear
that someone in his lab was publically involved in cold fusion.
6A. Do not understand the comment about India - I was only talking about
countries where experiments were being done now. I was not making a list
of countries which have stopped such as Spain which could not find neutrons
after I visited the group.
P7. I do not think that the balance of publications on the reliablity
of the Fleischmann and Pons methods, is in favour of them. As I wrote
above, the most complete and serious analysis was that done by the General
Electric group and I would strongly recommend everyone to return and study
their paper carefully.
P8. You say the "more modern methods of data collection which are as
accurate and certainly more convenient than this " null method. Well. I am
an experimentalist. If there is any doubt, then "you should try and prove
yourself wrong" and use both methods. I do not admire the lazy way of saying
this is "more convenient" and then do some unclear calculations to support this
point of view. This is not the way of good scientists - they do the work.
P9. Answer as above. "The Jones work has been completely discredited" - could
you please send me a publication where Fleischmann and Pons repeated the very
simple and inexpensive Jones(actually Lee Hansen) experiments?
Experimentalist do experiments.
Also could you send me any publication which "discredits" the Provo results?
P9a. On the 31 March 1989, to which I refer, Fleischmann did not say that
he had done a control experiment with light water - he said that the 8 mm
rod that gave no effect, was their control! This I checked by looking at the
video tape of Fleischmann's talk.
P10. Sorry if I was confusing. Your conclusion is that "the theory that you
and others use to discredit cold fusion is not so perfect after all". Well,
I was being polite. There are two possiblities - either the hundreds of
experiments that have been made previously are wrong, or the new and
very difficult experiments of Dr. Kasagi is wrong. Which do you choose?
You may remember my polite conclusion; "These values are very high and
merit checks". Too bad that you force me to reverse my politeness.
Further, I discussed the possible effect of secondary interactions,
which you seem to have missed.
P11. This is interesting. I had been told that Champion came to Bockris and
asked to be his grad student but Bockris was not interested, until he was told
that $200,000 would be given to his funds for research. Now you say this is
"completely false". Your story is that "Champion hired Prof. Bockris". Well,
that does not sound good. One would expect a Distinguished Professor like
Bockris would check out anyone who wanted to hire him? and find out the source
of the money and if Champion had a criminal record? The claims that you
talk about - are they the conversion of mercury to gold? If so would a
Distinguished Professor not have some doubts? How would you react to such
an offer?
P12. My mistake if only one of Arata and Case used activated carbon.
I will correct this and other mistakes.
P13. Thank you for your best wishes for more accurate work. I will try and do
so. May I humbly suggest on my part, that you consider the possiblity that
99.9% of scientists are correct in their opinion of cold fusion and try to
re-evluate all the experiments that you like and also those that you do not
like, with the thought that maybe cold fusion does not and cannot exist? (more
accurately, could only exist with a very low probability of 10^-40.
Also could you please do experiments and not make calculations ( no doubt
using a non-linear regression analysis with Kalman filtering) to disprove
things such as recombination in the Hansen manner.
When a group of excellent scientists thought that Steve Jones was the
only recuperable cold fusion experimentalist, they took him aside and
asked him to segment his counters and see if he got the expected result.
He did segment them and realised that all his claims of neutron bursts were
false. Then he awoke and realised that cold fusion was crazy - but then
he asked, how come these other guys are getting results that are obviously
wrong? So with Lee Hansen, he did some trivial experiments which any
self-respecting experimentalist would have done ages ago, and showed how you
can get false results of excess heat.
So Ed, is there any change you can make to your experiments which is the
equivalent of segmenting Jones's counters? For example, using a null
method as Harwell did, or as Tom Droege did on a smaller scale?
Maybe the committee was underestimating and you are also recuperable?
Please think about it and do simple experiments to try and prove yourself
wrong such as blowing nitrogen gas between the electrodes every time
you think that you have excess hea.
(C) Douglas R.O. Morrison.
Stephen Lajoie
<Douglas....@cern.ch> wrote:
> 16 JULY 2000.
> REPLIES TO MAIL ABOUT THE STATUS REPORT ON COLD FUSION
>
> Douglas R.O. Morrison
>
>INTRODUCTION
> If one writes a 28 page review of a subject, it is natural that
>there should be some errors that should be corrected. I would like to thank
>those who wrote to me with the intention of being helpful. However certain
>other comments received seemed less helpful, and this hate mail will be ignored.
>
>GENERAL COMMENTS
>
>1.NOT ENOUGH EXPERIMENTAL DETAIL
> Sorry, but I had assumed that the five Concluding Speakers' accounts would
>cover this - after all, it was their job to select and give the highlights.
The expectation was that you would read the subject that you are offering
you professional comments on. It is not acceptable to just listen to the
speakers summaries without any effort to find out the details, and then
criticize the speakers for lack of depth!
>2. BIAS
> A response to this was posted yesterday in Sci.Physics.fusion.
> Everyone has some past experiences which colours their approach.
>Here the Baysian ideas of bias are used and it is assumed that the reader
>has some notions of the deep fundamental ideas of statistics. First one
>asks what one expects and goes from there to derive probabilities.
Your response was unsatisfactory because you changed the meaning of the
word "bias" to a statistical bias and then referred to a survey of the
literature.
The meaning of the word bias in this context is that you hold a
predisposition to one of the possible outcomes, and that your work only
presents anti-cold fusion results. To not be bias, you would have to
present the evidence from both sides.
>PERSONAL RESPONSES
[snip]
> The overall point that I was trying to make, is that it is an excellent
>objective to have a conference on new energy sources, but it should not be
>discredited by having such doubtful papers presented.
The idea of "University" is that you are exposed to a variety of ideas nd
theories, and learn to sort out for yourself what is right and what is
wrong.
The existence of "doubtful" papers in no way "discredits" any other
unrelated paper.
> The Alternative Energy Institute (like COFE) should make a decision;
>do they wish to be considered as a serious organisation or to be considered
>as a home for fringe activities propagating discredited ideas and which
>also has some serious people?
So, you seem to be saying a "serious" organization is one where the
people who re exposed to it need to be told what is acceptable science,
and "home for fringe activities" organizations are composed of people
who are intelligent enough to determine what is good and bad science on
their own.
An interesting distinction. Please explain why I should not regard the
serious organization in great disdain, since they are composed of people
who require the equivalent of scientific training wheels; while the home
for the fringe isn't.
>4. ED STORMS
> I would like to thank Ed for the serious tone of his letter - so different
>from some other communications. On the other hand, was surprised by some
>of his phrases which seemed out of character, such as "you distort the facts
>and give a completely false impression", "you completely ignored", "you should
>at least represent the controvery honestly". Well, I will try and respond
>to his points paragraph by paragraph;
>
>Para. 1 and 2 - no comment - expressions of opinion.
>
>P3. You asked where is the "Overwhelming evidence" against cold fusion? For
>this see the paper "Review of Cold Fusion" which I presented at the ICCF-3
>conference in Nagoya - strangely enough it seems not to have been published
>in the proceedings despite being an invited paper - will send a copy if
>desired. As Dieter Britz has shown, most cold fusion papers were published
>before 1993 and are therefore in my summary. There it is shown that for
>every subject (excess heat, neutrons, tritium, 4He, 3He, Gammas, protons)
>there are more null papers than positive papers. Further, and which is
>very damning,
1) It appears that you honestly are unaware of the work done since 1993.
2) It has been found that the condition of the Pd has a great deal to do
with the null results. If the null results are obtained because the
condition of the wire was not controlled, it is not "damning" at all.
Again, you cannot do science by doing simple counts of papers and their
results. You have to actually study them.
> the quality papers almost all show null effects.
Is it that quality papers are defined as the ones that meet your
expectations?
>The fact
>that cold fusion is in contradiction with a vast body of research, is
>expressed by saying that from this research work, theories have been
>developed which are in agreement with the experimental results. Thus when
>it is written that cold fusion is in disagreement with theory, this basically
>means that it is in disagrement with the overwhelming experimental evidence
>on which the theory is justified.
Yes. We've seen the "theory trumps experiment" argument before.
What we know about fusion is what we know about hot fusion. We are now
talking about a completely different set of conditions, and the error you
are making is called "extrapolation". Examples of invalid extrapolation
include applying classical physics to relativistic and quantum realms.
Here you attempt to apply hot theory to cold fusion conditions.
Good science dictates that you not only don't expect that "theory trumps
experiment", but that you hold no preconceptions as to what the physics is
under such wildly different conditions.
[snip stuff about scientific opinion polls, misconceptions about
"significant" results, and the like]
Jed Rothwell
From: Edmund Storms <sto...@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Debate
Dear Douglas,
I would like to suggest an approach which might help clarify our
different opinions about cold fusion. Your review of ICCF-8 and my
comments about your review, I suggest, would make a good starting
point for a debate between us about the subject. If you agree, this
exchange could be published on the internet as part of Vortex-l and/or
sci.physics.fusion. In addition, this will give other people a chance
to raise issues we might have missed. To start the ball rolling, I
have extracted the comments you made about my comments from your
longer reply, to which I will reply. If you think this is a
worthwhile project, I would invite you to respond in kind.
Best regards,
Ed Storms
I would like to thank Ed for the serious tone of his letter - so
different from some other communications. On the other hand, was
surprised by some of his phrases which seemed out of character, such
as "you distort the facts and give a completely false impression",
"you completely ignored", "you should at least represent the
controversy honestly". Well, I will try and respond to his points
paragraph by paragraph;
**I will avoid such comments in the future because I realize you do
not believe you are distorting facts, any more than I believe I'm
doing such a thing. I will simply state the facts and allow the
readers to come to their own conclusions.**
Para. 1 and 2 - no comment - expressions of opinion.
P3. You asked where is the "Overwhelming evidence" against cold
fusion? For this see the paper "Review of Cold Fusion" which I
presented at the ICCF-3 conference in Nagoya - strangely enough it
seems not to have been published in the proceedings despite being an
invited paper - will send a copy if desired. As Dieter Britz has
shown, most cold fusion papers were published before 1993 and are
therefore in my summary. There it is shown that for every subject
(excess heat, neutrons, tritium, 4He, 3He, Gammas, protons) there are
more null papers than positive papers. Further, and which is very
damning, the quality papers almost all show null effects. The fact
that cold fusion is in contradiction with a vast body of research, is
expressed by saying that from this research work, theories have been
developed which are in agreement with the experimental results. Thus
when it is written that cold fusion is in disagreement with theory,
this basically means that it is in disagreement with the overwhelming
experimental evidence on which the theory is justified.
**While it is true, many papers as well as much unpublished work show
null effects, this does not provide "overwhelming evidence" as you
claim. Early in the field's history, much was not understood about
conditions needed to make the effect work. Also, most of the work was
based on the original method proposed by P-F, a method which has been
found to resist reproduction. As understanding developed, methods
using finely divided palladium in ambient D2 gas, gas discharge
techniques, and proton conductors have been more easily duplicated.
In addition, in spite of the known difficulties inherent in the P-F
method, positive results continue to be reported.
The second point you raise goes to quality of work. This issue is
very subjective and is difficult to quantify in a short answer. I
admit, much early work was either poorly done or showed obvious
limitations, not all of which would be fatal. On the other hand, work
at SRI (Stanford Research International) under the direction of Dr.
McKubre employed very high quality calorimetry. This work showed
anomalous energy in 19 samples, they showed the same patterns of
behavior found in other equally good studies, and they revealed some
of the requirements need to make the effect work. Surely, this study
along with ones of the same high quality done in recent times should
have some impact on the issue, and not be ignored in favor of poor
work done in the distant past.
The third point involves theory. Here, the important issue is being
ignored. The present theory of fusion is based on studies using high
energy plasma or high energy ion bombardment. The theory applies very
well to these conditions. However, cold fusion involves low energy and
a solid environment of regularly spaced atoms, i.e. a lattice. To
equate these two conditions is like trying to equate air and a rock.
I realize that some scientists argue that the same type of reactions
should result from, and the same rules should apply to both
environments. However, this assertion is a matter of debate, not an
absolute requirement of nature. As such, it can not be used as a
basis for rejecting cold fusion unless the assertion is proven to be
true. Competent theoreticians on both sides of the issue have made
very good arguments for their respective views. We need to be patient
and wait to see which side prevails.**
P4. Sorry for my mistake in misquoting you. I appreciate you making
the point that theories should take into account metals other than
palladium.
*This is an important point on which I would like to elaborate
further. Because of the field's history, palladium has been given an
extreme amount of attention. Early in the history, skeptics pointed
out that palladium does not have the basic properties required to
produce the effect. The atoms are too far apart, the electron
structure is not sufficiently unique, and the claimed concentration of
deuterium was too low to produce anomalous interaction. We now know
that beta-PdD is not the active material. Instead, another phase
having a very high deuterium content and having unknown electron and
atom structures is the active material. We also know that many other
metals, most of which do not absorb significant deuterium, are claimed
to produce anomalous energy. Clearly, the conditions in which the
anomalous effects occur are not understood and may, when they are
understood, provide the mechanism demanded by skeptics. Again, we
will just have to be patient.**
P5. Harwell - "subsequent work revealed the presence of overlooked
excess energy". This is a completely misleading statement.
What I wrote was "Harwell did 127 varieties of experiment, and
searched for excess heat, neutrons, gammas and tritons, but did not
find any significant signal in any of them". Please note the phrase
"significant signal".
**Point taken. However, even P-F never claimed a significant signal
by your definition.**
Remember what happened; Before the press conference of 23 March
1989, Fleischmann talked to his friend David Williams, an
electrochemist, and told him of a simple experiment that would verify
his Utah work. Harwell assembled a multi-disciplinary team which spent
half a million pounds on this "simple experiment". They tried to
repeat Fleischmann and Pons work and could not get the same results -
despite having Fleischmann's help!
**Of the many mistakes made by P-F, the worst was claiming the method
was "simple" and could be easily reproduced.
As for Fleischmann's help, according to Fleischmann, Williams refused
to accept the help, deciding instead to attempt a completely
independent replication. If this approach had been successful, the
work would have provided a more convincing proof than if Fleischmann
had been involved. Unfortunately, they made some serious mistakes by
ignoring Fleischmann's advice.**
Also there is the problem of analyzing these different results. For
example, should they use Newton's Law of Cooling as Fleischmann and
Pons did at that time with a T to the power one term, or should they
guess that they should switch, as F&P did later, to using Stefan's Law
with a T to the power four term? Strangely enough, this did not seem
to worry Fleischmann and Pons!
**If absolute calorimetry were being used, this issue would have been
important. However, P-F used relative calorimeter based on a heater
calibration and based on a result assumed to be null, measured during
the long wait for anomalous heat. All that is required for their
method to succeed is stability. This is why P-F were not worried.
They would see a null signal for weeks, with periodic calibrations
using the heater to make sure the calorimeter was stable. If they
were lucky, the signal would rise above the null value. Again, the
heater calibration was used to determine whether this increase was
real or not. Use of T to the first power (Newton) or T to the 4th
power (Stefan) would only influence the amount of anomalous heat
claimed, not the existence thereof. Unfortunately, the description
provided by P-F is very difficult to understand. As a result, what
they did in the real world was not properly understood.**
I wrote "When they used the best technology, they found no excess
heat". Now "best technology" is not the Fleischmann and Pons
technique. Hope you agree that when they used best technology (the
null method), they found no excess heat? Would it be fair to ask you
why did you "completely ignore", in your phrase, the best technology
results of Harwell?
**Attributing failure to see anomalous energy only to the method used
is not appropriate in this field because other variables are equally
important. The sample is very important in producing the effect
because potentially active samples are so rare. As I summarized in my
review in Infinite Energy Vol. 6, Issue 31 page10, only a small
fraction of samples from certain batches have been found to be active.
Unless an active sample is transferred from one calorimeter to
another, it is not possible to reach any conclusion about the role of
the calorimeter. **
Now some desperate people looked at the data using not the best
technology, and claimed that they had found excess heat - which David
Williams et al. deny - they say that there were minor statistical
fluctuations but when all the results were combined, there was no
significant signal. And what I wrote on page 16 was "did not find any
significant signal".
I am sorry that you have adopted the position of certain people who
search for the slightest fluctuation and claim that this particular
run showed excess heat while neglecting all the other runs which show
that there is no significant signal. Further, and what is worse, they
neglect the very careful work done with one of the world's best
calorimeters where they have three temperature controlled water baths
round the object being studied - this is a super-Wheatstone bridge
technique. The major point is, that it is much better to do a good
experiment to show that outside (room) temperature effects are not
important by eliminating them, rather than doing a poor experiment
where one has to do doubtful calculations to try to prove that heat
exchange with the environment is not important or is adequately
corrected for..
**On the other hand, McKubre used a water bath stable to +/-0.003 deg
and calorimeters stable to <0.05 watts in which he detected heat up to
2 watts on one occasion and heat significantly above the detection
limit on 19 occasions, yet you ignore this work. As you have
suggested, I have included in my reviews the fact that the effect is
difficult to produce no matter what kind of calorimeter is used, good
or bad. In contrast, I also include in my reviews the fact that many
people have produced the effect and each has seen the same pattern of
behavior, i.e. a relationship to applied current, a relationship to
the D/Pd ratio, and a relationship to the properties of the palladium
used. These patterns can not be produced by chance or error alone.
Why do you not include and evaluate these observations in your
reviews?**
The Harwell series of experiments were magnificent and it is pretty
mean to look for a fluctuation and to try and ignore the totality of
their results on neutrons, tritium. gammas and tritons, apart form
excess heat with what was probably the world's best calorimeter.
**Everyone, believer and skeptic alike, admits that neutron emission
is very rare and at a very low level, much below the detection limit
of Harwell. Tritium is produced only very rarely and under conditions
different from those that produce heat. Apparently, microwhiskers of
metal plated on the cathode surface are required, a bit of information
not known at the time of the Harwell study. Gamma emission is absent
even when helium is being produced, much to the disappointment of
skeptics. On the other hand , tritons and alpha emission have been
detected when the work is done under conditions which permit their
detection. Failure of Harwell to see these other anomalous effects is
not the issue at the present time.**
P5A. Similar comment about the NHE lab experiments in Japan. But here
we can make a more precise statement - which in fact is in my report
but I see it needs expanding to make it clear to all.
I wrote two paragraphs about Miles's visit to NHE lab. He and
Fleischmann claimed to find exceptional excess heat peaks. But they
were all very small (much smaller than the Fleischmann and Pons claims
incidentally). This was answered by the NHE people at ICCF-7 when they
said that there were fluctuations but these fluctuations were always
within a few standard deviations and therefore did not represent
significant signals of excess heat. In my report, I quoted that Miles
claimed errors of +/- 20 mW while NHE people said the errors were ten
times bigger, +/- 200 mW.
**It is easy to say errors are 20 mW or 200 mW, but it is much more
difficult to prove these assertions. Miles went to some trouble in
his paper to justify his claim of 20 mW. The NHE people simply stated
their value as a belief. Yet, you emphasize the 200 mW value. Why?**
Now the General Electric group who did a thorough analysis of the
Fleischmann and Pons work, concluded that F&P's calculated errors were
far too small (the response of F&P did not answer the points made by
the GE group of Wilson et al.).
**The GE group came to the conclusion that the error claimed by P-F
was too small, but it was not large enough to cause them to reject all
of the P-F claims. On the other hand, their failure to reproduce the
effect caused them to reject the P-F claims, not the error analysis.
Hansen also evaluated the P-F work and also came to the conclusion
that the errors were well below the claimed anomalous energy. (See
Storms, Review of the 'Cold Fusion' Effect, J. Sci. Exploration 10
(1996) 185 for more details). Three published and many unpublished
evaluations of the P-F errors have come to the conclusion that errors
in calorimetry did not produce the claimed anomalous results. Perhaps
you might want to examine the literature in this area in more
detail.**
However this question may be settled another way. It is universally
agreed that the excess heat claimed is not reproducible - even by True
Believers. Then for a True Believer, the result of a series of runs
should be a combination of two sets of results - firstly, a Gaussian
distribution of random fluctuations with a certain standard deviation,
and secondly, some runs where excess heat occurs and this would have a
different distribution with a significantly higher average value. So,
combining these two sets of runs, one would expect a messy
distribution of excess heat values. But the actual results found as I
wrote, "the distribution of fluctuations gave a perfect Gaussian
distribution with three standard deviation limits of +/- 2.3% with no
indication of excess heat occurring spasmodically".
I hope this is clearer to all now.
** This approach is valid when a process is being influenced by random
variables, and it is suggested here because skeptics believe the
anomalous effects are caused by random error in the calorimetry.
However, all of the work shows that the effect is not random. It
depends on the nature of the palladium, i.e. it being crack-free, and
on the particular batch used. As Miles published, and other people
have experienced, once a piece of palladium becomes active, it stays
active and can be made to produce anomalous energy at will. Miles
took an active piece which made anomalous energy at China Lake in the
US and showed the same effect at NHE in Japan. A dead piece was dead
at both places while using the same calorimeter. **
P6. I am sorry that in one place I missed out Russia as an important
collaborator. However, I did mention them extensively elsewhere and
indeed Appendix 3 is devoted to them.
Incidentally, I had lunch today with the Director of a major
Russian Laboratory who is an excellent physicist, and he was very
surprised to hear that someone in his lab was publicly involved in
cold fusion.
**I hope you did not blow someone's cover.**
6A. Do not understand the comment about India - I was only talking
about countries where experiments were being done now. I was not
making a list of countries which have stopped such as Spain which
could not find neutrons after I visited the group.
**Point taken.**
P7. I do not think that the balance of publications on the reliability
of the Fleischmann and Pons methods, is in favour of them. As I wrote
above, the most complete and serious analysis was that done by the
General Electric group and I would strongly recommend everyone to
return and study their paper carefully.
** I agree. Also study Hansen, "Report to the Utah State
Fusion/Energy Council on analysis of selected Pons Fleischmann
calorimeter data", Proc of the Second Annual Conference on Cold
Fusion, June 29-July 4, 1991, page 491. ( Available from Infinite
Energy.)**
P8. You say the "more modern methods of data collection which are as
accurate and certainly more convenient than this " null method. Well.
I am an experimentalist. If there is any doubt, then "you should try
and prove yourself wrong" and use both methods. I do not admire the
lazy way of saying this is "more convenient" and then do some unclear
calculations to support this point of view. This is not the way of
good scientists - they do the work.
** Most people in the field do try to prove themselves wrong.
However, one does not have to use methods more appropriate to Faraday
to do this. Modern data acquisition is very reliable and, in most
cases, is made redundant. Each person's approach needs to be examined
rather than insisting that everyone use a particular 'null method'.
In fact, some of the methods have a null method built in because they
compare the potentially active cell to a dead cell, the anomalous
energy being the difference between the output of the two cells. **
P9. Answer as above. "The Jones work has been completely discredited"
- could you please send me a publication where Fleischmann and Pons
repeated the very simple and inexpensive Jones(actually Lee Hansen)
experiments? Experimentalist do experiments.
Also could you send me any publication which "discredits" the Provo
results?
**P-F did not repeat the J-H work because it has no relationship to
their work. P-F measured the amount of deuterium lost from the cell
and compared this to the amount expected from applied current. No
recombination was detected within +/-1%. As I show in my review in
Infinite Energy 6, #31 (2000) 10, the applied current determines the
amount of recombination. J-H used a very low current where
recombination is high, while P-F used a high current where
recombination is low. J-H made fools of themselves by ignoring this
effect and by claiming that all anomalous energy can be explained by
unrecognized recombination, while ignoring those claims for anomalous
energy obtained from sealed cells containing a recombiner - a
situation in which recombination is total.**
P9a. On the 31 March 1989, to which I refer, Fleischmann did not say
that he had done a control experiment with light water - he said that
the 8 mm rod that gave no effect, was their control! This I checked by
looking at the video tape of Fleischmann's talk.
**Fleischmann said many things in the past which were wrong or
incomplete. I'm sure you have done the same thing. The question is,
what does this have to do with the present discussion about the
reality of the claims? P-F published 11 null studies involving Pd-H2O
or Pt-D2O, all of which showed no anomalous energy. Their failure to
do many null studies early in their work, I suggest, has no bearing on
the present situation.**
P10. Sorry if I was confusing. Your conclusion is that "the theory
that you and others use to discredit cold fusion is not so perfect
after all". Well, I was being polite. There are two possibilities -
either the hundreds of experiments that have been made previously are
wrong, or the new and very difficult experiments of Dr. Kasagi is
wrong. Which do you choose?
**No other measurements of the fusion cross section exist at the low
energy being explored by Kasagi. In addition, Kasagi is exploring
this reaction in a lattice, not in a plasma in which most of the
studies you note were made. The choice you suggest simply does not
exist. Even ôconventionalö physicists are interested in the Kasagi
work because it is very straightforward and very conventional in its
approach. You might reasonably object to it having any relationship
to cold fusion, but that is a different approach from the one you have
chosen.**
You may remember my polite conclusion; "These values are very high and
merit checks". Too bad that you force me to reverse my politeness.
Further, I discussed the possible effect of secondary interactions,
which you seem to have missed.
** Your comments are all reasonable challenges to the Kasagi work.
Nevertheless, the results do open some new issues in trying to explain
the CF claims, do you not agree?**
P11. This is interesting. I had been told that Champion came to
Bockris and asked to be his grad student but Bockris was not
interested, until he was told that $200,000 would be given to his
funds for research. Now you say this is "completely false". Your story
is that "Champion hired Prof. Bockris". Well, that does not sound
good. One would expect a Distinguished Professor like Bockris would
check out anyone who wanted to hire him? and find out the source of
the money and if Champion had a criminal record? The claims that you
talk about - are they the conversion of mercury to gold? If so would a
Distinguished Professor not have some doubts? How would you react to
such an offer?
**The money was supplied by Mr Teelander, a rich investor, and the
whole situation was checked out by the University, and approved.
Universities accept grants to do research all the time, especially
when amounts as high as $200,000 are involved. As for my approach,
Champion asked me to do the work at LANL, which I refused because I
did not think there was a snow ball's chance in Hell of getting
approval. Nevertheless, the experiments were interesting and the
claims, although hard to believe, are important. The question is,
does a person reject an idea just because it is hard to believe or
does a person go to a little trouble to check it out, especially for
$200,000? Unfortunately, John Bockris, like the good scientist he is,
checked it out, found positive results, and then paid a dear personal
price for his efforts. But that is the nature of the present system
in science these days - a system you seem to want to defend.**
P12. My mistake if only one of Arata and Case used activated carbon. I
will correct this and other mistakes.
P13. Thank you for your best wishes for more accurate work. I will try
and do so. May I humbly suggest on my part, that you consider the
possibility that 99.9% of scientists are correct in their opinion of
cold fusion and try to re-evluate all the experiments that you like
and also those that you do not like, with the thought that maybe cold
fusion does not and cannot exist?
** Well, Douglas, I have done this over the years each time I write
another review, of which four are now in print. In addition, I have
seen the effect work with my own eyes even though I have tried to
prove my self wrong. I have built over 9 calorimeters of various
designs, I have studied the variables which produce error, and I have
studied palladium to determine its important properties. All of this
work is published in 21 papers, some in peer reviewed journals. At
least to me, the work proves the reality of the claims. Can you say
you have done as much to reach your conclusion?**
(more accurately, could only exist with a very low probability of
10^-40.
Also could you please do experiments and not make calculations ( no
doubt using a non-linear regression analysis with Kalman filtering) to
disprove things such as recombination in the Hansen manner.
**A person can do all the filtering or non-linear regression analysis
a person can stand, but this will have no usefulness if the phenomenon
being analyzed has no relationship to the claims being made. As I
note above, Hansen's studies are completely irrelevant.**
When a group of excellent scientists thought that Steve Jones was
the only recuperable cold fusion experimentalist, they took him aside
and asked him to segment his counters and see if he got the expected
result. He did segment them and realized that all his claims of
neutron bursts were false. Then he awoke and realized that cold fusion
was crazy - but then he asked, how come these other guys are getting
results that are obviously wrong? So with Lee Hansen, he did some
trivial experiments which any self-respecting experimentalist would
have done ages ago, and showed how you can get false results of excess
heat.
** Yes, this is a fair description. Jones knew the effect could not
be true so he set out to discover the mistakes other people were
making. He showed that recombination operates in cells to which a few
mA are applied. Rather than trying to show himself to be wrong by
going to a higher current, he concluded that recombination was
occurring in the P-F cells to which hundreds of mA were being
applied, this was in spite of direct measurements by P-F showing that
recombination was not taking place in their cells. To prove either
Jones or P-F wrong, I studied recombination as a function of applied
current. This work, published in Infinite Energy, shows that Jones is
wrong and P-F are correct. Perhaps you would like to comment on this
work and forget Jones.**
So Ed, is there any change you can make to your experiments which is
the equivalent of segmenting Jones's counters? For example, using a
null method as Harwell did, or as Tom Droege did on a smaller scale?
Maybe the committee was underestimating and you are also
recuperable? Please think about it and do simple experiments to try
and prove yourself wrong such as blowing nitrogen gas between the
electrodes every time you think that you have excess heat.
** The question that naturally comes up when anomalous heat is
observed is, what aspect of the measuring system could have failed.
After all, only a few measurements are involved, i.e. temperature, the
cooling water flow rate, and the applied power. All of these
variables can be checked independently. In my case, I use a sealed
cell containing a recombiner. Therefore, recombination is not an
issue and blowing nitrogen would serve no purpose. On the other hand,
when I obtained anomalous energy using Pt, I tried changing the
current and showed that aspects of the behavior were completely
reproducible. All of this work was published on the internet and was
evaluated by many skeptics. As a result of their comments, I made
additional measurements in an attempt to find the source of the
energy. At this point, the excess energy is very difficult to explain
by operation of conventional processes.**
Kirk Shanahan
{SNIP}
This might have been interesting if it came from a principal instead
of a surrogate.
Kirk Shanahan {{My opinions...noone elses.}}
Jed Rothwell
An absurd comment. Storms does not want to bother learning how to
access to sci.physics.fusion, and he does not know how convert Mac
messages to standard ASCII well, so I reformatted and posted this
message for him. I posted his paper on my web page for the same
reason. You can contact him by e-mail at the address shown in the
message to verify that he wrote this.
Shanahan made this asinine comment because he cannot think of any
other excuse to ignore what Storms says. It is a stunningly stupid,
transparent and contemptible way to evade the issue.
I see no need for Storms to learn how to access this forum. There is
not a single person here with the guts or knowledge to challenge him.
Shanahan will weasel out with this excuse; Morrison will come up with
more the same tired, innumerate horseshit he spews out by rote; Britz
will say it is not peer-reviewed so he can ignore it, and the others
will chime in with the usual snide comments. There are no discussions
here worth reading. In eleven years the "skeptics" have contributed
nothing of value. They know nothing about CF, and few of them have
even bothered to read any of the papers. The ones who have, like
Morrison, have misrepresented everything and made idiotic mistakes
that would give them a failing grades in junior high school level
chemistry or physics. Morrison is such an idiot, he routinely makes
mistakes 5 and 6 orders of magnitude wrong, he never notices, and he
keeps repeating the same damn mistakes year after year! Actually,
"mistakes" is a charitable description. I think these are deliberate
distortions and damn lies, and he is hoping to bamboozle the readers
here with them -- which is easy enough to do. This forum is populated
by the most gullible, suggestible, conformist cult of true believers I
have ever encountered.
- Jed
Barry Kearns
"Jed Rothwell" <JedRo...@infinite-energy.com> wrote in message
news:39746e0...@news.mindspring.com...
[snip]
> On the other hand, work
> at SRI (Stanford Research International) under the direction of Dr.
> McKubre employed very high quality calorimetry. This work showed
> anomalous energy in 19 samples, they showed the same patterns of
> behavior found in other equally good studies, and they revealed some
> of the requirements need to make the effect work.
[snip]
> **On the other hand, McKubre used a water bath stable to +/-0.003 deg
> and calorimeters stable to <0.05 watts in which he detected heat up to
> 2 watts on one occasion and heat significantly above the detection
> limit on 19 occasions, yet you ignore this work.
Would you be so kind as to post a citation of where this work can be reviewed?
Thanks in advance,
--
Barry Kearns
bke...@frii.com
Bob Sullivan
A hissy fit to rank with the best every presented by Rothwell. As with the
others among the best, it was absolutely devoid of intellectual content. I
was beginning to think he had lost his touch. But no, the Master of Blather
can still work himself up for the crowd.
Too bad he didn't actually read Morrison's report. If he had, he would be
trying to draw attention away from it rather than to it. Morrison's
uncontested reports of the concluding talks, in the proponents own words,
cast as much doubt about the Rothwellian CF credibility as Morrison's
reportage does.
Since Patterson has lost his supply of magic beads and Fleischmann can't
find any more magic palladium, I thought the TBs were about to give up the
ghost. It's nice to know that some things remain constant. Give 'em hell
Jed, but be careful, you might hurt yourself.
BTW I'm working on a new CF theory. I can't go into all of the details
here, but it has to do with high personal stress fields, as exhibited by
Jed's rant below, and how those fields might be concentrated by the pointy
heads of the TBs. If a few TB's will do some CF experiments with and
without their usual aluminum foil-lined hats and report the results here, I
will do the correlation calculations myself. Think really hard about Doug
Morrison, and be sure to report your stress levels.
I think I am really on to something here. I have done an exhaustive
literature search and can find nothing to refute this theory. Therefore,
according to THE RULES<tm> of s.p.f, the theory is UNDENIABLY TRUE<tm>. Or
as our friend Mitchell Swartz would put it: Q.E.D.
"Jed Rothwell" <JedRo...@infinite-energy.com> wrote in message
news:3974d42a...@news.mindspring.com...
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: BTW I'm working on a new CF theory. I can't go into all of the details
: here, but it has to do with high personal stress fields, as exhibited by
: Jed's rant below, and how those fields might be concentrated by the pointy
: heads of the TBs. If a few TB's will do some CF experiments with and
: without their usual aluminum foil-lined hats and report the results here, I
: will do the correlation calculations myself. Think really hard about Doug
: Morrison, and be sure to report your stress levels.
:
: I think I am really on to something here. I have done an exhaustive
: literature search and can find nothing to refute this theory. Therefore,
: according to THE RULES<tm> of s.p.f, the theory is UNDENIABLY TRUE<tm>. Or
: as our friend Mitchell Swartz would put it: Q.E.D.
Your theory is not as new as you think. There is a considerable literature
in the field of ESP about the possibility that results of ESP tests are
or can be influenced by the experimenter's own desire for positive (or
negative, in the case of some "Animal Psi" experiments) results. Certainly,
it is well known that the presence of skeptics can damp ESP activities.
I find it a rather interesting coincidence that the same laboratory
(SRI) managed to produce some of the most spectacular results both in ESP
and in CF. It was that observation that led me to the conclusion (which
I believe I have posted here) that CF is in fact a manifestation of the
phenomenon known as telekinesis. Surely if a psychic can cause dice to
come up "6" more often than chance would allow, he can cause D atoms on
the hot tail of the M-B distribution to collide more often than
chance would allow. This theory also explains why the presence of
skeptics makes CF shut down, and why the field is plagued with
reproducibility problems -- as with other examples of telekinesis, it is
not a 100% thing but only an enhancement of the probability of a particular
event, and thus will only show up as an alteration of statistical
probabilities and will not work all of the time.
Also note that a certain True Believer never fails to hit the ceiling
every time I mention the similarities between ESP and CF. That's because
he knows that he cannot disprove my hypothesis.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry tel: 972-3-531-8065
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel fax: 972-3-535-1250
-----
". . .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>
Jed Rothwell
>> **On the other hand, McKubre used a water bath stable to +/-0.003 deg
>> and calorimeters stable to <0.05 watts in which he detected heat up to
>> 2 watts on one occasion and heat significantly above the detection
>> limit on 19 occasions, yet you ignore this work.
>
>Would you be so kind as to post a citation of where this work can be reviewed?
[I will respond in place of Dr. Storms.]
McKubre, M.C.H et al, "Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear
Processes in Deuterated Metals," EPRI TR-104195, Project 3170-01,
Final Report, August, 1994.
McKubre, M. C. H., S. Crouch-Baker, R.C. Rocha-Filho, S. 1. Smedley,
F. L. Tanzella, T.O. Passell, and J. Santucci, "Isothermal flow
calorimetric investigations of the D/Pd and H/Pd systems," Journal of
Electroanalytical Chemistry, 368, 1994, pp.55-66.
(For more references and links see
http://www.mv.com/ipusers/zeropoint/IEHTML/ierefs.html)
- Jed
Ian Johnston
: This might have been interesting if it came from a principal instead
: of a surrogate.
I think you are little unfair, here. Sure, it would be nice if the scientists
still in the cold fusion world would do this sort of thing, but they don't.
Jed seems to know as much as anyone about their point of view, and while I
personally think he's a bit too enthusiastic to be objective, that's no
handicap to an exchange as proposed. Quite the contrary.
So if Doug Morrison is willing, I'd say "yes, please go ahead" and ask others
to led Jed and Doug to the talking, so the exchange doesn't become a verbal
free-for-all.
Ian
Jed Rothwell
You misunderstand. I have nothing to say to Morrison, and I will not
take part in any of his sham "debates."
I am merely acting as a secretary for Ed Storms, who does not have
time to deal with converting Mac formatted files or posting them on
Internet. At Storms' request, I posted his message here. He sent a
copy directly to Morrison, and posted one on Vortex-L. Kirk Shanahan
came along and tried to discredit the message because I posted it. I
am not, in any sense, a "surrogate" (substitute) for Storms, just an
assistant.
Storms can be reached at: Sto...@ix.netcom.com
- Jed
Bob Sullivan
(and all CF work for that matter) was called into question, i.e., found to
be (let's be kind and say) "unconvincing" upon later review in 1996. See
http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=620045625&CONTEXT=964056684.1518
075973&hitnum=2 for the EPRI conclusion stated in the the 1996 report.
You will have to ask Jed and the other people who make money from the True
Believers why they persist in offering the McKubre work as evidence. As
late as two or three years ago, McKubre himself reported that he had neither
experiment nor theory to support cold fusion, but he continued to "believe."
People are entitled to their religious beliefs, but such beliefs are no
substitute for science. Watch your pocketbook, and don't drink the
Kool-aid.
"Jed Rothwell" <JedRo...@infinite-energy.com> wrote in message
news:3975df5a...@news.mindspring.com...
> "Barry Kearns" <bke...@frii.com> wrote:
>
>
> >> **On the other hand, McKubre used a water bath stable to +/-0.003 deg
> >> and calorimeters stable to <0.05 watts in which he detected heat up to
> >> 2 watts on one occasion and heat significantly above the detection
> >> limit on 19 occasions, yet you ignore this work.
> >
ChuckSezdotcom
there:
http://www.cfis.org/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000391.html
Best, Chuck B.
Publisher, ChuckSez.com, an online journal
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com
Bob Sullivan
<sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il> wrote in message
news:8l3bhm$pj1$2...@news.huji.ac.il...
> This theory also explains why the presence of
> skeptics makes CF shut down, and why the field is plagued with
> reproducibility problems -- as with other examples of telekinesis, it is
> not a 100% thing but only an enhancement of the probability of a
particular
> event, and thus will only show up as an alteration of statistical
> probabilities and will not work all of the time.
Once the true nature of the cold fusion phenomena becomes widely known,
reproducibility will initially approach 100%. We have identified a suitable
stimulus, Douglas Morrison, to generate the required personal stress field,
and as long as the TB experimentor removes his aluminum foil-lined hat, even
a novice will be able to achieve high levels of reproducibility. However,
success may well spell the end of cold fusion. Once demonstrated, it is
unlikely that the TBs will then be able to generate the required personal
stress levels. Mine is a one-size-fits-all theory. It predicts a flurry of
initial successes followed by subsequent failure. All possible experimental
outcomes are covered, and it will be impossible to disprove the theory. And
we all know, lack of disproof is proof according to THE RULES<tm>.
> Also note that a certain True Believer never fails to hit the ceiling
> every time I mention the similarities between ESP and CF. That's because
> he knows that he cannot disprove my hypothesis.
What worries him most is the fact that an unusually high proportion of the
True Believers also subscribe to your theory.
Kirk Shanahan
>
>Kirk Shanahan <kirk.s...@srs.gov> wrote:
>: Jed Rothwell wrote:
>: {SNIP}
>
>: This might have been interesting if it came from a principal instead
>: of a surrogate.
>
>I think you are little unfair, here. Sure, it would be nice if the scientists
>still in the cold fusion world would do this sort of thing, but they don't.
>Jed seems to know as much as anyone about their point of view, and while I
>personally think he's a bit too enthusiastic to be objective, that's no
>handicap to an exchange as proposed. Quite the contrary.
>
a.) How is it unfair to express a personal desire?
b.) You are unaware of what has preceeded this.
c.) Ed Storms has learned how to use the Vortex mailing list and the
"Alternative Energy Institute" Forum, why is it so unreasonable to think
he could learn to use Usenet?
>So if Doug Morrison is willing, I'd say "yes, please go ahead" and ask others
>to led Jed and Doug to the talking, so the exchange doesn't become a verbal
>free-for-all.
>
>Ian
I personally don't want D. Morrison speaking for me. I read the Storms
response on the Vortex archive and it seemed to me to be an open
invitation, not a request for a one-on-one. If I'm wrong, that's fine,
let's get the point clarified.
---
Kirk L. Shanahan {{My opinions...noone else's}}
Kirk Shanahan
>
>Jed is well aware, but ALWAYS fails to mention, that Mckubre's work for EPRI
>(and all CF work for that matter) was called into question, i.e., found to
>be (let's be kind and say) "unconvincing" upon later review in 1996. See
>http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=620045625&CONTEXT=964056684.1518
>075973&hitnum=2 for the EPRI conclusion stated in the the 1996 report.
>
>You will have to ask Jed and the other people who make money from the True
>Believers why they persist in offering the McKubre work as evidence. As
>late as two or three years ago, McKubre himself reported that he had neither
>experiment nor theory to support cold fusion, but he continued to "believe."
>People are entitled to their religious beliefs, but such beliefs are no
>substitute for science. Watch your pocketbook, and don't drink the
>Kool-aid.
>
Furthermore the 1998 EPRI report on McKubre's follow-on work provides
additional information in support of the interpretation that cold fusion
is not required to explain the P&F effect. The 'debate' suggested by
Storms would be an excellent method to discuss this in a forum where
erroneous thinking would be quickly pointed out, on sides of the issue.
{snip}
Jed Rothwell
>Jed is well aware, but ALWAYS fails to mention, that Mckubre's work for EPRI
>(and all CF work for that matter) was called into question, i.e., found to
>be (let's be kind and say) "unconvincing" upon later review in 1996. See
>http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=620045625&CONTEXT=964056684.1518
>075973&hitnum=2 for the EPRI conclusion stated in the the 1996 report.
The quote referenced at that site did not come from an EPRI
publication. It came from the introduction to the Hoffman book "A
Dialog on Chemically Induced Nuclear Effects," published by the
American Nuclear Society. Here is the official EPRI statement from the
1994 report:
"EPRI PERSPECTIVE This work confirms the claims of Fleischmann, Pons,
and Hawkins of the production of excess heat in deuterium-loaded
palladium cathodes at levels too large for chemical transformation.
However, the phenomena were obtained in only about half the cells.
From the conditions of loading, initiation time, and current density
on the successful observations of excess heat, it is understood why
the phenomena are so difficult to attain. The conditions in the
successful cells were not entirely under experimental control because
the closed cells slowly leach silica and other materials from the
anode and its supports as well as from the cell walls . . .
Unaccounted, and statistically significant heat excesses have been
observed on more than 40 occasions. The excess energies of these
observations are larger than can be accounted for by known chemical or
mechanical energy storage processes. Observations of excess power and
energy are strongly correlated with the measured D/Pd ratio, to the
imposed cathodic current density, and to a third process of unknown
origin, with an extended time constant."
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
>c.) Ed Storms has learned how to use the Vortex mailing list and the
>"Alternative Energy Institute" Forum, why is it so unreasonable to think
>he could learn to use Usenet?
This comment is idiotic. Why do you question my account? If you have
any doubts or questions, please ask Storms directly, at
Sto...@ix.netcom.com
This is a trivial matter. I happen to have fast access to Internet and
I am good at using the PC version of WordPerfect, which is ideal for
coverting and reformatting text, so as a favor to Storms, who is very
busy, I posted his message.
I suggest you put the issue who formatted and posted the messages, and
address the technical issues raised by Storms instead.
- Jed
Ian Johnston
: In article <8l4re4$jt3$1...@news.ox.ac.uk>, engs...@sable.ox.ac.uk says...
:>I think you are little unfair, here. Sure, it would be nice if the scientists
:>still in the cold fusion world would do this sort of thing, but they don't.
:>Jed seems to know as much as anyone about their point of view, and while I
:>personally think he's a bit too enthusiastic to be objective, that's no
:>handicap to an exchange as proposed. Quite the contrary.
: a.) How is it unfair to express a personal desire?
Not at all. Now that I reread more carefully (d'oh!) then yes, having Jed
act merely as secretary for one CF'er isn't too useful.
: b.) You are unaware of what has preceeded this.
Don't bet on it.
:>So if Doug Morrison is willing, I'd say "yes, please go ahead" and ask others
:>to led Jed and Doug to the talking, so the exchange doesn't become a verbal
:>free-for-all.
: I personally don't want D. Morrison speaking for me.
Thant's fine. But I *would* be interested to follow a debate between an
intelligent and literate skeptic and an intelligent and literate believer.
Ian
Bob Sullivan
"Jed Rothwell" <JedRo...@infinite-energy.com> attempted to distract
attention from the truth in message
news:3977054c...@news.mindspring.com...
> "Bob Sullivan" <HM_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Jed is well aware, but ALWAYS fails to mention, that Mckubre's work for
EPRI
> >(and all CF work for that matter) was called into question, i.e., found
to
> >be (let's be kind and say) "unconvincing" upon later review in 1996. See
>
>http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=620045625&CONTEXT=964056684.151
8
> >075973&hitnum=2 for the EPRI conclusion stated in the the 1996 report.
>
> The quote referenced at that site did not come from an EPRI
> publication. It came from the introduction to the Hoffman book "A
> Dialog on Chemically Induced Nuclear Effects," published by the
> American Nuclear Society. Here is the official EPRI statement from the
> 1994 report:
I see that the Rothwellian Time Warp is here again. You remember the RTW?
It's where an earlier statement is somehow construed in a twisted little
mind as refuting a later statement which demonstrates the first to be false.
As has been pointed out *several* other times, the Dreaded Hoffman report
was funded by EPRI. In case you don't know, that is what EPRI does -- fund
R&D. EPRI is not a research organization per se. The Hoffman book is
carried in the EPRI research catalog -- I have given you the EPRI document
number in earlier posts. EPRI thinks the Dreaded Hoffman book is an EPRI
document. Who are you to call them liars?
EPRI funded the Dreaded Hoffman book the same way it funded McKubre's work.
Of course, EPRI's subsequent actions support the Dreaded Hoffman conclusion
and not the earlier McKubre conclusion. EPRI stopped funding cold fusion
log ago. Now, why would they do that? Think real hard, you might be able
to figure it out. It may be related to the actions of P&F, ENECO, and the
University of Utah in abandoning their patent pursuit of P&F-style cold
fusion.
> "EPRI PERSPECTIVE This work confirms the claims of Fleischmann, Pons,
> and Hawkins of the production of excess heat in deuterium-loaded
> palladium cathodes at levels too large for chemical transformation.
[. . .]
What I want to know is how McKubre can claim to have verified P&F cold
fusion when both McKubre and Fleischmann have said more recently that they
have no theory and no experiment to support cold fusion claims. But they do
believe. Yes Brothers and Sisters, they dooooo believe.
Do you remember the Tooth Fairy discussion we has some time ago? I thought
not. We *have* been through this discussion before. The facts have not
changed.
BTW I never have quite understood the exact nature of your (former?)
association with ENECO. Are you a stockholder? A paid shill through your
work on the staff of Hal Fox's Fusion Facts? Or are you just a groupie who
gets his thrills by being around people who claim to know the secrets of the
universe? My guess is all of the above. Correct me if I am wrong.
Jed Rothwell
>As has been pointed out *several* other times, the Dreaded Hoffman report
>was funded by EPRI.
Yes, it was funded by the anti-cold fusion faction within EPRI. That's
what I said in my review of the book. Despite the bias of the author
and Schneider, the book does finally admit that cold fusion produces
excess heat beyond the limits of chemistry and commensurate helium.
Sullivan has probably not read the book, so he is probably not aware
of this. He should read my review.
>EPRI funded the Dreaded Hoffman book the same way it funded McKubre's work.
>Of course, EPRI's subsequent actions support the Dreaded Hoffman conclusion
>and not the earlier McKubre conclusion.
Hoffman concluded that the heat and helium is real, and McKubre is
still in business, so I guess EPRI agrees with both Hoffman and
McKubre.
>EPRI stopped funding cold fusion
>log ago.
Did they?
- Jed
Ian Johnston
: what I said in my review of the book. Despite the bias of the author
: and Schneider, the book does finally admit that cold fusion produces
: excess heat beyond the limits of chemistry and commensurate helium.
Surely nobody doubts that? It's just a pity that none of the researchers
in the field has managed to convince the world that cold fusion, as defined
above, is actually occurring.
Ian
Bob Sullivan
> "Bob Sullivan" <HM_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Was your post from Jed the Layman<tm> or your alternative persona, Jed the
World's Greatest Authority<tm>? If the latter, I remind you that it needs
your obligatory followup pointing out that you are unqualified to render
scientific opinions -- just in case the SEC might be watching. As the
Official ENECO Spokescritter<tm>, you surely don't want to mess up the ENECO
IPO. BTW when can we expect the IPO for ENECO.com? Has the arrangement to
get Ron Popeil to handle the marketing gone through? I agree, that would be
a perfect fit.
> >As has been pointed out *several* other times, the Dreaded Hoffman report
> >was funded by EPRI.
>
> Yes, it was funded by the anti-cold fusion faction within EPRI. That's
> what I said in my review of the book.
Uhh.... I hate disappoint you, Jed, but there is only one EPRI. EPRI
changed its collective mind.
> Despite the bias of the author
> and Schneider, the book does finally admit that cold fusion produces
> excess heat beyond the limits of chemistry and commensurate helium.
> Sullivan has probably not read the book, so he is probably not aware
> of this. He should read my review.
Is that a direct quote from The Dreaded Hoffman Book<tm>? Funny, I can't
find it anywhere. Maybe you are reading the Jed Rothwell "analysis" of the
book. Jed has a tendency to get his facts and his religious beliefs
confused. I don't think the SEC makes allowances for religious beliefs in
reviewing IPOs.
My grandmother used to say, "If wishes were horses, we'd all take a ride."
But, wishes aren't horses and cold fusion ain't science. That's the way it
is.
> >EPRI funded the Dreaded Hoffman book the same way it funded McKubre's
work.
> >Of course, EPRI's subsequent actions support the Dreaded Hoffman
conclusion
> >and not the earlier McKubre conclusion.
>
> Hoffman concluded that the heat and helium is real,
BZZZZT Wrong!
> and McKubre is still in business, so I guess EPRI agrees with both Hoffman
and
> McKubre.
BZZZZT Wrong!
> >EPRI stopped funding cold fusion log ago.
>
> Did they?
Yes. And EPRI stopped funding cold fusion loNg ago, too, along with many
others. At present, the only serious cold fusion funding is going to
Blacklight Power (Eat you heart out, ENECO), and that probably won't last
when PacifiCorp and Conectiv realize that they really don't have money to
burn.
> - Jed
>
Jed Rothwell
> As the
>Official ENECO Spokescritter<tm>, you surely don't want to mess up the ENECO
>IPO.
I have nothing to do with ENECO, and no knowledge of any IPO.
>> Despite the bias of the author
>> and Schneider, the book does finally admit that cold fusion produces
>> excess heat beyond the limits of chemistry and commensurate helium.
>> Sullivan has probably not read the book, so he is probably not aware
>> of this. He should read my review.
>
>
>Is that a direct quote from The Dreaded Hoffman Book<tm>? Funny, I can't
>find it anywhere.
See page 191:
"Rocketdyne reported up to ~10^17 - 10^18 atoms of 4He (adjusted for
total reaction volume) produece at LANL experimentswhich were in good
argreement with measurements of ~10^17 atoms of heliujm from similar
experiments made over a period of three years based on on independent
hleium analysis at the U.S. Bureau of Mines Helium FIeld Laboratory
(Amarillo, TX) and at SRI International (Menlo Park, CA.)"
>> and McKubre is still in business, so I guess EPRI agrees with both Hoffman
>and
>> McKubre.
>
>
>BZZZZT Wrong!
McKubre recently lectured at the American Chemical Society and ICCF-8
with spectactular results achieved in collaboration with several other
labs and universities in the U.S., Canada and Japan. At McMasters
university they measured massive amounts of tritium. McKubre and many
others are still working, and someone is paying a great deal for the
research. I do not know who, and I doubt Bob Sullivan knows either.
- Jed