Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 12:39 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Joshua Cude joshua.c...@gmail.com wrote: The professors tested and calibrated this machine for 6 weeks. They would have discovered that it has a large hidden thermal mass. They did. It takes 30 minutes to bring the temperature up to the level needed to deliver water at 100C. They reportedly had difficulty turning on the excess heat in that run. It would never have risen to 100 deg C without excess heat There could have been some chemical heat. What's your point? My point about the calibrations may be unclear. When you calibrate a system like this, turning on the electric heater only without hydrogen in the nickel, and in various other tests, the presence of a large thermal mass would be revealed. I understood the point. But in the absence of hydrogen, the system would heat up more slowly than it did in test 2, and the rate it heats up there, with 1 kW input already indicates a large thermal mass. The fact that excess heat is claimed, and the gradient is still slow, emphasizes the thermal mass, it doesn't negate it. Whatever. My suspicions do not require any of that. Just some thermal mass inside that giant tin-foil phallus. That's funny! Phallus indeed. As I said, the calibration would reveal that. People experienced in flow calorimetry would see it easily. The warm-up period *does* reveal it. Anyone can see it easily. No one in the experiment ever mentions the system's heat capacity. They certainly don't deny it has a thermal mass, and don't seem to be aware of the relevance of its thermal mass to their measurements. If it didn't have a large thermal mass, the water would jump immediately to at least 70C when 1.2 kW was applied. But it doesn't. It heats up slowly. And it cools off slowly too after shut down. Thermal mass!
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Joshua Cude joshua.c...@gmail.com wrote: Well, it is if an experiment can be easily designed to make such suspicions impossible. As would be the case here, if the claims were true. Seriously, It is nearly impossible to design a demonstration that will eliminate all suspicions, in all people. Some people, such as Robert Park, simply will not believe a claim, no matter how much evidence you present. Even if Park were to attend a first-rate demonstration of the Rossi device, one that addresses all of the issues raised here, he would refuse to believe it. He would make up other objections. I mean it when I say that people can make up unlimited numbers of reasons to dismiss a finding. This is so profoundly wrong I can't believe you keep repeating it. If your predictions for cold fusion were to come to pass, and cars would never need refueling if they contained D-Pd or H-Ni in the magic configuration, and if homes could be powered by a D-Pd generator, and if oil wells and coal mines would shut down, and CO2 levels began to drop, all while our increasing energy needs were easily satisfied by D-Pd or H-Ni, you can't seriously believe that Bob Park and his ilk would continue to be skeptical of this new energy source. Disagreement about mechanism might persist, but not about the energy. Or, you are admitting that it is nearly impossible that such a future will come to pass. And while I chose such an extreme to contradict the absolute statement, far less is required to completely remove skepticism, and it has been repeatedly spelled out. If Rossi came in with a device of roughly the same size and weight, and set it in the center of the conference room with nothing connected to it; no wires, no hydrogen lines, nothing. And it gave off 1 kW of heat continuously for several hours with no change in appearance or mass, he'd have the rapt attention of the room. One kW is a familiar amount of power, being comparable to hair driers, toasters, kettles, and space heaters, so people would know about how much heat to expect. If that device kept throwing heat for a day or a week, and esp. if such a device were given over to skeptics' custody (with appropriate legal and video control on tampering), the skepticism would melt away. But Rossi's device was not even close to this. It had electrical connections providing up to 1.5 kW input, and hydrogen lines, and therefore requiring much more careful measurement of output power. I am quite certain that as long as cold fusion demonstrations depend on the measurement of output power, the world will ignore them. The claim is of an energy source a million times that of chemical sources, and yet chemical sources do not need power measurements to prove they are real. As someone here said, I know combustion of natural gas produces heat because my house is warmer than the outside. And Rossi's measurement of output power is so ambiguous as to be laughable. It can change by a factor of 8 without any change in the reported measurements (flow rate temperature). The only thing that changes over that range of power is the wetness of the steam, a rather more subtle measurement, the raw values of which were not even given, let alone given as a function of time. Finally, the short duration of the demo and the likelihood of less than 1 kW power beyond the electrical input, make it quite unremarkable, which is of course why it has got so little attention. The scientific method demands that an arbitrary limit be placed on objections. It is a matter of opinion how much proof is needed, and how many objections should be met, but you cannot leave the question undecided indefinitely. I don't know where you get your information about the scientific method, but this is quite the opposite of the way I understand science. There is no limit on objections, and questions are never settled. In religion, where faith is a virtue, questions are settled, but in science where faith is a vice, there are only greater and lesser degrees of certainty. Of course, many observations, and even some theories, reach the point of virtual certainty, but to suggest that has been reached by an experiment with restricted access, not independently replicated, and where measurements are clearly ambiguous and controversial is completely at odds with the scientific method. Reasonable objections, such as those raised with the Rossi device, are easily dealt with by independent replication, or at the very least unrestricted access by observers, who could rather quickly, and transparently, determine the liquid content of the steam. Claims of flow-rate, no matter how simple, are checked and rechecked in independent experiments. The sort of query about flow rate would never come up in legitimate scientific settings, because the model of pump would be reported. Even in the demo, the use of a single reservoir without refilling would
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 2:57 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I wrote: The scientific method demands that an arbitrary limit be placed on objections. It is a matter of opinion how much proof is needed, and how many objections should be met, but you cannot leave the question undecided indefinitely. . . . In this case, I think we need to start drawing some limits to some objections. Skeptical arguments must meet the same level of rigor as any other. I think concerns about the flow rate should be dismissed. I don't care about pump specifications someone found on the Internet. The methods Levi et al. used to measure flow are rock solid and it is silly to dispute them. It is silly to leave objections like this in the air, when they are so easy to answer. Just give the model of the pump. Is that so hard? The more they neglect to do that, the more justified the suspicion becomes. But they used less than 20 L of water, and 20 L water containers are commonplace. Wouldn't it have been easy to simply use that, without any refilling, so at the end of the experiment, the total water through the system could be estimated with a simple photo?
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 5:16 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 5:54 PM, Joshua Cude joshua.c...@gmail.com wrote: Gotta run. I'll catch up in 3 or 4 days. Don't take my absence as a concession. Concession to what? We are truthseekers, not competitors. Truth-seekers can disagree, and therefore can also concede. If you are an eternal septic, you will never be convinced. Not true. I have described what it would take to convince me (and so has Jed Rothwell), and if cold fusion could deliver a tiny fraction of what has been promised for 22 years, my criteria would be easily met. Albedo5 (who ran the septic forum on CompuServe) once said If a UFO landed on my front lawn and an alien came in and bit me on the arse, I'm not sure I would believe it. sigh T
[Vo]:Off Topic
Hi Steven, 2-21-11 I appreciate your coverage of what's happening in Wisconsin. If you are interested in the Koch financing of the tea party, see http://www.avonhistory.org/mil3/tea10.htm It seems to me that, in 2010, Archie Bunker voted for the thieves because he hates Obama. Jack Smith OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson wrote: If you're not interested in the on-going struggle pertaining to two diametrically opposing political POVs vying to steer the direction our economy may soon have to contend with I would recommend skipping this Off-Topic post. Actually, IMHO, it's not entirely off-topic. I hope our planet may soon benefit from the fallout of Rossi Focardi duo (and possibly Mills Co.) work, assuming it's not all smoke and mirrors. In the meantime, we must contend with the reality of the situation: :set nonu
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On 02/18/2011 06:56 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: Hi, Putt putt boats draw in water which flashes into steam and is then ejected mostly as fluid. Given that the water was delivered to Rossi's device in pulses, it seems possible that it also ejected water in pulses, at least to some extent, as the leading edge of each pulse flashed into steam. Since the outlet was directed down a drain this might not be noticed. IOW that's the pump may also have been the concurrent sound of a pulse of water being ejected. Sigh Excellent point. We have been told that for most of the demo the hose was sealed into a drain, with the effluent not visible to anyone. Consequently, as you say, the thing could have been spitting a mixture of water and steam for most of the demo without anyone being the wiser. Quite some time back I wrote that it seemed clear the steam was pretty dry, based in large part on the assumption that the end of the hose was visible throughout the run. I was quite wrong; in fact it's not even necessarily true that the steam was actually steam for the whole duration of the run. Too bad the details of the so-called RH measurements weren't published, eh? The published reports on this demo are so far from being anything deserving of the name paper that it's laughable. Really, there was so much wrong with this demonstration, I think it's fair to say that the only apparently solid evidence that this device actually works comes from *other* demonstrations which have been done, for which there are no published reports at all -- in other words, all we've got is HEARSAY. My current guess is that, in the end, this is going to be a PR disaster for cold fusion, particularly since a number of sincere cold fusion advocates seem totally convinced that it's real, and are not shy about telling people so. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
At 01:51 AM 2/21/2011, Horace Heffner wrote: http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/02/21/rothwell-makes-pre-emptive-strike-against-new-lenr-textbook/ http://tinyurl.com/4s3xhjt Right there, in a nutshell, is perfect evidence as to Krivit's effective demise as a reporter on LENR. This leads me, at the end, to specific situations as to how to proceed. But to start: Rothwell wrote a letter based on his impressions. Looks like Jed made a mistake, an assumption, connecting Wiley, the publisher of the encyclopedia, with the proposed textbook. So? People make mistakes all the time, especially when it's based on a verbal announcement. Rothwell is *not* a professional reporter. And for all we know, what Krivit did and said in Chennai might have been susceptible to that explanation. Or not. The Rothwell mail was more of a mild warning that there are experts concerned about Krivit, re the field, than a pre-emptive strike. Rothwell believed that Wiley had already agreed. Krivit then takes his own knowledge and frames Rothwell's action as if Rothwell knew differently, thus pre-emptive, i.e, before the fact. Krivit writes: Rothwell also e-mailed additional lies to one of the Wiley editors and then posted them in the Vortex-l chat room. Thus Rothwell's belief as to what Krivit has announced becomes, not an error, but a lie. This is the comment of someone who has become very highly involved, very personally. What Krivit then presents is then the highly involved, highly reactive view of someone taking things very, very personally. The people who wrote one of the Encyclopedia articles Srinivasan and Storms and others were at the conference, Rothwell wrote. They assumed he would ask them to contribute to the new textbook, as well. So they approached him and asked about his plans. They were disconcerted when he told them to shut up and go away. Literally. Rothwell is presenting a loose summary of an event. Did he witness the event? Is his understanding of what happened based instead on comments made by others? Rothwell is writing about, not just Storms, but others. Specificity is lost in Rothwell's comment, then about the approach. It could have been someone else, for example. Presenting the state of mind of a whole group of people is dicey. I have extensive correspondence with Jed. I've found him to be highly knowledgeable, truthful, I'd be astonished to catch him in an actual lie. However, he's not a skilled objective observer and reporter. Sometimes he presents his personal conclusions and opinions as if they were objective fact. Lots of people do this, but we expect something different from professional reporters, who are trained -- and paid -- to carefully separate their own opinions from what they know to be fact. A reporter might still cherry-pick facts, because reporters still have biases and also find it necessary to present what is important -- they aren't robots, nor should they be -- but they don't present opinion (such as lie) as if it were fact (in this case, a declarative statement of an opinion or conclusion without expressing the source, such as according to Steve Krivit, Rothwell was lying.) And, normally, backing up and regulating professional reporters are editors and publishers, who ensure that work is checked and that the biases of reporters don't overwhelm what is published. What we've linked to is a blog, Krivit's opinion. The concern of LENR experts is that Krivit's opinions have become so strong that they may badly warp his professional work, the reporting. And we can see that, with one clear example. To my mind, the biggest event in cold fusion history this last year -- let's set aside Rossi! -- was the publication of the Storms review in Naturwissenschaften. If Wikipedia were following its own guidelines, this would have radically reformed the Cold fusion article there. As far as I can see, Krivit has not mentioned it. It's not listed in his page showing recent and significant papers. It is as if it did not happen. Why? I think it's obvious. In the abstract for that paper, Storms states, The evidence supports the claim that a nuclear reaction between deuterons to produce helium can occur in special materials without application of high energy. The title of the paper is Status of Cold-Fusion (2010) Cold fusion has come out of the closet. http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEstatusofcoa.pdf (I believe I suggested different language for that abstract, but whether or not I did, it would have been more accurate or more neutral to state something like the claim that an unknown nuclear reaction is fusing deuterium to helium, occurring in special materials Using the term deuterons implies bare deuterons, thus leading some readers into the old error of assuming d-d fusion, which makes the theoretical problem far more difficult. It might be deuterons and it might even be some
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
Joshua Cude joshua.c...@gmail.com wrote: It is silly to leave objections like this in the air, when they are so easy to answer. Just give the model of the pump. Is that so hard? The more they neglect to do that, the more justified the suspicion becomes. No, it isn't hard, but they are not neglecting the issue. They are unaware of the fact that you and others suspect that the pump may be a problem. No one has communicated this to them, as far as I know. They have no reason to tell you the exact pump model. Let me explain. There can be no rational question that these people can read a weight scale, and use a graduated cylinder. There are no rational reasons to doubt the flow rate. The reasons you come up with are mere excuses. You are moving the goalposts to evade the issue. Even if someone were to give you the model number, you would demand proof they are not lying or that it really was the model. Since you do not trust they can read a weight scale, why should you trust they will give you the right model number? You demand they use a bigger reservoir, enough to last 1 hour. Suppose they do? You will then demand a 2-hour reservoir. Then you will demand proof that there is not a block of glass or something in the reservoir taking up space, making the capacity look bigger than it is. Then you will demand something else, and something else after that. Skeptics can play this game indefinitely, moving the goalposts down the field, outside the stadium, and into the next county. If you abandon reasonable, scientific standards and declare that people cannot be depended upon to read a weight scale, that is tantamount to saying you not trust these people. You think they not even minimally competent to do a grade-school level task. Or you think they are dishonest. Nothing they can do or say will convince you of anything. In that case, you are not serious, and they are justified in ignoring your demands. So am I, and that is what I intend to do. - Jed
[Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
Subject was Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device At 04:12 AM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote: Not true. I have described what it would take to convince me (and so has Jed Rothwell), and if cold fusion could deliver a tiny fraction of what has been promised for 22 years, my criteria would be easily met. This discussion has been about the Rossi work, which is based on a secret process, and which is inadequately confirmed, there has merely been a somewhat convincing demonstration that *something* is going on in that thing. This is nothing like the accumulated evidence for cold fusion, based on open and documented and reproducible experimental techniques, widely confirmed. I'm not interested in Rossi's work for the moment. Obviously, if *Rossi's promises* are fulfilled, all bets are off. Rossi, by the way, is also working on unknown nuclear reaction, he'd merely be succeeding, if he does, in demonstrating a far more vigorous reaction than any prior reports. So I'm going to ask, as to cold fusion in general, what has been promised and what do promises have to do with science? And... convinced of what?
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:12 AM, Stephen A. Lawrence sa...@pobox.comwrote: On 02/18/2011 06:56 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: Hi, Putt putt boats draw in water which flashes into steam and is then ejected mostly as fluid. Given that the water was delivered to Rossi's device in pulses, it seems possible that it also ejected water in pulses, at least to some extent, as the leading edge of each pulse flashed into steam. Since the outlet was directed down a drain this might not be noticed. IOW that's the pump may also have been the concurrent sound of a pulse of water being ejected. Sigh Excellent point. We have been told that for most of the demo the hose was sealed into a drain, with the effluent not visible to anyone. Consequently, as you say, the thing could have been spitting a mixture of water and steam for most of the demo without anyone being the wiser. Quite some time back I wrote that it seemed clear the steam was pretty dry, based in large part on the assumption that the end of the hose was visible throughout the run. I was quite wrong; in fact it's not even necessarily true that the steam was actually steam for the whole duration of the run. One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by mass to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by volume. And since the steam is created in the horizontal portion, it is forced up 50 cm of pipe through liquid, which would presumably turn the liquid into a fine mist after a few minutes. Too bad the details of the so-called RH measurements weren't published, eh? The published reports on this demo are so far from being anything deserving of the name paper that it's laughable. Really, there was so much wrong with this demonstration, I think it's fair to say that the only apparently solid evidence that this device actually works comes from *other* demonstrations which have been done, for which there are no published reports at all -- in other words, all we've got is HEARSAY. My current guess is that, in the end, this is going to be a PR disaster for cold fusion, particularly since a number of sincere cold fusion advocates seem totally convinced that it's real, and are not shy about telling people so. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
Ah. It seems Wiley has not agreed to publish this textbook. That is relief! I tried to ask Krivit about this textbook, but as I said, he refused to talk to me. He acted as if I was not there. When I tapped him on the shoulder he walked away. An extraordinary thing to do! If he had paused for a moment to answer a few of my questions this entire misunderstanding could have been avoided. I was planning to ask who was going to write the chapters and I probably would have asked about Wiley again. At very least, I would have written to him first, rather than Wiley. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On 02/21/2011 09:41 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Joshua Cude joshua.c...@gmail.com mailto:joshua.c...@gmail.com wrote: It is silly to leave objections like this in the air, when they are so easy to answer. Just give the model of the pump. Is that so hard? The more they neglect to do that, the more justified the suspicion becomes. No, it isn't hard, but they are not neglecting the issue. They are unaware of the fact that you and others suspect that the pump may be a problem. No one has communicated this to them, as far as I know. They have no reason to tell you the exact pump model. I disagree, Jed. If anything resembling a paper had actually been produced for this experiment, it would have included a description of the equipment used in testing, along with make and model. That's just standard procedure, at least in scientific papers I've seen. And, included in the description, there would have been a statement of the pump model number, along with the relative humidity probe model number used. That's *normal*, and since it wasn't given, asking about it is normal, too. Refusing to answer the question, and accusing the asker of being a hysterical skeptic because they asked the question, is *not* normal. If there had been any kind of real paper on this, it would also have included data for the output of the RH probe, along with an explanation of how that data was used to determine that the steam was dry. But there wasn't, and all we've got is handwaving and a lot of speculation. There would have been some statement as to how the observers knew the hose was dumping only steam into the drain, rather than a mix of steam and hot water, once the end of the hose had been sealed out of view. But there wasn't; instead, all we've got is speculation about whistling noises and gurgles from the pump. There would have been a graph of temperature versus time which actually had axis labels, and if there were screen shots, they would have been readable. We don't have any of this. We just have Levi's report, which is almost worthless, and we have hearsay to the effect that in some OTHER experimental runs, for which we don't even have the level of reporting we had here, much more impressive things were done. I'm sorry, this doesn't cut it, and accusing someone who remains unconvinced by this demo of being a pathological skeptic is totally unjustified. The demo might have been a dog and pony show to impress somebody, somewhere, who has some money to spend and not much sense. It certainly wasn't anything approaching a scientific demonstration of proof that Rossi's process works.
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC (mostly): Ground Zero: Madison, Wisconsin, USA's Cairo continues
On 02/21/2011 02:48 AM, Horace Heffner wrote: Carl Marx's dire prediction of the inevitability of a worker's revolution failed to come true in the USA because he didn't anticipate the remedial role of labor unions. Thanks, Horace! I've never run across that insight before -- it's, like, an AHA moment!
RE: [Vo]:Off Topic
From Jack Smith: I appreciate your coverage of what's happening in Wisconsin. If you are interested in the Koch financing of the tea party, see http://www.avonhistory.org/mil3/tea10.htm It seems to me that, in 2010, Archie Bunker voted for the thieves because he hates Obama. Thank you Jack. The influence of Koch Industries has been getting lots of play here in Madison Wisconsin. Thanks for performing a reminder. Here's Mother Jones take: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/wisconsin-scott-walker-koch-brothers I just sent the following letter to my Governor: * To Governor Scott Walker: My name is Steven Johnson and I live at [REDACTED], Madison, Wisconsin. I have been a Wisconsin public employee for more than 30 years. I have worked at Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR), UW Division of Information Technology (DoIT), UW Space Astronomy Lab (SAL), and I am currently employed at Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT). I have been a union member since the mid 1980s. As I begin to approach retirement, and as I reflect back on the employment choices I made I must admit the fact that it never bothered me that with my professional training and educational background in related data processing fields I could have made more money working out in the private sector. I came to Madison in 1967 at the age of 14 and I never wanted to leave this beautiful city surrounded by its lakes and University environment. Working for the state of Wisconsin was where I wanted to be. Last Friday, Wisconsin's state and local public employees offered to accept all of the economic concessions called for in your budget repair bill. This includes pension and health care concessions. You have claimed that these concessions are needed in order to resolve Wisconsin's current budget crisis. While it is both unfair and inaccurate to constantly vilify the work of unions as of being the cause of Wisconsin's current economic crisis, the fact that the unions are nevertheless willing to abide by these concessions was the right thing to do. All that the unions asked in return was to keep the right to bargain collectively intact. It is my understanding that you turned the offer down. Let me repeat: A solution to Wisconsin's current economic crisis was offered up by the unions and placed in your hands, and yet you turned it down. It is becoming clear to me, and I think to countless others who have bared witness to your refusal to even consider the union's offer, that your primary objective was never about balancing the budget. I am astonished to discover that resolving our state's budget has actually taken a secondary seat to what I assume you must sincerely believe is a greater calling, that of destroying the collective bargaining rights of the Wisconsin's unions - and to achieve that objective by whatever means and at whatever cost it might take. I can only assume that you must believe that after this Greater Calling has been satisfied will you then focus your energies on fixing Wisconsin's financial crisis. Is this true, Governor Walker? Governor Walker, I urge you to reconsider the union's generous offer, an offer that would resolve the current financial crisis. No one wants the current impasse to drag on. It makes no sense particularly when a practical solution that accepts the main principals of your financial concessions has been accepted by the very enemy you seem to believe needs to be vilified and crucified by you and the constituents who originally voted you into office. The Union is not the enemy. Nor are we who support our unions. Executing the final solution towards the Union will not solve Wisconsin's ailing economy. The solution is to help cure Wisconsin's ailing economy, and the unions and its members are willing to do their part, just like everyone else. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson Wisconsin Department of Transportation * I must now go back to the front lines. Have fun storming the State Capital! ...and yes, it probably will take a miracle. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:49 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: Subject was Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device At 04:12 AM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote: Not true. I have described what it would take to convince me (and so has Jed Rothwell), and if cold fusion could deliver a tiny fraction of what has been promised for 22 years, my criteria would be easily met. This discussion has been about the Rossi work, which is based on a secret process, and which is inadequately confirmed, there has merely been a somewhat convincing demonstration that *something* is going on in that thing. This is nothing like the accumulated evidence for cold fusion, based on open and documented and reproducible experimental techniques, widely confirmed. I'm not interested in Rossi's work for the moment. Obviously, if *Rossi's promises* are fulfilled, all bets are off. Rossi, by the way, is also working on unknown nuclear reaction, he'd merely be succeeding, if he does, in demonstrating a far more vigorous reaction than any prior reports. So I'm going to ask, as to cold fusion in general, what has been promised and what do promises have to do with science? A new energy source has been promised. And... convinced of what? Convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat.
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
This was all a tempest in a teapot! Good thing. I sent a message to the Wiley editor, pointing to Krivit's article, and apologizing for the misunderstanding. Regarding Abd's comments, several potential authors told me that Krivit pulled this stunt of pretending you are not there. I mentioned McKubre. I witnessed another, a few others people told me. I did not ask Storms or Srinivasan. I don't see any point to sharing the names. It is enough to say that Krivit made a fool of himself in this manner, and if he had not acted like such an ass, I would have spoken to him or written to him first, rather than write to Wiley. I was not the only one to get the wrong impression from his announcement. I circulated a draft of that letter to several people at the conference, and they all agreed I should send it. If even one had expressed reservations or said, I don't think Wiley is the publisher I would not have sent it. Regarding the WL theory, as I have stated before, I have no opinion about this theory, or any theory, and I could not care less whether it is true or not. Some experts recently advised me that if the WL theory is correct, cold fusion would not technically be fusion, so as I said here, score one for Krivit. I do not know what the ratio of helium to heat would be if this theory is correct. In any case, I am quite sure McKubre is not committing fraud, and Krivit's assertions about this are misunderstandings. I know practically nothing about theory, but I am pretty sure I know enough to see that Krivit knows even less than I know. For him to champion one theory or another is preposterous. It would be like me arguing about which vintage of French wine is better suited to foie gras. I don't even know what foie gras is, and all wines taste okay to me. (Mind you, I am very, very choosy about wine: I won't touch anything that costs more than $10 a bottle). It is rather annoying to see that Krivit was photographing people, including me, and uploading the photos without permission. I posted two message on this article, which I expect he will delete: 1. Ah. Then Wiley has not agreed to publish this textbook. That is a relief! When I tried to ask you about this textbook at the conference, you not only refused to talk to me, you refused to acknowledge my presence. When I tapped you on the shoulder you walked away. An extraordinary thing to do! If you had answered a few questions I might have asked you about Wiley, rather than writing to them. I hope that you can make amends with some of the researchers and produce a good textbook. I hope that you do not intend to write a textbook yourself, because you are not qualified. 2. Kindly remove my photo, if you would. I don’t like having photos of myself on the Internet. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: This discussion has been about the Rossi work, which is based on a secret process, and which is inadequately confirmed . . . I think the confirmation is better than most claims, simply because the power is so high, and the input to output ratio is so good. It was a rather sloppy demonstration. You might say that the NRL tests with Pd powder are the extreme opposite. They are as careful and exacting as any test can be, and they have been repeated automatically hundreds of times. Yet, because they produce only ~100 J per run, I find them less convincing than the Rossi demo. . . . there has merely been a somewhat convincing demonstration that *something* is going on in that thing. That is what Levi reportedly said recently, in conversation with another researcher. Something worth further investigation is how I think he put it. I am not arguing with that Cude should accept the Rossi demo completely. I have some doubts about it myself. Any claim of this nature calls for more tests, especially independent tests. However, I do think that questioning the flow rate is ridiculous. I think these demands about the pump and reservoir are mere excuses to evade the issue. If there is a problem, it isn't in the flow rate. You have to look elsewhere. Cude has added that he is not convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat. From my point of view that puts him in the category of creationists who are not convinced of the evidence that the world is more than 6,000 years old, or that people did not ride on dinosaurs. The evidence for cold fusion heat far beyond the limits of chemistry overwhelming. If you do not believe it, you are not a scientist. Period. The evidence for tritium and commensurate helium is not quite as overwhelming but I have never seen any rational reason to doubt it. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Cude to provide one. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Off Topic
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 10:22 AM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: I must now go back to the front lines. Have fun storming the State Capital! ...and yes, it probably will take a miracle. Good luck! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6-5g78Nr6Q T
[Vo]:an unofficial Rossi E-cat test
See please at 22passi.blogspot.com and talefta.blogspot.com 18 hours 15 KW. No details given, Peter -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
At 09:50 AM 2/21/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Ah. It seems Wiley has not agreed to publish this textbook. That is relief! I tried to ask Krivit about this textbook, but as I said, he refused to talk to me. He acted as if I was not there. When I tapped him on the shoulder he walked away. An extraordinary thing to do! If he had paused for a moment to answer a few of my questions this entire misunderstanding could have been avoided. I was planning to ask who was going to write the chapters and I probably would have asked about Wiley again. At very least, I would have written to him first, rather than Wiley. Jed, your mail talked about the rejection as being of a whole group, not just you. Did you extrapolate from your own experience to that of the group, or do you have any other testimony to present? I.e., your actual experience, or as close to actual quotations of what others told you as you can muster? Indeed, extraordinary, but to be expected from the personality type. It's unfortunate, and signs are that Krivit has been completely impervious to attempts to encourage him to reconsider, he takes them all as hostile, attempting to censor or suppress him. I've asked this before, with no effective response. Does he have any friends he trusts, who might be able to help him see how he's trashing his career as an investigative reporter?
[Vo]:
on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 07:20 Jones Beene wrote [snip] It is a dimensional thing. Dense hydrogen only accumulates in two dimensions. After it accumulates, it may move in 3-space as a bound unit, but the effect would be similar to the way Mills' describes the 'orbitsphere' which is 2D but encompassing 3-space as a wrap-around, essentially.[/snip] ok but moving in 3 space as a bound unit would be in conflict with your notion that only atoms can make the translation to different fractional or pycno states (go figure.) OR Are you saying the bound unit is a different kind of atomic bond? a.temporal bond?!?! My pet theory remains that covalent bonds oppose the transition but if not close enough to disassociation can migrate into the lattice like wound springs ready to disassociate at a discount, just add heat BUT the confines of the lattice keep them cold (deuterium ice being an apt name). In the past I had assumed a runaway ashless chemical reaction occurring in the cavities but have recently realized that a catalyst is a combination of lattice and defects and like a nanotube would have no catalytic action without the defects and openings.. I may be stating the obvious but catalytic action appears to be based on the CHANGE in nano geometry - a repeating lattice may afford some change from the perspective of a proton (normal loading) but I think you need defects and cavities to really take advantage of a lattice by condensing whole atoms and molecules such that they can migrate into the confines of the lattice (loading of fractional gas molecules). The most powerful skeletal catalysts have the most pores /greatest surface area which IMHO is proportional to the loading ratio of f/he to normal protons in the lattice. Life after death is just the leaching out of fh2 which must translate between different fractional states by disassociating and reassociating as it migrates to the boundaries of the bulk material. Also After it accumulates, it may move in 3-space as a bound unit has shades of reshaping space-time To allow atoms bound on a different 3D than ours or a different angle to retain their orientation While interacting with our inertial frame. I think it still needs the lattice or extreme cold to maintain This orientation but I am convinced that from their own perspective these atoms are perfectly normal in size and bonding methods and it is a change in energy density / inertial frame effected by the nano geometry that Is responsible for what we perceive as pycno, fractiona or relativistic hydrogen. [snip]Now let me backtrack - it is possible that time itself is also distorted in 2D, but that is not part of picture, at least not so far. [/snip] Ok, I may be alone in this.for now but so many clues point to a temporal connection it can't be long Before others see how it brings the puzzle pieces together. You have papers where C is faster inside a cavity And this is for a measurement of photons which spend only the briefest period traversing the cavity compared to atoms of gas which can occupy and accumulate dilation inside the cavity. You have known variations in radioactive half life and delays in spontaneous emission when there is obviously no spatial acceleration anywhere near C. You have Naudts proposal that these hydrogen atoms are relativistic with the same lack of spatial displacement And then you have the curious theory for Casimir effect that claims longer flux are displaced and only shorter flux can fit between casimir plates to explain a lower energy density While a relativistic interpretation would better explain the same effect while also addressing the time dilations seen in radioactive half lives. We also know that time slows from our perspective for an object in a deep gravity well equivalent to an object approaching a spatial velocity of C - both methods result in an increased energy density from the perspective of our inertial frame but all observers and objects are unaware of any change locally. My premise is the cavity Supplies an equivalent form of modification to energy density similar to the building of a gravity well by mass but accelerating the process through suppression with the added ability to segregate and concentrate the total density. For instance if the plates of a cavity accumulate 4g/large-area and the tiny cavity dissipates That 4g down to 3g then the cavity is not a negative 1g but rather a negative 1g / (plate area/cavity opening) Regards Fran
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
At 10:33 AM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:49 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: So I'm going to ask, as to cold fusion in general, what has been promised and what do promises have to do with science? A new energy source has been promised. By whom? And, I'll ask again, What to promises [and speculations] have to do with science? Cold fusion is a natural phenomenon, it promises nothing unless a way can be found to make it happen reliably and with sufficient return on energy input to cover losses. Muon-catalyzed fusion, when discovered, was first thought to be a possible energy source. That remains as a possibility, but, the problem was, nobody knows how to make muons and keep them active long enough to recover the energy cost. And... convinced of what? Convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat. Thanks. Now, may I assume that you are not ignorant of the literature? There are two questions here: the first is measurable heat. We have a huge number of experiments, some being repeated series of identical experiments, showing measurable heat. To be clear, this means, for most experiments, heat that is not expected from known prosaic processes, also called anomalous heat. Anomalous heat is heat of unknown origin, by definition. Is there such heat? The second part of the question concerns the origin of the heat, whether the origin is nuclear or not. May we agree that anomalous heat, by itself, does not prove nuclear. But if we cannot agree that there is anomalous heat, surely we will be unable to agree on nuclear. That's why the 2004 U.S. DoE review panel, 18 experts, was evenly divided on the question of excess heat, half the reviewers thinking that the evidence for it was conclusive, but only one-third considered the evidence for nuclear origin to be convincing or somewhat convincing. Right? So, first question, is there anomalous heat? Given that there are massive reports of it, widely published, from hundreds of research groups, 153 reports in mainstream journals as of 2009, there is only one sane way for you to deny it, as least as far as I can imagine. That would be to claim that you know the origin of this heat, or at least that someone does. Otherwise it's still an anomaly. Right? (The 2004 DoE panel, half, thought the evidence for anomalous heat to be conclusive. If we imagine that the other half thought it was bogus, we end up with a paradox or conundrum. It's unlikely. In fact, the other half, probably, was mostly and merely not convinced, which can be a lack of conviction from pure caution, some need to see more evidence, and for only for a few on the panel would there be a belief that the evidence was totally spurious. One reviewer seems to have thought that fraud was involved, as I recall, or certainly Bad Science. But this has become an isolated, fringe position. Sometimes, as well, people argue and apply logic from conclusions. I.e., if they believe that LENR is impossible, they then discount the evidence for LENR, more than they would if they were not attached to a conclusion. Human beings. Don't leave home without being one. This is backwards. There may be anomalous heat that is not of nuclear origin.)
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
In any case, a test as today's unofficial Bologna test (18 hours 15 KW) will not convince him. Possibly the water was not heated- it was actually cooled. See my posting Peter On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: This discussion has been about the Rossi work, which is based on a secret process, and which is inadequately confirmed . . . I think the confirmation is better than most claims, simply because the power is so high, and the input to output ratio is so good. It was a rather sloppy demonstration. You might say that the NRL tests with Pd powder are the extreme opposite. They are as careful and exacting as any test can be, and they have been repeated automatically hundreds of times. Yet, because they produce only ~100 J per run, I find them less convincing than the Rossi demo. . . . there has merely been a somewhat convincing demonstration that *something* is going on in that thing. That is what Levi reportedly said recently, in conversation with another researcher. Something worth further investigation is how I think he put it. I am not arguing with that Cude should accept the Rossi demo completely. I have some doubts about it myself. Any claim of this nature calls for more tests, especially independent tests. However, I do think that questioning the flow rate is ridiculous. I think these demands about the pump and reservoir are mere excuses to evade the issue. If there is a problem, it isn't in the flow rate. You have to look elsewhere. Cude has added that he is not convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat. From my point of view that puts him in the category of creationists who are not convinced of the evidence that the world is more than 6,000 years old, or that people did not ride on dinosaurs. The evidence for cold fusion heat far beyond the limits of chemistry overwhelming. If you do not believe it, you are not a scientist. Period. The evidence for tritium and commensurate helium is not quite as overwhelming but I have never seen any rational reason to doubt it. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Cude to provide one. - Jed -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Cude has added that he is not convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat. From my point of view that puts him in the category of creationists who are not convinced of the evidence that the world is more than 6,000 years old, or that people did not ride on dinosaurs. Points of view clearly differ. From my point of view, being convinced by flaky evidence like Rossi's puts you in the category of creationists, who believe in a young earth because of scripture. And I think the similarity favors my point of view. In both cold fusion and creationism, you have a small group of fringe scientists who adopt an idea in which they have important self-interest, and try desperately to prove its reality. And in both cases the idea is completely contrary to the virtually unanimous opinion of mainstream science. And in both cases, you have the fringe group claiming a conspiracy against it by the mainstream. The evidence for cold fusion heat far beyond the limits of chemistry overwhelming. If you do not believe it, you are not a scientist. Period. So, we have someone who is not a scientist, who doesn't know that the temperature of steam can exceed 100C at atmospheric pressure, saying that vast majority of people who do science are not scientists. But let's look at scientific progress in the last 22 years. In the field of cold fusion: score zero. In fields outside cold fusion: too much to list of course, but perhaps the sequencing of the human genome by what you call non-scientists tops the list. The evidence for tritium and commensurate helium is not quite as overwhelming but I have never seen any rational reason to doubt it. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Cude to provide one. For me, the absence of a reason to doubt, is not a reason to believe. And I am not holding my breath waiting for a rational reason to believe the claims.
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Feb 21, 2011, at 5:50 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by mass to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by volume. And since the steam is created in the horizontal portion, it is forced up 50 cm of pipe through liquid, which would presumably turn the liquid into a fine mist after a few minutes. The above appears to to be a typo. It was probably meant to say: One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by *volume* to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by *mass*. And since the steam is created in the horizontal portion, it is forced up 50 cm of pipe through liquid, which would presumably turn the liquid into a fine mist after a few minutes. If x is the liquid portion by volume, then x/((x+(1-x)*0.0006)) is the portion by mass. If steam is 2% wet by volume, then x=0.02 and the portion by mass is 0.97144, or 97.14%. It then takes only 2.856% of the heat to produce the wet steam vs dry. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
At 10:38 AM 2/21/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: This was all a tempest in a teapot! Good thing. I sent a message to the Wiley editor, pointing to Krivit's article, and apologizing for the misunderstanding. Regarding Abd's comments, several potential authors told me that Krivit pulled this stunt of pretending you are not there. I mentioned McKubre. I witnessed another, a few others people told me. I did not ask Storms or Srinivasan. I don't see any point to sharing the names. It is enough to say that Krivit made a fool of himself in this manner, and if he had not acted like such an ass, I would have spoken to him or written to him first, rather than write to Wiley. Right. Krivit shoots himself in the foot. I think part of his is his sense of story. He likes dramatic stories. So ... he creates them! I'm quite sure there are plenty of real stories to be investigated. As I noted, I'd really like to know more about W-L theory. But Krivit's reporting on it is shallow, mostly telling the story of CF believers reject it, and how unfair that supposedly is. I was not the only one to get the wrong impression from his announcement. I circulated a draft of that letter to several people at the conference, and they all agreed I should send it. If even one had expressed reservations or said, I don't think Wiley is the publisher I would not have sent it. In other words, it's likely Krivit was ambiguous. He might even have wished to create some ambiance of his own acceptance, i.e., since he'd just done this encyclopedia thing, surely he'll have a publisher waiting and eager. But that's speculation. I haven't seen the video he cites, as if it would be some kind of proof. He might even have been explicit in the video that he didn't have a publisher, but people remember, Jed, impressions, and the people you approached hadn't studied the video or a transcript, they might have been distracted, etc. It will be of some mild interest what is actually in that video Regarding the WL theory, as I have stated before, I have no opinion about this theory, or any theory, and I could not care less whether it is true or not. Some experts recently advised me that if the WL theory is correct, cold fusion would not technically be fusion, so as I said here, score one for Krivit. I do not know what the ratio of helium to heat would be if this theory is correct. In any case, I am quite sure McKubre is not committing fraud, and Krivit's assertions about this are misunderstandings. That opinion (about fusion) is a particular point of view that depends on a very narrow definition of fusion, and that is about fusion as a specific mechanism, rather than as a result. If you start with deuterium and you end up with helium, inside a black box, with the expected energy, you have a fusion box. A box that results in the fusion of deuterium to helium, no matter what happens inside. The box may contain quark gremlins who can dismantle stuff, using their Special Powerz, into component quarks, provided that they then reassemble them to something energetically favorable, and if the imput is deuterium and the output is helium, they are using their Powerz for fusion. Krivit (and others) confuse two different meanings of fusion, one being process and the other result. W-L theory, however, as I understand it, predicts a whole lot more Stuff going on in the box than deuterium fusion to helium. (W and L are vague about what they actually predict! but they do show a pathway from deuterium to helium, and that pathway, if it predominated, would then show the expected net energy, the same as any other pathway. The laws of thermodynamics care not about pathways.) Problem is, I'd expect a very different product mix than what is known, from W-L theory. There are some severe rate problems. By confining the definition of fusion to d-d fusion, which is only one of many possible pathways, Krivit can then attempt to shed the dirty mantle of cold fusion, pretending that it's something else. ULM neutron-induced nuclear reactions. Except that if you make the ULM neutrons from deuterium, and use them to create helium and other heavier elements, what you have done is a fancy, complicated form of fusion, defined as the creation of heavier elements from lighter ones. Really, Jed, don't agree with Krivit on this one! If W-L theory is correct -- that's highly undefined! -- the production of helium is still fusion. Some pathways might make this vaguer. It could get really complicated, when we start considering fission caused by neutrons. But, Jed, 25 MeV! Read Storms (2010). There really is only one set of candidate reactions, those that start with deuterium and end up with helium. TSC theory is one that predicts the ratio, but cluster fusion, if it starts with some nanomass of deuterium and ends with helium, through a Be-8 or other pathway, may be the most likely. And let's agree on this: we don't know
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
At 10:38 AM 2/21/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: This was all a tempest in a teapot! Good thing. I sent a message to the Wiley editor, pointing to Krivit's article, and apologizing for the misunderstanding. Your letter may have done good, pointing out to Wiley that there could be problems with agreeing to publish a textbook authored by Krivit. At the very least, they'd make sure that there was some knowledgeable editorial review. If I were at Wiley, I'd start looking around for other possible authors/editors. What I've noticed is that the largest scientific publishers in the world have signed on to cold fusion: Elsevier, Springer-Verlag. At some point, the others will start playing catch-up. Jed, do you see why I'm claiming that the corner has been turned? It's not over, the skeptical position is probably still predominant *as to general scientific opinion.* But not among experts, by which I mean reviewers who actually review papers at the mainstream journals, presented with evidence to assess in the normal scientific manner. Given that there have been 19 positive reviews of cold fusion in mainstream peer-reviewed journals and academic sources (i.e., the stuff of the Britz database), since 2005, where are the negative reviews? All that has appeared is a Letter from Shanahan to the Journal of Environmental Monitoring, copublished with a devastating rebuttal by Everybody And His Brother. It's obvious to me what JEM was doing. They knew that lots of their readers, looking at the article by Marwan and Krivit, would be sputtering, But... but ... but, so they published Shanahan's ravings, so that they could be clearly refuted. They were running classic CYA, interdicting unspoken criticism from their readers. My guess is that they got a lot of spoken criticism, but not of a quality that they could publish. Shanahan gave them something more cogent (relatively!) to bite on. And then they told Shanahan, no more. Shanahan sputtering, himself, receding into the history of failed information epidemics. Ironic justice. That's publishing politics, not science, but ... it cuts both ways! (Failed information epidemic is a reference to the last negative review, from about 2006, in the Journal of Informatics, did I get that right?, which simply analyzed publication frequency, and, in 2006, it looked like the field was dead, i.e., was following the path predicted by Langmuir's pathological science criteria. 2005 or 2006 were the nadir, publication rates have quadrupled since then. Failure was a premature judgment, an appearance, and represented no judgment of the science itself.)
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On 02/21/2011 12:39 PM, Peter Gluck wrote: In any case, a test as today's unofficial Bologna test (18 hours 15 KW) Any documentation, or reports by witnesses? Any clear measurements which give substance to the 15 kW number? Did anybody write it up? I'm not sure what an official test would be, really. The issue isn't whether it's official, it's whether it's convincing. For the record, the last experiment I saw from Ed Storms which I saw mentioned on this list, which involved, IIRC, radiation detection during gas-phase loading of palladium, was *extremely* convincing, IMO. It is Rossi, and Rossi's work, and Rossi's claims, and the demonstration at UoB in December with what I would call really poor documentation of measurements and results, which I find unconvincing. I wish to heaven someone of Ed's caliber had been conducting the test of Rossi's reactor. (But then, to be blunt, the result might have been negative in that case, and we wouldn't be wasting our time arguing about it.)
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
Joshua Cude still impresses me as the only adult in the class in junior high school -- very impressive clarity of comprehension, speedy assessment of essential factors, vigorous lucid communication, terse effortless pointed prose, alert compassion, as he tackles the tedious task of pointing out to the dubious crowd that the emperor has no clothes... Hey, Jed, you Reb, you've got General Grant running you down... I can hardly believe that anyone still pays any attention at all to BlackLight Power... The last famous SPAWAR triple track report took pages to end up with estimates about a single triple spot out of millions... We can enjoy all this if we treat it as a reality show, believers versus skeptics, playing it for laughs, especially at ourselves. If what's going on is truly infinite, then all apparently finite flows of perception-thought are always going to fall flat on their faces, including CM, SR, GR, QM, BB, SS, evolution, linear one-way causality... Get used to it... I learned a lot at MIT when the professors would leap over a gap in their presentation by waving their hands in the air with a decidedly sheepish grin... Rich, the punch bowl that floats the turd...
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Feb 21, 2011, at 8:47 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: So, we have someone who is not a scientist, who doesn't know that the temperature of steam can exceed 100C at atmospheric pressure, saying that vast majority of people who do science are not scientists. But let's look at scientific progress in the last 22 years. In the field of cold fusion: score zero. You are making the logical error of generalizing from the specific. You clearly have not read the literature or followed the field very long. I suggest you start with: http://www.lenr-canr.org/ Just because one demo is flawed and there are no CF water heaters for sale at Sears does not mean there has been no scientific progress in the field. For me, the absence of a reason to doubt, is not a reason to believe. And I am not holding my breath waiting for a rational reason to believe the claims. Your faith is irrelevant to the purpose, and as voiced above actually contrary to the stated purpose, of this list. While rational and quantitative discussion of a specific demo is relevant, generalizing this to dismissal of the entire field is pathological skepticism. This list was formed to get away from the interminable, meaningless and unproductive debate between pathological skeptics and true believers. See the vortex-l rules: http://amasci.com/weird/wvort.html especially Rule 2, and http://amasci.com/weird/vmore.html http://amasci.com/pathskep.html Quoting Bill Beaty: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Vortex-L is for those who see great value in removing their usual mental filters by provisionally accepting the validity of impossible phenomena in order to test them. This excellent quote found by Gene Mallove clearly states the problem, and reveals the need for true believers in a science community otherwise ruled by conservative scoffers: It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible. When this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them. - Arthur C. Clarke, 1963 So, on Vortex-L we intentionally suspend the disbelieving attitude of those who believe in the stereotypical scientific method. While this does leave us open to the great personal embarrassment of falling for hoaxes and delusional thinking, we tolerate this problem in our quest to consider ideas and phenomena which would otherwise be rejected out of hand without a fair hearing. There are diamonds in the filth, and we see that we cannot hunt for diamonds without getting dirty. Note that skepticism of the openminded sort is perfectly acceptable on Vortex-L. The ban here is aimed at scoffing and hostile disbelief, and at the sort of Skeptic who angrily disbelieves all that is not solidly proved true, while carefully rejecting all new data and observations which conflict with widely accepted theory. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Here specifically is rule 2: 2. NO SNEERING. Ridicule, derision, scoffing, and ad-hominem is banned. Pathological Skepticism is banned (see the link.) The tone here should be one of legitimate disagreement and respectful debate. Vortex-L is a big nasty nest of 'true believers' (hopefully having some tendency to avoid self-deception,) and skeptics may as well leave in disgust. But if your mind is open and you wish to test crazy claims rather than ridiculing them or explaining them away, hop on board! and the link regarding pathological skepticism, once again, is: http://amasci.com/pathskep.html Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On 02/21/2011 01:28 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: On 02/21/2011 12:39 PM, Peter Gluck wrote: In any case, a test as today's unofficial Bologna test (18 hours 15 KW) Any documentation, or reports by witnesses? Any clear measurements which give substance to the 15 kW number? Did anybody write it up? Sorry, I saw your original post on the demo today, with the note No details given... only after I sent that. I don't know about Joshua, but a report of an experiment with no details given sure doesn't convince *me*, but maybe that makes me a pathological skeptic, too, eh? I seriously doubted ol' Stiffler's results, and I'm dead cert that the Steorn gadget is a scam, so maybe I'm just an incurable skeptic, eh? When someone with a dubious background and no relevant formal training reports a potentially highly profitable breakthrough in physics, I want to see clear documentation of experiments by trained scientists with good reputations before I'm going to do more than yawn and write it off as another PPM that just happens not to be physically totally impossible. So far that hasn't been forthcoming from Bologna: The documentation of the results has been too sloppy and incomplete to conclude very much or to rule out cheating by Rossi, IMO, and the behavior of the experimenter has been too bizarre to take him seriously. As my ol' Grandad might have said, if BS were music, Rossi'd be a brass band. I'm not sure what an official test would be, really. The issue isn't whether it's official, it's whether it's convincing. For the record, the last experiment I saw from Ed Storms which I saw mentioned on this list, which involved, IIRC, radiation detection during gas-phase loading of palladium, was *extremely* convincing, IMO. It is Rossi, and Rossi's work, and Rossi's claims, and the demonstration at UoB in December with what I would call really poor documentation of measurements and results, which I find unconvincing. I wish to heaven someone of Ed's caliber had been conducting the test of Rossi's reactor. (But then, to be blunt, the result might have been negative in that case, and we wouldn't be wasting our time arguing about it.)
[Vo]:Traffic Waves
Hey Bill, your traffic waves video just went viral. Its been posted on a bunch of networking sites and webcomics, and several of my friends have independently posted it various places.
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On 02/21/2011 01:33 PM, Horace Heffner wrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 8:47 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: [a bunch of sneering jeers directed at Jed] Here specifically is rule 2: 2. NO SNEERING. Ridicule, derision, scoffing, and ad-hominem is banned. Pathological Skepticism is banned (see the link.) The tone here should be one of legitimate disagreement and respectful debate. If I have been guilty of sneering during this debate, point it out, I'll apologize sincerely, and I'll stop doing it. I think I've avoided that sin (at least in this discussion) but if not, I'm very sorry. Joshua, on the other hand, is almost asking to be banned with his attacks on Jed, and his ludicrous dismissal of an entire field about which he apparently knows little.
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
At 10:52 AM 2/21/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: This discussion has been about the Rossi work, which is based on a secret process, and which is inadequately confirmed . . . I think the confirmation is better than most claims, simply because the power is so high, and the input to output ratio is so good. It was a rather sloppy demonstration. You might say that the NRL tests with Pd powder are the extreme opposite. They are as careful and exacting as any test can be, and they have been repeated automatically hundreds of times. Yet, because they produce only ~100 J per run, I find them less convincing than the Rossi demo. Jed, a single demo has so many possibilities for problems that, quite simply, it can't be considered conclusive. For the science, an experiment repeated hundreds of times is more convincing, even if the results are not so dramatic. However, the NRL report is just one report! They might be seeing the result of some systematic error. Rossi might be a skillful fraud or be resulting from unexpected phenomenon. (I agree, unlikely. But Rossi is not a clear confirmation of any prior work, since we don't know what's inside. Obviously, Rossi is interesting. Were I a venture capitalist with lots-o-money, I'd be looking at Rossi, through he doesn't seem to be interested -- in which case I'd mostly disregard it. I *might* deprecate other investments pending knowing more about Rossi, which is how Rossi could be damaging the field of cold fusion, effectively inhibiting research into other approaches. I dislike the secrecy, for sure. It's Rossi's right to be secret. It's partly a consequence of the horrible situation with patents. That either is causing Rossi to be secretive, or is providing him with cover, a plausible reason for secrecy. Either way, harm. . . . there has merely been a somewhat convincing demonstration that *something* is going on in that thing. That is what Levi reportedly said recently, in conversation with another researcher. Something worth further investigation is how I think he put it. Of course. But we have been given nothing to investigate further! I am not arguing with that Cude should accept the Rossi demo completely. I have some doubts about it myself. Any claim of this nature calls for more tests, especially independent tests. However, I do think that questioning the flow rate is ridiculous. I think these demands about the pump and reservoir are mere excuses to evade the issue. If there is a problem, it isn't in the flow rate. You have to look elsewhere. I've discussed Rossi with pseudoskeptics, a little. They certainly aren't convinced! Nor would I expect them to be. It's a huge red herring. Pseudoskeptics dismiss Rossi for the same reason that they dismiss cold fusion: because it seems impossible. We know that this logic is seriously flawed. Cold fusion, per se, is not impossible, which is why there were Nobel prize-winners working on theory! It's merely unexpected. So pseudoskeptics will confidently predict that Rossi is bogus. It's just what can be expected from them. I do not predict, confidently, that Rossi is bogus, because I see no theoretical impossibility. There might be some reaction that does what he's claiming. It's not impossible, on the face. Unlikely. Sure. But so seemed a lot of things until our understanding expanded. Because we know, as students of cold fusion, that what seems impossible might not actually be impossible, we are vulnerable to all kinds of claims that seem to contradict accepted wisdom. That's the cost of being open-minded. We still choose where we put our energy and our attention, and I'm not pouring my attention into Rossi, because I'm interested in the science, and Rossi contributes almost nothing to the science but some speculative, contingent possibility. Cude has added that he is not convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat. From my point of view that puts him in the category of creationists who are not convinced of the evidence that the world is more than 6,000 years old, or that people did not ride on dinosaurs. The evidence for cold fusion heat far beyond the limits of chemistry overwhelming. If you do not believe it, you are not a scientist. Period. I've seen no claim from Cude that he's a scientist. Nor do I know the nature of his rejection of excess heat results. There are reasons for most people, including most scientists, to be skeptical, and it doesn't mean that he's like a creationist. It could simply mean that he's unfamiliar with the evidence, and he's framed it within a general mind-set that was effectively created by the particle physicists in 1989-1990, that had nothing to do with real science and normal scientific protocols. He's bought the propaganda, which is very understandable. It was designed, like most
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
This list was formed to get away from the interminable, meaningless and unproductive debate between pathological skeptics and true believers. The list was formed especially to get away from the ego feeding pathological skeptics on sci.physics.fusion that filled the bandwidth and prevented meaningful discussion. That specifically included *you* if I recall correctly. Despite initial appearances, you haven't changed much in 15 years! In your false analogy, appended below, you are not the punchbowl. The turd floating in this punchbowl appears to be you! 8^) See the vortex-l rules: http://amasci.com/weird/wvort.html especially Rule 2, and http://amasci.com/weird/vmore.html http://amasci.com/pathskep.html Quoting Bill Beaty: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Vortex-L is for those who see great value in removing their usual mental filters by provisionally accepting the validity of impossible phenomena in order to test them. This excellent quote found by Gene Mallove clearly states the problem, and reveals the need for true believers in a science community otherwise ruled by conservative scoffers: It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible. When this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them. - Arthur C. Clarke, 1963 So, on Vortex-L we intentionally suspend the disbelieving attitude of those who believe in the stereotypical scientific method. While this does leave us open to the great personal embarrassment of falling for hoaxes and delusional thinking, we tolerate this problem in our quest to consider ideas and phenomena which would otherwise be rejected out of hand without a fair hearing. There are diamonds in the filth, and we see that we cannot hunt for diamonds without getting dirty. Note that skepticism of the openminded sort is perfectly acceptable on Vortex-L. The ban here is aimed at scoffing and hostile disbelief, and at the sort of Skeptic who angrily disbelieves all that is not solidly proved true, while carefully rejecting all new data and observations which conflict with widely accepted theory. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Here specifically is rule 2: 2. NO SNEERING. Ridicule, derision, scoffing, and ad-hominem is banned. Pathological Skepticism is banned (see the link.) The tone here should be one of legitimate disagreement and respectful debate. Vortex-L is a big nasty nest of 'true believers' (hopefully having some tendency to avoid self-deception,) and skeptics may as well leave in disgust. But if your mind is open and you wish to test crazy claims rather than ridiculing them or explaining them away, hop on board! and the link regarding pathological skepticism, once again, is: http://amasci.com/pathskep.html On Feb 21, 2011, at 9:29 AM, Rich Murray wrote: Joshua Cude still impresses me as the only adult in the class in junior high school -- very impressive clarity of comprehension, speedy assessment of essential factors, vigorous lucid communication, terse effortless pointed prose, alert compassion, as he tackles the tedious task of pointing out to the dubious crowd that the emperor has no clothes... Hey, Jed, you Reb, you've got General Grant running you down... I can hardly believe that anyone still pays any attention at all to BlackLight Power... The last famous SPAWAR triple track report took pages to end up with estimates about a single triple spot out of millions... We can enjoy all this if we treat it as a reality show, believers versus skeptics, playing it for laughs, especially at ourselves. If what's going on is truly infinite, then all apparently finite flows of perception-thought are always going to fall flat on their faces, including CM, SR, GR, QM, BB, SS, evolution, linear one-way causality... Get used to it... I learned a lot at MIT when the professors would leap over a gap in their presentation by waving their hands in the air with a decidedly sheepish grin... Rich, the punch bowl that floats the turd... Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:an unofficial Rossi E-cat test
Peter Gluck peter.gl...@gmail.com wrote: See please at 22passi.blogspot.com and talefta.blogspot.com 18 hours 15 KW. 18 hours is great! I wonder who this Daniel is, and whether he will provide more data. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:an unofficial Rossi E-cat test
Daniele Passerini is a journalist he wrote the reports + other news about the test of Bologna Jan 14. I will try to get as many data as possible. At the Greek blog, our friend George has translated the news in English too. peter On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:59 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Peter Gluck peter.gl...@gmail.com wrote: See please at 22passi.blogspot.com and talefta.blogspot.com 18 hours 15 KW. 18 hours is great! I wonder who this Daniel is, and whether he will provide more data. - Jed -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
As a consummate skeptic, I don't even experience an external physical reality, whether body, society, or universe... Let's say, Rich is on all levels within a virtual simulation, a Rich's life world dream... So, as always, the reality status of this very flowing moment of perception-cognition is neither known nor knowable... Worse yet, there are many profound traditions that give this exploration priority... Since science was my first dogmatism, cold fusion gives me a convenient theater of improvisation within which to play out what happens when bunches of cats somehow succeed for a while into herding themselves into marching in order in step to abstract music... It's entertaining to see that mainstream cosmology has found the immense external observable universe to be merely a magnified view of the tiniest possible region within a space with 10 dimensions and a one-way time flow of 1 dimension -- note that surely all those dimensions were not vanquished somehow by the minute vacuum fluctuation that still comprises an accelerating expansion of novel surprises, including this very mo.m..e...nt. So, I'm not just harassing cold fusion... My target is hard to miss, being Everything as every thing... Returning to lack of replication, there is no such thing as actual enduring replication if it's all magic... Rich
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
At 12:47 PM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Jed Rothwell mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.comjedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Cude has added that he is not convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat. From my point of view that puts him in the category of creationists who are not convinced of the evidence that the world is more than 6,000 years old, or that people did not ride on dinosaurs. Points of view clearly differ. From my point of view, being convinced by flaky evidence like Rossi's puts you in the category of creationists, who believe in a young earth because of scripture. And I think the similarity favors my point of view. Joshua, don't be distracted. You are now entering You territory, the exchange of accusations. You don't understand Jed's position on Rossi, he's not convinced. He's aware of the problems and has documented them. He's examined some of them and has rejected some alternative explanations. From what I've seen, there are only two likely explanations of the Rossi demo: he's got a genuine nuclear reaction going, or he's got a sophisticated fraud going. And, frankly, I can't tell the difference. Can you? How? In both cold fusion and creationism, you have a small group of fringe scientists who adopt an idea in which they have important self-interest, and try desperately to prove its reality. That's a political description, polemic. Every researcher has self-interest in their field of research. Desperately doesn't describe the mental state of cold fusion researchers today. They aren't trying to prove that it's real. That happened years ago. You may not agree, but I'm telling you how they think. Do you know how they think? How? Have you talked with them? You've missed something huge. Cold fusion is now routinely accepted as a reality by the peer reviewers at mainstream publications, and it is the purely skeptical view that is being rejected. There may be a small group of scientists -- you put scientists in quotes as if they are not scientists, though these are scientists by every definition of the word, including general recognition (Setting aside a few relative amateurs) -- but the real issue is the collection of peer reviewers at mainstream publications. We could toss in the 18 experts of the 2004 U.S. DoE panel, though that was a review far shallower than the normal peer-review process at a mainstream publication. Those experts *unanimously* favored further research and publication, which is entirely contradictory to your confident assertion that it is only fringe 'scientists' who are desperately tryingto prove it's real. If you examine what's being published, you don't find an attempt to prove it's real, not lately, anyway. You find, in primary research, reports of phenomena that imply reality, discussion of possible explanations that assume CF is possible, etc. In secondary reviews, and there have been nineteen published since 2005, you find acceptance of the phenomenon as a reality. The latest is Storms (2010) published in Naturwissenschaften, Status of cld fusion (2010). That review now represents what mainstream reviewers will accept. The review does not contradict former reviews of the field, rather it confirms and extends them. I.e., say, in the early 1990s, there was a review that concluded that neutron radiation was far, far below that expected from d-d fusion, setting an upper limit. Storms confirms that neutron radiation is almost entirely absent. There were many negative replications published. Later work shows that those replication attemps could be expected to fail to find anything, because they did not, in fact, replicate, they did not reach the apparently necessary 90% loading. At that time, 70% was considered to be about the maximum attainable. To go above that took special techniques that the replicators did not know and understand. And so on. We understand science by understanding the entire body of publication, and attempting to harmonize it. Later reviews, published in the normal cautious manner, are expected to extend the conclusions of earlier reviews. And that's what has happened. And in both cases the idea is completely contrary to the virtually unanimous opinion of mainstream science. And in both cases, you have the fringe group claiming a conspiracy against it by the mainstream. That's irrelevant, were it true. The real situation now is that the *skeptics* are claiming a conspiracy. Have you talked to Shanahan? As to the virtually unanimous opinion of mainstream science, what do you mean by this? Ask a random scientist, call him up at work, about cold fusion and what is his opinion? Does it matter what his field is? If you want to know the opinion of mainstream science, there are generally, two ways. You can look at the results of a review panel, or you can look at what is being published in the way of
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
Rich Murray wrote: Since 1989... No replication... By independent groups... By associated groups... By the same group, on the scale of days, weeks, years... By the same group with a single device, on the scale of days, weeks, years... That's ridiculous. The bulk Pd-D experiment has been widely replicated by many different groups, both independently and with materials passed from one lab to the next. It was done hundreds of times in a row at TAMU and later Toyota. The NRL distributed PdB alloys, and the ENEA passed out their thin cathodes, made by Violante et al. Both were confirmed by many labs. Tritium was reported by over 100 labs, according to Bockris. (I do not have a tally.) The Energetics Technology technique has also been independently replicated. Arata's experiments with the DS-cathode and later with Pd-Zr powder have been independently replicated, but not as much as bulk Pd. Ni-H experiments have been sporadically reported. Some people such as Srinivasan made a great effort to replicate but they failed. At ICCF-16, McKubre characterized the evidence for Pd-D as compelling and the evidence for Ni-H as strong. I agree with that. I give Rossi a great deal more credence than I would otherwise because there is previous strong evidence for Ni-H cold fusion. We can't ignore that. He is not making an unprecedented claim out of the blue. People here say he should be replicated before we can believe him. Maybe, but after all, he himself is replicating others, especially Focardi. The two of them are close friends, by the way, and Focardi respects Rossi. If we are going to take into account human factors and personality factors, we should bear that in mind. Rossi does act like a flake at times, but he has won the respect of many good people. A lot of groups in Italy take him very seriously. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Feb 21, 2011, at 10:09 AM, Rich Murray wrote: Rich, a floating shiny brown anomaly in the punch bowl Agreement at last! 8^) Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Feb 21, 2011, at 9:47 AM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: On 02/21/2011 01:33 PM, Horace Heffner wrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 8:47 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: [a bunch of sneering jeers directed at Jed] Here specifically is rule 2: 2. NO SNEERING. Ridicule, derision, scoffing, and ad-hominem is banned. Pathological Skepticism is banned (see the link.) The tone here should be one of legitimate disagreement and respectful debate. If I have been guilty of sneering during this debate, point it out, I'll apologize sincerely, and I'll stop doing it. I think I've avoided that sin (at least in this discussion) but if not, I'm very sorry. Your points have all been very logical and focused in my opinion. The demo was obviously highly flawed and it even appears its main purpose may have been to secure funding. No doubt there is a cloud over the whole affair, and it is an embarrassment to the CF field in general, whether Rossi is on to something or not. I do think we have probably beat this horse to death and then some though, but that is a matter of personal taste. I think it is just a matter of waiting to get the truth. Not that easy for investors though. I guess there is not much else to talk about for the moment. It would be nice to hear more about ICCF. Joshua, on the other hand, is almost asking to be banned with his attacks on Jed, and his ludicrous dismissal of an entire field about which he apparently knows little. Yes, and unfortunately via posts which are limited in contributory ideas, meaningful quantitative contributions, or supporting references which might provide some redeeming value. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Jed, your mail talked about the rejection as being of a whole group, not just you. Did you extrapolate from your own experience to that of the group, or do you have any other testimony to present? Three others told me Krivit was pretending they were not there. Several others are, shall we say, peeved. Without them it would be hard to write an authoritative textbook. Perhaps he can make amends and all will be well. He has done a darn good job editing books and this could be an useful contribution. He has to stop acting like a cranky 2-year-old. Also, stop pretending he is a scientist. Hearing him use the jargon is embarrassing. (I talk like a programmer occasionally, with words like enable, null set and FIFO. By gum, I have earned it. Arthur Clarke used to throw around radar and RAF terminology such as main bang and over and out.) Marianne Macy wrote to me saying he did say it was Wiley. That's what I thought he said. But the editor there did not find an upcoming project so I guess not. Anyway, let's not fret about this. Krivit is just being silly. I think most observers will agree that my letter was gentle and should not considered at attack. It was polite suggestion. I am relieved to hear Wiley is not involved. It was worth making a fool of myself to find that out. I would not have found out any other way. Does he have any friends he trusts, who might be able to help him see how he's trashing his career as an investigative reporter? I have no idea. Ask him! He deleted my messages but not my photo. That's annoying. People should not take photos at conferences and upload them without permission. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 12:33 PM, Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.netwrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 8:47 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: Your faith is irrelevant to the purpose, and as voiced above actually contrary to the stated purpose, of this list. Yes, I am aware that I do not belong here. I joined because my critique of Levi's interpretation in the Yahoo group was cross-posted here, and was being (ineptly) challenged. I felt I had a good reason to come and defend it. I have joined only conservations relevant to the Rossi device, although inevitably, they tend to stray to the field in general. I will stay to defend things I've written, but will look for an opportunity to bow out.
RE: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
Joshua: A few clarifications from you would be helpful... Jed wrote: You do have to trust Levi, Celani and Dufour and some other people. To which Joshua stated: Why? They were hand-picked by Rossi. Where is your evidence that the scientists that were there to instrument the demo were 'hand-picked by Rossi? I have kept up with this topic, and I cannot remember anywhere that that was stated. I highly doubt it was Rossi... more likely Focardi. Regardless, what either of us thinks (i.e., surmises) is irrelevent; what matters here are the facts, and I think its worthwhile to know how the participants were selected. Joshua stated: And since the steam is created in the horizontal portion, it is forced up 50 cm of pipe through liquid, which would presumably turn the liquid into a fine mist after a few minutes... Again, where did you get this detail about the operation of the reactor? I have not seen ANY description of how the water is circulated inside the reactor, nor, and more importantly, the location of where the intense heat source is that actually vaporizes the water. -Mark
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: At 10:33 AM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:49 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto: a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: So I'm going to ask, as to cold fusion in general, what has been promised and what do promises have to do with science? A new energy source has been promised. By whom? Maybe you're new to the field. Promises have been made by Pons Fleischmann first in 1989 (just watch their interviews on youtube, where they claim it is the ideal energy source: clean and unlimited and simple) and then by just about every cold fusion advocate since, including McKubre on 60 minutes promising cars that don't need refueling, Rothwell's entire book of promises, and promises from shady characters like Dardik and Rossi. There are endless promises every time the topic arises. And, I'll ask again, What to promises [and speculations] have to do with science? I'm not sure what you're getting at. Many scientific breakthroughs and inventions are associated with the promise of benefits to mankind. Insulin promised to save the lives of diabetics, and delivered; high temp superconductors promised cheaper magnets, but have not delivered (yet). Cold fusion promised abundant, clean energy, and has not delivered. Cold fusion is a natural phenomenon, it promises nothing unless a way can be found to make it happen reliably and with sufficient return on energy input to cover losses. Well, yes, but there are many claims of reliability (100%) with huge returns (10, 20, even hundreds), but still no delivery on the promise. Muon-catalyzed fusion, when discovered, was first thought to be a possible energy source. That remains as a possibility, but, the problem was, nobody knows how to make muons and keep them active long enough to recover the energy cost. Muon-catalyzed fusion was discovered by the associated radiation (neutrons). Cold fusion was claimed on the basis of excess energy. That's a big difference. If you start with excess energy, then there's no need to find a way to get excess energy. And... convinced of what? Convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat. Thanks. Now, may I assume that you are not ignorant of the literature? There are two questions here: the first is measurable heat. Actually, I could have made that more restrictive. I am not convinced that cold fusion experiments have produced excess heat, where by excess heat, I mean heat not associated with electrical or chemical inputs; so that no indication of a potential power source is demonstrated. We have a huge number of experiments, some being repeated series of identical experiments, showing measurable heat. To be clear, this means, for most experiments, heat that is not expected from known prosaic processes, also called anomalous heat. Anomalous heat is heat of unknown origin, by definition. Is there such heat? I don't believe there is. Obviously, the temperature readings are not completely understood by the experimenters, so there is something unknown, but evidence for excess heat is not compelling. The second part of the question concerns the origin of the heat, whether the origin is nuclear or not. May we agree that anomalous heat, by itself, does not prove nuclear. Well if excess means not chemical, and not electrical, there are not very many other options available; it's not likely to be gravitational. But if we cannot agree that there is anomalous heat, surely we will be unable to agree on nuclear. Right. That's why the 2004 U.S. DoE review panel, 18 experts, was evenly divided on the question of excess heat, half the reviewers thinking that the evidence for it was conclusive, but only one-third considered the evidence for nuclear origin to be convincing or somewhat convincing. [The] reviewers were split approximately split approximately evenly between 1) evidence for excess power is compelling, to 2) there is no convincing evidence... Compelling is not conclusive, and if you read the individual reports, that sentence from the summary is favorable to cold fusion. By my reading, only 6 or 7 of the reviewers really take excess heat at all seriously, and only one finds it conclusive. But whatever, at least half found the evidence lacking. And those who found it at least somewhat compelling, not a single one was compelled enough to recommend special funding for the field. That would be criminal if they thought there was even a slight chance of solving the world's energy problems. So there is no way you can say the evidence is overwhelming, based on the DOE panel. Right? So, first question, is there anomalous heat? Given that there are massive reports of it, widely published, from hundreds of research groups, 153 reports in mainstream journals as of 2009, there is only one sane way for you to
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: But Rossi is not a clear confirmation of any prior work, since we don't know what's inside. Sure he is. This is a confirmation of Piantelli and Focardi, and Mills for that matter. We know approximately what is inside: finely divided Ni and two other elements in trace amounts. Several reliable sources have confirmed that. I dislike the secrecy, for sure. It's Rossi's right to be secret. He has no choice. He would lose everything if he revealed the recipe now. He would lose years of effort and the opportunity to make billions of dollars. No one can blame him for being secret, although I do blame him for writing bad patents. Anyway, I hope Levi, Daniele Passerini and the others who witnessed the 18-hour test will give us more details. It says they will. Google translate: About what they are not branched [?] official report, which will instead be provided on the experiments that will soon be initiated in accordance with the Department of Physics. That will give us more to work with. It certainly eliminates any chance of stored chemical energy. I think the 30-minute run was beyond any real-world chemical explanation, but it was perhaps on the edge of some extreme techniques with rocket fuel. 18 hours completely closes that question, and several others. Here is a mistake in the Google translation, which I discovered looking at the original Italian. It converted Delta T into TD. The correct sentence should be: This was a test without steam (with the Delta-T deliberately well below those achieved last January 14). That's what Celani was looking for. That's good. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: At 12:47 PM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Jed Rothwell mailto: jedrothw...@gmail.comjedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Cude has added that he is not convinced that nuclear reactions in cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat. From my point of view that puts him in the category of creationists who are not convinced of the evidence that the world is more than 6,000 years old, or that people did not ride on dinosaurs. Points of view clearly differ. From my point of view, being convinced by flaky evidence like Rossi's puts you in the category of creationists, who believe in a young earth because of scripture. And I think the similarity favors my point of view. Joshua, don't be distracted. You are now entering You territory, the exchange of accusations. You don't understand Jed's position on Rossi, he's not convinced. He's aware of the problems and has documented them. He's examined some of them and has rejected some alternative explanations. From what I've seen, there are only two likely explanations of the Rossi demo: he's got a genuine nuclear reaction going, or he's got a sophisticated fraud going. And, frankly, I can't tell the difference. Can you? How? In both cold fusion and creationism, you have a small group of fringe scientists who adopt an idea in which they have important self-interest, and try desperately to prove its reality. That's a political description, polemic. Every researcher has self-interest in their field of research. Desperately doesn't describe the mental state of cold fusion researchers today. They aren't trying to prove that it's real. That happened years ago. You may not agree, but I'm telling you how they think. Do you know how they think? How? Have you talked with them? I've seen what they write. Practically every review is preoccupied with defending the reality of the field. I know you've read Storms' abstract to his latest review, because you are acknowledged in the paper. It's 2010, and most of it reiterates the reality of the evidence for the effect. That's desperately trying to prove it's real. Try to find another 22-year old field that adopts that sort of defensive tone in the abstract. You've missed something huge. Cold fusion is now routinely accepted as a reality by the peer reviewers at mainstream publications, and it is the purely skeptical view that is being rejected. On which planet? Cold fusion papers appear in a tiny subset of the peer-reviewed literature, mostly second-rate, non-physics journals. They do not appear in APS journals, and certainly not in the prestigious journals like Phys Rev, PRL, Science or Nature, where discoveries of this magnitude would automatically appear if they were accepted as a reality We could toss in the 18 experts of the 2004 U.S. DoE panel, though that was a review far shallower than the normal peer-review process at a mainstream publication. You have no idea what you're talking about. 18 reviewers met for a day; CF advocates gave live presentations, 9 reviewers had the literature for a month; Each of them wrote reviews longer than most reviews of published papers. It was a review, by any measure, at least 10 times deeper than the normal peer-review process at a mainstream publication. Those experts *unanimously* favored further research and publication, which is entirely contradictory to your confident assertion that it is only fringe 'scientists' who are desperately tryingto prove it's real. No, they did not. They rejected, unanimously, special funding for the program. That would be ridiculous if any of them held out hope for a real effect. The statement you refer to: The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. appears first to be a sop to the presenters egos, after the devastatingly critical review, but also a simple restatement of the mandate of funding agencies. They are not recommending more research, only that well-designed proposals deserve to be considered.
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
In reply to Abd ul-Rahman Lomax's message of Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:40:47 -0500: Hi, [snip] But the result that is known is that helium is produced, and the observed energy supports the conclusion that the primary fuel is deuterium. unknown nuclear reaction would bring us full circle. That is what Pons and Fleischmann actually claimed, not fusion.) [snip] Even hot fusion operates on tunneling rather than overcoming the Coulomb barrier by brute force. (The latter would require about 30 MeV). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
mix...@bigpond.com wrote: Even hot fusion operates on tunneling rather than overcoming the Coulomb barrier by brute force. (The latter would require about 30 MeV). You mean Tokamak plasma fusion on earth. Right? What about in the core of the sun? What mechanism operates there, if not brute force? - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
In reply to mix...@bigpond.com's message of Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:50:02 +1100: Hi, Sorry, for D-D fusion 30 MeV is wrong. It would take about 1 MeV. In reply to Abd ul-Rahman Lomax's message of Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:40:47 -0500: Hi, [snip] But the result that is known is that helium is produced, and the observed energy supports the conclusion that the primary fuel is deuterium. unknown nuclear reaction would bring us full circle. That is what Pons and Fleischmann actually claimed, not fusion.) [snip] Even hot fusion operates on tunneling rather than overcoming the Coulomb barrier by brute force. (The latter would require about 30 MeV). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
its no big deal... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th_aBzrV37M harry - Original Message From: Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: michael barron mhbar...@gmail.com; Rich Murray rmfor...@gmail.com; Rich Murray rmfor...@comcast.net Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 1:52:20 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device This list was formed to get away from the interminable, meaningless and unproductive debate between pathological skeptics and true believers. The list was formed especially to get away from the ego feeding pathological skeptics on sci.physics.fusion that filled the bandwidth and prevented meaningful discussion. That specifically included *you* if I recall correctly. Despite initial appearances, you haven't changed much in 15 years! In your false analogy, appended below, you are not the punchbowl. The turd floating in this punchbowl appears to be you! 8^)
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
At 03:28 PM 2/21/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: But Rossi is not a clear confirmation of any prior work, since we don't know what's inside. Sure he is. This is a confirmation of Piantelli and Focardi, and Mills for that matter. We know approximately what is inside: finely divided Ni and two other elements in trace amounts. Several reliable sources have confirmed that. Okay, to Jed, and perhaps to others, this is confirmation of prior work. But because it's secret protocol it's weak in that respect. I agree that the existence of (possibly) similar prior work is supportive, and is reason to be less likely to dismiss Rossi out-of-hand. I dislike the secrecy, for sure. It's Rossi's right to be secret. He has no choice. He would lose everything if he revealed the recipe now. He would lose years of effort and the opportunity to make billions of dollars. No one can blame him for being secret, although I do blame him for writing bad patents. Jed, you have pointed out that he may be shooting himself in the foot with his secrecy. It's just not true that if he disclosed everything he'd lose everything. It depends on how he discloses and to whom. His strategy might be reasonable. But a consequence of that strategy is that I'm not going to believe that Rossi is a demonstration of cold fusion. I'm not going to claim that it's fraud, on the other hand. I'm going to claim that *I don't know* and that I think I don't have enough information to decide. On the one hand, there are all the obvious reasons to be skeptical. On the other hand, there is what Jed has pointed out. Which is why I am *not* going to get into an extended argument over Rossi. Anyway, I hope Levi, Daniele Passerini and the others who witnessed the 18-hour test will give us more details. It says they will. Google translate: About what they are not branched [?] official report, which will instead be provided on the experiments that will soon be initiated in accordance with the Department of Physics. That will give us more to work with. It certainly eliminates any chance of stored chemical energy. I think the 30-minute run was beyond any real-world chemical explanation, but it was perhaps on the edge of some extreme techniques with rocket fuel. 18 hours completely closes that question, and several others. Again, depending on so many details about which we know nothing, so far, and may not ever know. I've argued that making a huge fuss over Rossi simply discredits the field, and I've hoped that reputable cold fusion scientists would be very, very cautious about Rossi, as most seem to be. Some of the damage will be done anyway. People are already using Rossi as an example of overblown, inflated claims. That could backfire, for them, but, then, if Rossi doesn't show up with his 1 MW reactor, we end up looking very foolish. And there are millions of reasons why some project like that could fail, *even if Rossi's demonstration was real*. Those who are using Rossi as an example of obvious bogosity don't care about future reputation, they will simply shrug it off and say, Okay, I was wrong, surely you can understand how shady this operation looked? And they'd be right! It looks shady! If someone trusts Rossi, thinks that his work is solid, great. Perhaps they should send him a check. If Rossi is right, he'll become fabulously wealthy, and might remember this with kindness. I just don't want to see cold fusion standing up with Rossi, in the firing line, depending on whether or not Rossi is real and useful. If Rossi produces and starts selling 1 MW reactors, and they work, I'll be happy for the world. And for him. If I wanted to place a bet, though, it would be on Rossi disappearing when the 1 MW reactor doesn't appear. Which may or may not mean that he was right. The world is complicated, and I don't pretend to have a comprehensive understanding of it. I'm not sure that anyone does. Just because you are paranoid does not mean that they are not out to get you. In Rossi's shoes, I'd be very worried, and I'd want to be connected to and working with as many people as possible. I'd want to make sure that my secret is not closely-held, that if something happened to me, it would come out. In many places, so that it could not be suppressed. I do *not* believe in a conspiracy to suppress cold fusion. I'm just talking about prudence, with something that the U.S. military has noted could be vastly destabilizing, economically. There are people who don't like destabilizing. Some of these people may have no scruples, and they have a lot of money and power, which they, big surprise, might seek to protect. I place high odds on disappearance because two different scenarios support it: Rossi is real and is disappeared, and Rossi is a fraud and disappears. As to the other major possibility, Rossi is real and we have a 1 MW reactor this year, well, I like that one, but not
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
At 01:41 PM 2/21/2011, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: I don't know about Joshua, but a report of an experiment with no details given sure doesn't convince *me*, but maybe that makes me a pathological skeptic, too, eh? Of course not. That was hyperbole on Jed's part. He might be right, if Joshua is very knowledgeable. He's, so far, parroting some pieces of the pseudoskeptical line, but that's understandable. After all, the pseudoskeptics dominated coverage in media for twenty years. However, this is what I find fascinating. If you just read mainstream peer-reviewed journals, you don't find this imbalance. You can find, in peripheral journals, tertiary references to cold fusion as being an example of pathological science, but these are not reports by experts in the relevant fields, they are people studying other things who use the example as if it were an established thing. But the thing is *not* established by what's in peer-reviewed mainstream journals. Quite the opposite. There is an *impression* that the rejection was established. That may have largely been created by the 1989 U.S. DoE review, which was highly negative in reality (much more negative than the report they issued implied, as to the strong majority position). That review took place only a few months after the announcement, before the positive replications started to come in! It was highly imbalanced, representing what seems to me like a somewhat reasonable skeptical position *at the time.* And then it was treated as if the conclusions were written in stone. And when it says that the experiment could not be reproduced -- which was true for a few months! -- that has been quoted over and over, long after it became preposterous.
Re: [Vo]:Counter-strike launched in textbook controversy
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:54:52 -0500: Hi, [snip] mix...@bigpond.com wrote: Even hot fusion operates on tunneling rather than overcoming the Coulomb barrier by brute force. (The latter would require about 30 MeV). You mean Tokamak plasma fusion on earth. Right? Yes. What about in the core of the sun? What mechanism operates there, if not brute force? - Jed Also tunneling. In fact temperatures at the core of the Sun are not as high as in a Tokamak, because in a Tokamak they are trying to achieve fusion at much lower pressure density than is available at the core of the Sun. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
Over the top funny! Thanks! My laughing was highly therapeutic! Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ On Feb 21, 2011, at 12:01 PM, Harry Veeder wrote: its no big deal... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th_aBzrV37M harry - Original Message From: Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: michael barron mhbar...@gmail.com; Rich Murray rmfor...@gmail.com; Rich Murray rmfor...@comcast.net Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 1:52:20 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device This list was formed to get away from the interminable, meaningless and unproductive debate between pathological skeptics and true believers. The list was formed especially to get away from the ego feeding pathological skeptics on sci.physics.fusion that filled the bandwidth and prevented meaningful discussion. That specifically included *you* if I recall correctly. Despite initial appearances, you haven't changed much in 15 years! In your false analogy, appended below, you are not the punchbowl. The turd floating in this punchbowl appears to be you! 8^)
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: If you examine what's being published, you don't find an attempt to prove it's real, not lately, anyway. You find, in primary research, reports of phenomena that imply reality, discussion of possible explanations that assume CF is possible, etc. In secondary reviews, and there have been nineteen published since 2005, you find acceptance of the phenomenon as a reality. The 19 reviews outnumber the primary research, an indication of a moribund field. The reviews do read like they're trying to convince, and not like the field is already accepted. The latest is Storms (2010) published in Naturwissenschaften, Status of cld fusion (2010). That review now represents what mainstream reviewers will accept. It represents what reviewers at Naturwissenschaften will accept ... in a review. The dearth of primary research in peer-reviewed journals, and the fact that Storms references, especially later ones, are mostly to conference proceesings, represents how little mainstream reviewers accept. There were many negative replications published. Later work shows that those replication attemps could be expected to fail to find anything, because they did not, in fact, replicate, they did not reach the apparently necessary 90% loading. At that time, 70% was considered to be about the maximum attainable. To go above that took special techniques that the replicators did not know and understand. Well, good. But this loading requirement has been known since the very early 90s, and still, in reviews as late as 2007, reproducibility of 1/3 is reported. And still they can't make enough power to power itself. If you want to know the opinion of mainstream science, there are generally, two ways. You can look at the results of a review panel, or you can look at what is being published in the way of secondary sources under peer review or under independent academic supervision. The 2004 DoE panel results completely contradict the impression you are giving, here, Joshua. Are you aware of that? If you want to know the truth, read the whole damn review, not just cherry-picked excerpts quoted from it by people who have an axe to grind! Read it, come back, and tell us. OK. I've read them. They are more critical than I expected. Only one of the reviewers (maybe a token believer, for all I know), found the evidence for nuclear reactions conclusive. Several, as we've discussed, found the excess heat results compelling, but most were pretty ambivalent about it. None found them sufficiently compelling to recommend special funding. The report criticized poor technique, poor documentation, poor identification of goals, poor calorimetry, poor experimental techniques. They concluded it is all more of the same since 1989. No progress to speak of. Not a ringing endorsement. Rothwell writes polemic. I would not claim that you are not a scientist because you don't believe anything. However, if you have become familiar with the evidence, which, to assume good faith, I'll assume you are not, and you cling to a *belief* that cold fusion is impossible and that therefore the levels of heat reported are impossible, I'd say -- then and only then -- that, within this field and this issue, you are not functioning as a scientist, you are functioning as a believer. I don't believe it's impossible, just highly unlikely. And none of the evidence I've seen is in the least persuasive. To repeat, after 22 years, if it were real, they could do better. But let's look at scientific progress in the last 22 years. In the field of cold fusion: score zero. In fields outside cold fusion: too much to list of course, but perhaps the sequencing of the human genome by what you call non-scientists tops the list. Eh? Cold fusion is probably the most difficult theoretical question to have been presented to physicists in the 20th century. Obviously. How do you come up with a theory for something that doesn't work. Nothing is more difficult than impossible. The fact remains, progress, experimental or theoretical, has been completely consistent with pathological science. None to speak of. Here is why fusion: in some experiments, helium has been collected and measured. Notice, one can run a series of identical cells, and only in some cells is excess heat seen. Miles, who was an original negative replicator covered in the 1989 DoE report, began to see results. In his ultimate series as reported by Storms (2007 and 2010), he found heat in 21 out of 33 cells. In 12 cells, he found no excess heat. Helium samples were measured by an independent lab that did not know which samples were from which cells, they did not know if the samples had shown excess heat or not. Of the 12 cells that showed no excess heat, no helium beyond measurement background was found. (This is far below atmospheric ambient, by the way). Of the 21 cells showing
Re: [Vo]:an unofficial Rossi E-cat test
It is a little unclear whether there will soon be a report on this 18-hour test. It may take a while. I have contacted some the people involved. They did say that if they write a report in English, they will let me have a few hours to fix the English before publishing it. That would help reduce confusion. I work mainly as a copy editor, fixing the English, punctuation and so on, but I do sometimes get a word in edgewise, suggesting to authors that they clarify a point or add some information. I think the first test was better than people realize, but the presentation was poor because the authors do not speak English well. As I told them, I sympathize. I have trouble writing reports in Japanese. (By the way, I sometimes have a back channel means of figuring out what Celani is up to. His English is hard to understand because he talks so much. I ask his wife Misa what he means. She's Japanese. She has some hilarious things to say about life in Italy. She should write a book.) The test took place at U. Bologna. On Rossi's web page they said earlier that tests would continue there, and by gum they did. I do not know if they are aware of the critiques here and elsewhere, but anyway, it seems they are now doing liquid flow calorimetry rather than phase-change calorimetry. I guess they heard directly from Celani when he was there. He strongly advocated that. It is just a matter of speeding up the flow rate. I myself did not think the phase change (boiling) calorimetry was a big deal. I discount some of the criticism of it. However, it is always a good idea to use a second or third method to measure the same phenomenon. Suspenders and a belt! So I am pleased they did this. It would be good to use an IR sensor to estimate how much heat the device itself is radiating. This report says 15 kW. My guess, or gut feeling, is that by increasing the flow they recovered more heat, losing less to radiation from the gadget. It was probably producing 15 kW in the first test too. The gadget does not look optimized to capture heat. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.netwrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 5:50 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by mass to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by volume. And since the steam is created in the horizontal portion, it is forced up 50 cm of pipe through liquid, which would presumably turn the liquid into a fine mist after a few minutes. The above appears to to be a typo. It was probably meant to say: One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by *volume* to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by *mass*. Well maybe a question of semantics, and some rounding errors. Try this: It takes only 2% of the H2O by mass, in the form of steam, to make up 97% of the expelled water by volume. For an input flow rate of 300 cc/min = 300 mg/min, 2% of the water by mass means .02* 300 = 6 mg water per minute in the form of steam. The density of steam at 1 bar is .59 micrograms/cc, so that amounts to 10,000 cc/minute steam. The remaining liquid, 294 mg/ min = 294 cc/min, therefore makes up 2.8% of the volume.
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
Joshua Cude joshua.c...@gmail.com wrote: Given that the experiments are working close to detection limits for helium, a little cognitive bias could explain the correlation. 1. They were not close to the detection limit. 2. As Abd noted, they were blind tests. So it would not be cognitive bias, it would be ESP. The rest of these criticisms were made back in 1989. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. You know nothing about this research. - Jed
[Vo]:Rossi credibility
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: Okay, to Jed, and perhaps to others, this is confirmation of prior work. But because it's secret protocol it's weak in that respect. It isn't all that secret. I have known that it is Ni-H cold fusion for a year, and people in Italy have known for 2 years. Groups there and in the U.S. are working somewhat frantically to determine what the other 2 elements are. One of them told me that they have achieved the equivalent of 800 W per liter of powder (with a smaller actual volume), which is not far from what Rossi reported. Ed Storms and others at ICCF-16 remarked that Rossi has already revealed the biggest and most important secret: that this can be done, i.e., that high temperature, high power density Ni-H cold fusion exists. Others will soon figure out how it is done. The situation is somewhat similar to what happened after the first use of atomic weapons. Scientists in Russia had detailed reports from spies, but even if they had not had these reports, they would have soon figured out how to make a bomb because the biggest secret was that you could make a bomb. Japanese scientists secretly figured out a great deal about it, hiding their research from the occupation. I agree that the existence of (possibly) similar prior work is supportive, and is reason to be less likely to dismiss Rossi out-of-hand. It is similar. No doubt about it. Assuming Rossi's claims are real, there is plenty of precedent for them. Jed, you have pointed out that he may be shooting himself in the foot with his secrecy. He may yet shoot himself. It is an awkward strategy that can only work for a short time. It's just not true that if he disclosed everything he'd lose everything. It depends on how he discloses and to whom. The only way he can succeed is with a patent. That's what I thought, and discussions with people in the know at ICCF-16 confirmed that. His strategy might be reasonable. But a consequence of that strategy is that I'm not going to believe that Rossi is a demonstration of cold fusion. That's rather short-sighted of you. You do not know what is going on inside a Pd-D cathode either. You can look right at it, and learn all there is to know from the ENEA database, but you still do not know. If U. Bologna publishes a more detailed, convincing report describing the 18-hour run, there will be practically no room left to doubt this. David Kidwell told me that if they could have the Rossi device in their 10 kW-scale testbed at the NRL, they could conclude within an hour that it is real, and they would not have to know the first thing about what is inside it. (The testbed is described in ICCF-16 paper ET01. It is way better than the U. Bologna calorimeter. It resembles the industrial-scale testbed at Hydrodynamics, Inc., which was designed by the Dean of Mech. Eng. at Georgia Tech. That system was bulletproof as far as I know -- and as far as the Dean knew.) Kidwell did say he would insist they conduct a test with Rossi not present. I think this is slight case of magical thinking. I do not see how a person standing in a room can affect dial thermometers and watt-meters. I'm not going to claim that it's fraud, on the other hand. I'm going to claim that *I don't know* and that I think I don't have enough information to decide. You will soon, if we get a better report from Levi. I think you can be 95% sure it is real now. The fraud hypothesis is awfully far fetched, and getter farther fetched with each new test. Frankly, I don't think it is worth worrying about. Again, depending on so many details about which we know nothing, so far, and may not ever know. What do you mean we Kemo Sabe? (Quoting the old joke about the Lone Ranger surrounded by hostile Indians.) I've argued that making a huge fuss over Rossi simply discredits the field . . . I don't see why. For one thing, other researchers are not responsible for what Rossi claims, except perhaps Focardi. Levi is not a cold fusion research. Or he wasn't before Jan. 14. Some of the damage will be done anyway. People are already using Rossi as an example of overblown, inflated claims. I don't see any damage. People will say that it is fraud or inflated no matter who makes what claim. Heck, they say that about Energetics Tech., even after SRI replicated them spot on with some cathodes. So far I have not seen any evidence that Rossi has made inflated claims. On the contrary, he said it was 12 kW and it was probably closer to 15 kW. That will not surprise anyone familiar with calorimetry. The method they used was very lossy, as I said. That could backfire, for them, but, then, if Rossi doesn't show up with his 1 MW reactor, we end up looking very foolish. I doubt he will complete that within a year! I am hoping we can persuade him to let the NRL and others test the smaller gadget. That's better than a 1 MW machine. More convincing, in a way. I sure as heck would not want
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Feb 21, 2011, at 1:40 PM, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net wrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 5:50 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: |One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by mass to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by volume. And |since the steam is created in the horizontal portion, it is forced up 50 cm of pipe through liquid, which would |presumably turn the liquid into a fine mist after a few minutes. The above appears to to be a typo. It was probably meant to say: One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by *volume* to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by *mass*. | Well maybe a question of semantics, and some rounding errors. | Try this: It takes only 2% of the H2O by mass, in the form of steam, to make up 97% of the expelled water by volume. Better. It is a matter of definitions. However, I think 2% steam by mass in your original statement means 2% wet steam that is to say 2% of the mass is water, 98% is steam, by mass. It wouldn't make any sense vice versa, i.e. 2% by mass vapor, and 98% mass in liquid. Such a 2% wet by mass steam takes 98% of the vaporization energy to create vs dry steam. What I provided were the numbers for 2% wet by volume steam, that is to say 2% of the volume of the ejected fluid being liquid. It is notable that the instrument used to measure dryness actually measures the capacitance of the steam, and capacitance is a function of the proportion by volume of liquid, not by mass. This is why I produced the formula and table that convert from portions by volume to portions by mass, back in January: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg41703.html That said, let's proceed on with your defined problem where 2% of the water is vaporized, i.e. the ejecta is 98% liquid by mass, 98% wet by mass. |For an input flow rate of 300 cc/min = 300 mg/min, The above should read g/min, i.e. grams per minute, not milligrams per minute. |2% of the water by mass means .02* 300 = 6 mg water per minute in the form of steam. Again, 6 grams per minute of steam vapor, not mg. |The density of steam at 1 bar is .59 micrograms/cc, so that amounts to 10,000 cc/minute steam. I used density of steam at 100 C and 760 torr: 0.6 kg/m^3 = 0.0006 gm/ cm^3 http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/DmitriyGekhman.shtml Metz, Clyde R. Schaum's Outline of Physical Chemistry. McGraw-Hill, 1988. The density of steam at 100 °C and 760.0 torr is 0.5974 kg m-3. This means the 6 gm/min represents (6 gm/min)/(0.0006 gm/cm^3) = 10,000 cc/minute, and we agree on that, so you used the rounded up number as well, plus for you two wrongs in units (mg/cc vs ug/cc, and mg vs g) made a right. The correct value for steam density is 5.974x10^-4 gm/cc, not 0.59 micrograms/cc. Maybe you mistook an abbreviation for milligrams for micrograms in some reference? The remaining liquid, 294 mg/ min = 294 cc/min, therefore makes up 2.8% of the volume. The proportion of liquid in the total volume expelled, given your definition of 2% of the H2O by mass is 294/(10,000+294) = 2.856%. The steam in this case is 2.856% wet by volume. It is also neatly true, that if the total volume expelled is 2% wet by volume, then the *vapor* by mass is 2.856%. If x is the liquid portion by volume, then x/((x+(1-x)*0.0006)) is the portion by mass. If steam is 2% wet by volume, then x=0.02 and the portion by mass is 0.97144, or 97.14%. It then takes only 2.856% of the heat to produce the wet steam vs dry. As a double check on concepts, if you plug x=0.02856 into x/((x+(1-x) *0.0006)) then you get 0.98. That is to say, 98% of the mass of the volume expelled is water, and 2% steam - your starting assumptions. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
RE: [Vo]:an unofficial Rossi E-cat test
From Jed, It is a little unclear whether there will soon be a report on this 18-hour test. It may take a while. I have contacted some the people involved. They did say that if they write a report in English, they will let me have a few hours to fix the English before publishing it. That would help reduce confusion. I work mainly as a copy editor, fixing the English, punctuation and so on, but I do sometimes get a word in edgewise, suggesting to authors that they clarify a point or add some information. I'm back from the front lines. You stated ...IF they write a report in English,... . . . IF??? . . . Most certainly those folks at U of Bologna will write their initial report in the native language tongue, Italian. ...and they'll be damned well PROUD of it too! But to seemingly leave it up in the air as to whether they would (or might not) translate it into ENGLISH Surely this was just a slight misunderstanding... a semantics issue? Inquiring Minds Want To Know! Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:an unofficial Rossi E-cat test
OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: You stated ...IF they write a report in English,... . . . IF??? . . . It was a quote from the correspondence. I was being diplomatic. I can't very well order them to write a report in English, so I said if . . . I am sure they intend to write a report in English, sooner or later. They said they would be pleased to have me check the English. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net wrote: As a double check on concepts, if you plug x=0.02856 into x/((x+(1-x)*0.0006)) then you get 0.98. That is to say, 98% of the mass of the volume expelled is water, and 2% steam - your starting assumptions. As a double check on this discussion, you should note that they have now run the cell with hot water only, no phase change, and they found it recovered even more heat than with the phase change. So this speculation about wet steam and greatly reduced enthapy is incorrect. Evidently Dr. Galantini was correct, and the steam was dry. Either that or these estimates of the enthalpy of wet steam are incorrect. I do not know which true, and it does not matter. A different method has now been used to confirm the original conclusion. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
On 02/21/2011 03:28 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: This was a test without steam (with the Delta-T deliberately well below those achieved last January 14). That's what Celani was looking for. That's good. Good? That's *great*! Is there a paper on it, either present or forthcoming, I hope, I hope? The presence of steam, and the absence of clear documentation of the dryness test which was actually done, along with the invisibility of the end of the hose during the bulk of the run, totally muddies the water. Flow calorimetry with water as the effluent (and, yes, with the brand and model of the pump given, to avoid squabbles over whether the guys in Italy know how to use a graduated cylinder and stopwatch) would bring the results pretty much within range of the term rock solid. (Only Mitch Swartz, with his widdershins-vortex anomaly or whatever it is he thinks invalidates all flow calorimetry, would object, I think.)
RE: [Vo]:an unofficial Rossi E-cat test
From Jed: It was a quote from the correspondence. I was being diplomatic. I can't very well order them to write a report in English, so I said if . . . I am sure they intend to write a report in English, sooner or later. They said they would be pleased to have me check the English. Thanks for the clarification, Jed. It is obvious that this U of Bologna report is greatly anticipated by many. May its contents find the appropriate readership that will know what to do about the ramifications. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On 02/21/2011 09:48 PM, Horace Heffner wrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 1:40 PM, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net wrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 5:50 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: |One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by mass to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by volume. And |since the steam is created in the horizontal portion, it is forced up 50 cm of pipe through liquid, which would |presumably turn the liquid into a fine mist after a few minutes. The above appears to to be a typo. It was probably meant to say: One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by *volume* to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by *mass*. | Well maybe a question of semantics, and some rounding errors. | Try this: It takes only 2% of the H2O by mass, in the form of steam, to make up 97% of the expelled water by volume. Better. It is a matter of definitions. However, I think 2% steam by mass in your original statement means 2% wet steam that is to say 2% of the mass is water, 98% is steam, by mass. It wouldn't make any sense vice versa, i.e. 2% by mass vapor, and 98% mass in liquid. But that last formulation makes perfect sense, I think, and is surely what Joshua wrote. In Joshua's scenario, each gram of effluent consists of 980 milligrams of liquid water, in the form of tiny droplets taking up just under a milliliter of total volume, and just 20 milligrams of vapor, in the form of gas. None the less, the 20 milligrams of vapor, being enormously less dense, constitute nearly all the *volume* of the effluent -- thus, it's 97.5% vapor, by volume, because the vapor is taking up about 39 milliliters of space, to the single ml being consumed by the liquid. By *volume*, this stuff Joshua is describing would be 2.5% liquid water, or, one might say, 97.5% dry steam. Only 2.5% of the *mass* of the water has been vaporized in this scenario, so the heat of vaporization required will be about 40 times *smaller* than that required to fully vaporize the water. What doesn't make sense? Is it that the expansion factor for liquid-vapor Joshua used is too large? Such a 2% wet by mass steam takes 98% of the vaporization energy to create vs dry steam. What I provided were the numbers for 2% wet by volume steam, that is to say 2% of the volume of the ejected fluid being liquid. I think you and Joshua were talking about the same thing, really. Or maybe I'm just tired. I should go to bed.
Re: [Vo]:What will convince Joshua Cude?
At 03:01 PM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: At 10:33 AM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:49 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: So I'm going to ask, as to cold fusion in general, what has been promised and what do promises have to do with science? A new energy source has been promised. By whom? Maybe you're new to the field. Well, not exactly. In 1989, I bought $10,000 worth of palladium, as a palladium account at Credit Suisse. That was a low-risk way to make a modest investment, in case this thing turned out to be real. Palladium is a precious metal, this was not a high-risk investment. If I'd been a little faster, I'd have made a little money, maybe 10% or 20% As it is, I broke even. The price went up and then went down. I concluded, with everyone else, that it had been a bust. And there the matter stood until the beginning of 2009, when I had independent reason to investigate. I bought all the books, including the ones by skeptics like Taubes and Huizenta, Close and Park, etc. Compared to your average bear, no, not new to the field. By now, intimately familiar with it. I was credited in the 2010 review by Ed Storms in Naturwissenschaften. Have you read that? Promises have been made by Pons Fleischmann first in 1989 (just watch their interviews on youtube, where they claim it is the ideal energy source: clean and unlimited and simple) and then by just about every cold fusion advocate since, including McKubre on 60 minutes promising cars that don't need refueling, Rothwell's entire book of promises, and promises from shady characters like Dardik and Rossi. There are endless promises every time the topic arises. Pons and Fleischmann made no such promise. They noted the potential, *if* this could be developed. Fleischmann wrote that it would take a Manhattan-scale project. This is not an easy problem. Unlike the original Manahattan project, there is no explanatory theory, making engineering extremely difficult. And that has nothing to do with the science. It certainly has nothing to do with whether or not there is measurable excess heat, since we can measure heat in milliwatts and the experiments often generate heat in the 5 or 10 watt range, sometimes much more. Sometimes the heat generated is well in excess of all energy put in to electrolyse the deuterium. In gas-loading experiments, there is no input energy, beyond the natural heat of formation of palladium deuteride. I.e., we definitely get excess heat, over input energy, with gas-loading, but this is still small, overall, and it's difficult to scale. This is where a lot of current work has gone. And, I'll ask again, What to promises [and speculations] have to do with science? I'm not sure what you're getting at. Many scientific breakthroughs and inventions are associated with the promise of benefits to mankind. Insulin promised to save the lives of diabetics, and delivered; high temp superconductors promised cheaper magnets, but have not delivered (yet). Cold fusion promised abundant, clean energy, and has not delivered. Sure. But, again, that has nothing to do with the science. Phenomena have been discovered and accepted, sometimes, for a century before appplications became possible. Quite simply, that an effect is commercializable -- or not -- could affect decisions about research funding, for sure, but it has nothing to do with whether it is real or not. Agree? Cold fusion is a natural phenomenon, it promises nothing unless a way can be found to make it happen reliably and with sufficient return on energy input to cover losses. Well, yes, but there are many claims of reliability (100%) with huge returns (10, 20, even hundreds), but still no delivery on the promise. There is a single, easily-describable, repeatable experiment. It has nothing to do with huge returns, which are, themselves, anomalous, i.e., generally not repeatable. It is pure science, i.e., it establishes that there is an effect, excess heat correlated with helium. You do, I hope, understand that correlation can establish this kind of thing even if the effect itself is quite unreliable. Right? Muon-catalyzed fusion, when discovered, was first thought to be a possible energy source. That remains as a possibility, but, the problem was, nobody knows how to make muons and keep them active long enough to recover the energy cost. Muon-catalyzed fusion was discovered by the associated radiation (neutrons). Cold fusion was claimed on the basis of excess energy. That's a big difference. If you start with excess energy, then there's no need to find a way to get excess energy. No, muon-catalyzed fusion was predicted first, before it was confirmed. Yes, it was then confirmed through neutrons, I understand. Cold
Re: [Vo]:an unofficial Rossi E-cat test
This morning I have received this from Giuseppe Levi re this test : Average flux in that test was 1 liter per second (measured by me many times during the test). No steam. MINIMUM power measured was 15 kW for 18h. 0.4g H2 consumed. This means that a 270 kWh = 972 MJ where at least produced. This is an under estimation. As I wrote in my Ego-Out blog 2011 is a very bad year for skeptics. By the way Bob Park is ignoring the subject with great enthusiasm. Peter On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 5:49 AM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: From Jed: It was a quote from the correspondence. I was being diplomatic. I can't very well order them to write a report in English, so I said if . . . I am sure they intend to write a report in English, sooner or later. They said they would be pleased to have me check the English. Thanks for the clarification, Jed. It is obvious that this U of Bologna report is greatly anticipated by many. May its contents find the appropriate readership that will know what to do about the ramifications. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
Re: [Vo]:Revised version Celani reports on gamma emission from Rossi device
On Feb 21, 2011, at 6:50 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: On 02/21/2011 09:48 PM, Horace Heffner wrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 1:40 PM, Joshua Cude wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net wrote: On Feb 21, 2011, at 5:50 AM, Joshua Cude wrote: |One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by mass to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by volume. And |since the steam is created in the horizontal portion, it is forced up 50 cm of pipe through liquid, which would |presumably turn the liquid into a fine mist after a few minutes. The above appears to to be a typo. It was probably meant to say: One should also bear in mind that it takes only 2% steam by *volume* to make up 97.5% of the expelled fluid by *mass*. | Well maybe a question of semantics, and some rounding errors. | Try this: It takes only 2% of the H2O by mass, in the form of steam, to make up 97% of the expelled water by volume. Better. It is a matter of definitions. However, I think 2% steam by mass in your original statement means 2% wet steam that is to say 2% of the mass is water, 98% is steam, by mass. It wouldn't make any sense vice versa, i.e. 2% by mass vapor, and 98% mass in liquid. But that last formulation makes perfect sense, I think, .. and I said I thought it was better. and is surely what Joshua wrote. In Joshua's scenario, each gram of effluent consists of 980 milligrams of liquid water, in the form of tiny droplets taking up just under a milliliter of total volume, and just 20 milligrams of vapor, in the form of gas. None the less, the 20 milligrams of vapor, being enormously less dense, constitute nearly all the volume of the effluent -- thus, it's 97.5% vapor, by volume, because the vapor is taking up about 39 milliliters of space, to the single ml being consumed by the liquid. By volume, this stuff Joshua is describing would be 2.5% liquid water, or, one might say, 97.5% dry steam. Only 2.5% of the mass of the water has been vaporized in this scenario, so the heat of vaporization required will be about 40 times smaller than that required to fully vaporize the water. What doesn't make sense? Is it that the expansion factor for liquid-vapor Joshua used is too large? No, it is a matter of definitions, as I said. Such a 2% wet by mass steam takes 98% of the vaporization energy to create vs dry steam. What I provided were the numbers for 2% wet by volume steam, that is to say 2% of the volume of the ejected fluid being liquid. I think you and Joshua were talking about the same thing, really. Yes, I merely pointed out what appeared to be a typo - of the kind I make often, exchanging terms. Or maybe I'm just tired. I should go to bed. I think Joshua and I both have a grasp on the basic principles involved, and both of us know it. I provided both forwards and backwards calculations of the values in question (but which were unfortunately cut above), so that should be good enough to demonstrate that I understand the principles I think. Below are the values discussed regarding this experiment in tabular form. Liquid LiquidGas PortionPortion Portion by Volume by Mass by Mass - --- --- 0.010 0.9439 0.0560 0.020 0.971440.02856 0.028560.98 0.02 The problem, to me, centered on the meaning of 2% steam. When this phrase is used it typically (AFAIK) means 2% wet steam, i.e 2% of the steam is water. That can be by 2% water of total mass or 2% water of total volume, but I think is usually expressed in terms of water by mass. Therefore, when I saw 2% steam by mass, it appeared Joshua was talking about 2% water by mass, and 98% vapor by mass. I doubt that anyone normally talks abut 98% steam, especially when talking about dry steam, because that quickly will be pure water, i.e. it is 98% water by mass, and probably unmistakable to the eye as dry steam. In the case of Rossi's experiment there was some doubt and discussion about how accurate the measurement could be, because the value was determined by steam capacitance, and thus might be by volume. All talk of relative humidity (RH), which the instrument actually measured in a limited range which did not include 99-100%, seemed nonsensical when applied to dry steam. A 1% error by volume could mean a 94.4% error in heat, and the instrument was rated as only 2.7% accurate in its valid range. In any case Joshua's statement did not make sense to me as written, but made total sense as corrected, given a very small error in the third place. Note in the table that 2% steam by volume is coincidentally 97.144 % steam by mass (but not 98% or 97.5%). That is to say, if 2% of the *volume* of the H2O is liquid, then 97.144% of the H2O is liquid by mass. This matches up very well with what Joshua
