Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 9:17 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: the tobacco industry stopped cancer research; No, they didn't. They slowed down public acceptance of the danger, and government action against smoking. But from the earliest evidence, the medical establishment accepted the link between smoking and cancer. No one denies that industries will lobby against measures that hurt their profit. That's not the same as scientists lobbying against the reality of a phenomenon. Scientists' can't buy ferraris with their grants. And switching research areas will ordinarily not impact their personal wealth. In fact, switching away from a field which will be obsoleted by a new phenomenon is probably better for their careers. Certainly, suppressing a field that turns out to save mankind will no look good on anyone's nomination for a nobel prize. All these lame examples, which bear almost no resemblance to cold fusion, are just excuses made by a lot of people who really wish cold fusion were true. Or as Randi put it, who *need* it to be true. Heck, Microsoft squashed a large fraction of the reliable PC software in the 1980s, replacing it with dreck. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world mainly by suppressing good ideas and good products such as WordPerfect. He still has the money, although he is presently at a trial testifying about WordPerfect. Lamest comparison yet. Competition between software? How is that like the discovery of new phenomena? For one thing they'll always triumph if they're real. That is incorrect. In most cases, when a discovery such as the transistor is revealed, a careful search of the literature shows that it has been discovered and forgotten many times in the past. Not in areas where hundreds of scientists are searching for it relentlessly, like in cold fusion. Heat of the sort claimed, and radiation, and transmutation can not stay hidden for decades unless it's not real. And not in areas where the result is revolutionary, like cold fusion would be. And the transistor was not discovered and forgotten many times. There were related patents written in the 20s, but almost no activity. When people worked on it in the 40s, it took only a few years to a clear demonstration of amplification. That is also impossible to test or falsify. How can you be sure that nothing has been lost? You can't of course, but if it were common, some things rejected as bogus by mainstream for decades would be vindicated. That has happened rarely, and mainly in fields like geology, cosmology, and paleontology, all of which are greedy with data. It is almost unheard of for bench top experiments in the physical sciences, especially when the observables are simple like heat and radiation.
[Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
[Someone here found Mr. Cage's e-mail address, and suggested I contact him about the memo. I just sent him this message.] Subject: Do you recall the intent of this memo? Dear Mr. Cage, I run an online library of scientific papers about cold fusion. We have a bibliography of 3000 papers and 1200 full text papers. Our sources include: * Roughly 1300 peer-reviewed journal papers copied from the library at Los Alamos * 2000 other papers from conference proceedings, and various organizations such as EPRI, the NSF, the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, the U.S. Navy and so on. Most of the documents in the bibliography are scientific papers, but we also list a few dozen newspaper articles, some memos from the Department of Energy, and one memo written by you. I recently uploaded it here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CageKmemorandum.pdf This memo is a little mystifying. You instruct Patent Office employees to gather together applications relating to cold fusion. You do not say what they were supposed to do with these applications. It has been a long time since you wrote this, but do you recall your intent? Since 1989, the /de facto/ policy of the patent office has been to reject all applications related cold fusion without review. I know many researchers who have applied for patents, including Fleischmann and Pons. They have all been sent a form letter claiming that cold fusion does not exist, citing the New York Times articles from 1989 and other mass media sources to back up this claim. So I assume the purpose of this memo was to gather the applications in one place so they could be conveniently rejected. However, I do not know this. As far as I know the Patent Office has never publicly stated it is their policy to reject cold fusion applications. On the other hand, they only accepted one, from Patterson. That was apparently accepted by accident, because Patterson did not mention cold fusion. If you have any comments about this memo or you would like to explain something to our readers about it, please feel free to send me some text. I will add this text to the document verbatim. This website attracts many serious readers. Since we began, people have visited 2.6 million times and have downloaded just over 2 million papers. Lately, people have been downloading 6,000 to 8,000 papers a week. Most of our readers are professional scientist. The papers are technical and members of the general public have no interest in them. Readers communicate with me from time to time asking for additional information and sending corrections and additional material, so I know that our readers come from universities and national laboratories worldwide. I expect there will be lively interest in your memo. So if you would like to clarify things or set the record straight please feel free to send me some additional text for the file. Sincerely, Jed Rothwell
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: [Someone here found Mr. Cage's e-mail address, and suggested I contact him about the memo. I just sent him this message.] Subject: Do you recall the intent of this memo? Dear Mr. Cage, I gather this is a personal email address? After all, I wouldn't expect him to be working in that job still after almost 23 years. T
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: I gather this is a personal email address? After all, I wouldn't expect him to be working in that job still after almost 23 years. Correct. He is an impressive person: http://www.mwe.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/bios.detail/object_id/5d0d6832-8ef7-4c07-a4fc-3cdc7af64f90.cfm Apart from this incident, I expect he has had an exemplary career. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
The memo is from 1989. That was when PF's cold fusion was popular and the patent office probably got many thousands of applications in a huge flood. They would have had to organize a method of segregating them out and assigning them to specialists who had familiarized themselves with patent issues in the field. I suspect that's what the memo was about rather than some nefarious plot by some unknown entity to suppress cold fusion patents. I further suspect that there are few cold fusion patents because the applications did not meet the patent's office requirements to award a patent. I doubt very much that there is some conspiracy against cold fusion. The patent office decisions can be appealed and if the appeal fails, I'm pretty sure that they can be sued. In any case, there's the press and the internet. If there was merit to a lucrative cold fusion patent the patent office refused to grant, I would guess some deep pockets could be found to fund a popular appeal as well as a law suit.
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: They would have had to organize a method of segregating them out and assigning them to specialists who had familiarized themselves with patent issues in the field. I suspect that's what the memo was about rather than some nefarious plot by some unknown entity to suppress cold fusion patents. The Patent Office did, in fact, suppress cold fusion applications in 1989. They still do. This is not debatable. All applications are summarily rejected with a form letter that cites mass media reports from 1989 as proof the effect does not exist. Whether this is done by a nefarious plot or whether this open policy within the Patent Office I cannot say. I don't see why it matters. If it is an open policy I cannot find it on their website. I wrote a Cage to see whether he can shed any light on the subject, not to have him confirm or deny the policy. The *de facto* policy is there for everyone to see. It would be ridiculous to deny it exists. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: The Patent Office did, in fact, suppress cold fusion applications in 1989. They still do. This is not debatable. All applications are summarily rejected with a form letter that cites mass media reports from 1989 as proof the effect does not exist. Whether this is done by a nefarious plot or whether this open policy within the Patent Office I cannot say. I don't see why it matters. It is not in the interest of the US Patent Office or the US government to suppress cold fusion devices -- to the contrary, discovery of a robust energy generator that worked with cold fusion would be spectacular for the economy of the US and would reduce or eliminate dependence on foreign oil, one of the Obama administration's most pressing issues. I'd like to see that form letter they send out. Anyone have a copy or a link?
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
It is not in the interest of the US Patent Office or the US government to suppress cold fusion devices -- to the contrary, discovery of a robust energy generator that worked with cold fusion would be spectacular for the economy of the US and would reduce or eliminate dependence on foreign oil, one of the Obama administration's most pressing issues. I'd like to see that form letter they send out. Anyone have a copy or a link? Does anyone remember this? In 2002, (or thereabouts), Randell Mills applied for a patent for his method of creating heat with a device in a similar fashion to the method that Rossi is using, and his patent was accepted to the point that they were going to issue it, until Robert Park pointed out that it was a type of cold fusion device. At that point, Mills, who had been out happily showing others how to replicate his work, canceled all demonstrations and assistance, and stopped revealing trade secrets. Craig
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: Does anyone remember this? In 2002, (or thereabouts), Randell Mills applied for a patent for his method of creating heat with a device in a similar fashion to the method that Rossi is using, and his patent was accepted to the point that they were going to issue it, until Robert Park pointed out that it was a type of cold fusion device. At that point, Mills, who had been out happily showing others how to replicate his work, canceled all demonstrations and assistance, and stopped revealing trade secrets. It's worth noting that Mills has not shown any working device since and there has been no independent replication of his work. Mills asked Rowan U to measure the energy output of his magic sauce which turned out to be considerable, if one believes them. However, I know of no experiment to restore that sauce. For all that can be confirmed, even if Rowan U's information is correct, all that has been shown is a method of maybe storing energy-- not producing it from hydrinos. It's the same story as with free energy claims: want respect? CLOSE THE LOOP. Eventually, that applies to Rossi's claims as well. He could feed output heat back to the input through a flow controller and run without any electrical heat input energy indefinitely after the initial startup. He has never explained why he doesn't do that.
RE: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
Craig, I think it was earlier than that, and you could be referring to Dr. Peter Zimmerman, not Park. Robin may remember this incident, as it was reported on HSG forum some years ago. If memory serves, at the time this person (either Park of PZ or someone else) protested vehemently - not only to the patent office --- but also to a number of political connections, including Maddy (cojones) Albright - since he may have had some appointed position with State - but ... AT THE SAME TIME, the complainer in question had a young relative (possibly a son ??) recently hired to a generous position in one of the hot fusion-related programs. (no indication that it was a political hire, and maybe it wasn't). Needless to say, protecting cushy family jobs was not disclosed, in the interest of fairness. However, this seems to be a typical motivation for Ivy League techno-hegemonists with connections to hot fusion ... Excuse me if I have identified the wrong whiner ... there are a large number of candidates besides these two ... -Original Message- From: Craig Haynie Does anyone remember this? In 2002, (or thereabouts), Randell Mills applied for a patent for his method of creating heat with a device in a similar fashion to the method that Rossi is using, and his patent was accepted to the point that they were going to issue it, until Robert Park pointed out that it was a type of cold fusion device. At that point, Mills, who had been out happily showing others how to replicate his work, canceled all demonstrations and assistance, and stopped revealing trade secrets. Craig
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 1:18 PM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: Needless to say, protecting cushy family jobs was not disclosed, in the interest of fairness. However, this seems to be a typical motivation for Ivy League techno-hegemonists with connections to hot fusion ... I disagree. Nobody can protect their jobs by suppressing the greatest discoveries of the last century. For one thing they'll always triumph if they're real. For another, falsely suppressing a valid technology will destroy a career far faster and more definitively than promoting a scammy one. We seem to live in very different realities. Can you imagine being the person who tried to stop something extravagantly wonderful for the society or your country when all the facts were there for you to embrace it? I suppose there could be a very rare exception but in general, the idea that people will suppression wonderful new discoveries, in the presence of excellent evidence, to protect jobs sounds to me like paranoid nonsense.
Re: [Vo]:Message sent to Kenneth Cage
Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: I disagree. Nobody can protect their jobs by suppressing the greatest discoveries of the last century. Lots of people made tons of money suppressing the greatest discoveries of the last century! The dairy industry suppressed pasteurization from 1860 to 1917; the tobacco industry stopped cancer research; everyone ganged up to prevent H. pylori and the MRI. Okay, they failed in the end, but none of those people suffered. Some of them are still in charge of major institutions, and still making a killing. Heck, Microsoft squashed a large fraction of the reliable PC software in the 1980s, replacing it with dreck. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world mainly by suppressing good ideas and good products such as WordPerfect. He still has the money, although he is presently at a trial testifying about WordPerfect. For one thing they'll always triumph if they're real. That is incorrect. In most cases, when a discovery such as the transistor is revealed, a careful search of the literature shows that it has been discovered and forgotten many times in the past. See: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcomparison.pdf That is also impossible to test or falsify. How can you be sure that nothing has been lost? If something was lost, you wouldn't know about it, would you? Everyone who is not here please raise your hand. For all you know, 99% of good ideas are strangled in the crib, as Townes put it, when opponents tried to prevent him from developing the maser. Learn some history. Learn some logic. - Jed
