Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
On Feb 25, 2011, at 1:11 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Lots of people feel that way, and are doing similar experiments. As far as I know, Brian Ahern is leading the pack. Ask him for some of his material. He was one of these people who made a large impact at ICCF-16 without being there. What impact did Brian Ahern make on ICCF-16? There was no paper of his presented, at least not in the abstracts. Was it talk regarding his Pd-Ni-Zr oxide composite “PNZ2B” used by Kitamura1 et al? Unpublished recent experimental results? Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net wrote: What impact did Brian Ahern make on ICCF-16? There was no paper of his presented, at least not in the abstracts. Was it talk regarding his Pd-Ni-Zr oxide composite “PNZ2B” used by Kitamura1 et al? Mainly that. That was presented by Kitamura. Plus the fact that he is working on Ni-H. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
harry wrote: If the premises of the other side not understood or recognised then it may seem illogical. Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: Premises? No, just simple definitions. They're using well accepted and understood terms, and the definitions of those well understood terms simply rule out what they're saying -- it's as though they said, Black is really white. It's false, by definition. If they've redefined common words and terms, they should bloody well say so -- that's not premises which are in question, it's plain old communication. What they were claiming was silly. If they actually meant something else, which wasn't silly, they should have claimed that, instead. If they said something other than what they meant, is it the fault of the listeners that they weren't understood? You aren't listening now. Premises? No, just simple definitions. harry
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
From: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sun, February 27, 2011 9:45:55 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux Harry Veeder hlvee...@yahoo.com wrote: evidence is not relevant in this case; only if they can show that fixed-geometry systems with an electrostatic charge spontaneously warm up can they claim that something is doing work. That is like saying it can't be cold fusion because there are no gamma rays. I think it is more like saying X cannot be cold fusion because there is no evidence of change to the nucleus; i.e., no transmutations. Choose your poison. It is just rehtorical bluster. Also, their claim violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, as far as I can tell. so maybe the laws of thermodynamics are flawed. harry
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Jed and Stephen, - Original Message From: Stephen A. Lawrence sa...@pobox.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, February 26, 2011 1:08:21 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux On 02/25/2011 09:19 PM, Harry Veeder wrote: Jed Rothwell wrote: The worst example was the Correa claim that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. No, it doesn't! It isn't a little guy standing with his arms out. He claimed to have electrical evidence that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. I assume your rejection is based on a critique of the evidence rather then just the belief that it is physical nonsense. Actually, the problem is deeper and simpler than that. The *fact* that the Correas were off in la-la land on that one is based directly on semantics and pure logic, not on anything else, and that is why it's a fact rather than an opinion. If the premises of the other side not understood or recognised then it may seem illogical. Does work means something specific in physics: Work is force times distance. When distance moved is zero, work done is zero. work = force * distance (says Newton) The little man with his arms sticking out is also not doing work, no matter what you or the little man may think. Once again, it's the definition of work that tells us this. Now, before you say, Steve's full of it here, the little man's breaking a sweat I need to point out that a solenoid with movable core which is holding a lever in position -- say, for instance, holding the little man's arms in position (the little man is a robot in that case) is also *NOT* doing work despite the fact that it's getting hot. The solenoid in the robot, and the muscles in a human, DISSIPATE ENERGY. That's for sure! But they don't do work in the process; they just produce heat. Doing work produces kinetic energy; generating heat in a solenoid, or in a muscle, does no more work than dissipating heat in a resistor. Of course, whether something is doing work is also somewhat dependent on the point of view. At the smallest scale, the electric field in the resistor does work on the electrons. But in the macroscopic view, we get no work out of a resistor; we just get heat. You could, of course, argue that producing heat is doing work in that particles are being accelerated, which means force*distance is nonzero on those particles, which means, in turn, that work is being done. And that's fine, too, it's semantics and semantics are just whatever we agree on; this new, more complex definition of work looks something like this: work = force * distance + generated heat And once again, by definition, it's nonsense to say the electroscope is doing work, because not only is it just sitting there, it's just sitting there at *constant* temperature -- it's not getting hot. Electrical evidence is not relevant in this case; only if they can show that fixed-geometry systems with an electrostatic charge spontaneously warm up can they claim that something is doing work. That is like saying it can't be cold fusion because there are no gamma rays. Now, it is quite possible that the Correas have REDEFINED work to mean something other than force times distance, or force times distance plus waste heat. In that case, they are just being unclear and obfuscatory rather than totally muddleheaded. But in the absence of some stated definition for the term work which includes stationary systems with fixed geometry, the simplest conclusion is that they're clueless. IMO that is just an excuse to dismiss their observations. harry
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Harry Veeder hlvee...@yahoo.com wrote: evidence is not relevant in this case; only if they can show that fixed-geometry systems with an electrostatic charge spontaneously warm up can they claim that something is doing work. That is like saying it can't be cold fusion because there are no gamma rays. I think it is more like saying X cannot be cold fusion because there is no evidence of change to the nucleus; i.e., no transmutations. Also, their claim violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, as far as I can tell. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
On 02/27/2011 08:55 PM, Harry Veeder wrote: Jed and Stephen, - Original Message From: Stephen A. Lawrence sa...@pobox.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, February 26, 2011 1:08:21 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux On 02/25/2011 09:19 PM, Harry Veeder wrote: Jed Rothwell wrote: The worst example was the Correa claim that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. No, it doesn't! It isn't a little guy standing with his arms out. He claimed to have electrical evidence that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. I assume your rejection is based on a critique of the evidence rather then just the belief that it is physical nonsense. Actually, the problem is deeper and simpler than that. The *fact* that the Correas were off in la-la land on that one is based directly on semantics and pure logic, not on anything else, and that is why it's a fact rather than an opinion. If the premises of the other side not understood or recognised then it may seem illogical. Premises? No, just simple definitions. They're using well accepted and understood terms, and the definitions of those well understood terms simply rule out what they're saying -- it's as though they said, Black is really white. It's false, by definition. If they've redefined common words and terms, they should bloody well say so -- that's not premises which are in question, it's plain old communication. What they were claiming was silly. If they actually meant something else, which wasn't silly, they should have claimed that, instead. If they said something other than what they meant, is it the fault of the listeners that they weren't understood?
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
On 02/25/2011 09:19 PM, Harry Veeder wrote: Jed Rothwell wrote: The worst example was the Correa claim that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. No, it doesn't! It isn't a little guy standing with his arms out. He claimed to have electrical evidence that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. I assume your rejection is based on a critique of the evidence rather then just the belief that it is physical nonsense. Actually, the problem is deeper and simpler than that. The *fact* that the Correas were off in la-la land on that one is based directly on semantics and pure logic, not on anything else, and that is why it's a fact rather than an opinion. Does work means something specific in physics: Work is force times distance. When distance moved is zero, work done is zero. work = force * distance(says Newton) The little man with his arms sticking out is also not doing work, no matter what you or the little man may think. Once again, it's the definition of work that tells us this. Now, before you say, Steve's full of it here, the little man's breaking a sweat I need to point out that a solenoid with movable core which is holding a lever in position -- say, for instance, holding the little man's arms in position (the little man is a robot in that case) is also *NOT* doing work despite the fact that it's getting hot. The solenoid in the robot, and the muscles in a human, DISSIPATE ENERGY.That's for sure! But they don't do work in the process; they just produce heat. Doing work produces kinetic energy; generating heat in a solenoid, or in a muscle, does no more work than dissipating heat in a resistor. Of course, whether something is doing work is also somewhat dependent on the point of view. At the smallest scale, the electric field in the resistor does work on the electrons. But in the macroscopic view, we get no work out of a resistor; we just get heat. You could, of course, argue that producing heat is doing work in that particles are being accelerated, which means force*distance is nonzero on those particles, which means, in turn, that work is being done. And that's fine, too, it's semantics and semantics are just whatever we agree on; this new, more complex definition of work looks something like this: work = force * distance + generated heat And once again, by definition, it's nonsense to say the electroscope is doing work, because not only is it just sitting there, it's just sitting there at *constant* temperature -- it's not getting hot. Electrical evidence is not relevant in this case; only if they can show that fixed-geometry systems with an electrostatic charge spontaneously warm up can they claim that something is doing work. Now, it is quite possible that the Correas have REDEFINED work to mean something other than force times distance, or force times distance plus waste heat. In that case, they are just being unclear and obfuscatory rather than totally muddleheaded. But in the absence of some stated definition for the term work which includes stationary systems with fixed geometry, the simplest conclusion is that they're clueless.
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Stephen A. Lawrence sa...@pobox.com wrote: I need to point out that a solenoid with movable core which is holding a lever in position -- say, for instance, holding the little man's arms in position (the little man is a robot in that case) is also *NOT* doing work despite the fact that it's getting hot. I used that example too, in the discussion with Correa. The solenoid in the robot, and the muscles in a human, DISSIPATE ENERGY.That's for sure! That's what I meant. Anyway, the electroscope is not dissipating energy. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: The assertion that a determined con artist can do this or that strikes me as inadequate. A con artist is not a magician capable of changing the laws of physics or magically influencing instruments. Uh, Jed, a con artist is indeed a magician, that is, someone skilled at the art of producing illusion. I meant a real magician, with supernatural powers. A mythical person. A stage magician is indeed skilled in the art of producing illusions, but these are optical illusions or sleight of hand tricks. They fool people. They cannot fool instruments. There are no examples of such a thing happening in the history of science, as far as I know. If you or anyone else knows of an example, let's hear it. Otherwise, please stop saying it can happen. There are examples of con-men -- not stage magicians -- who substituted fake instruments for real ones. There are also many, many badly designed experiments that were either scams, or tantamount to a scam. I have seen some. They did not fool me for a moment. I am nowhere near as knowledgeable as Focardi, Levi or Gallantini. The notion that you could set up such a simple, fool-proof first-principle experiment with them and have it turn out to be faked strikes me as so improbable it is not worth worrying about. Here is an example of an experiment that could be faked. Dennis Cravens proposed to use Pd-D powder to produce heat inside a thermoelectric device that would light an LED. Now Cravens is as honest as the day is long, and I would not accuse him of faking anything. But I told him that in my opinion this experiment would not be convincing because it would be easy to hide a tiny battery and thin wires in such a device, to keep the LED glowing for weeks. The set up would seem suspicious to intelligent people with a suspicious turn of mind. People such as Levi, who described prudential checks for hidden wires and the like. The point is, you can easily hide a thin wire to light an LED, but you cannot hide a wire that carries 130 kW. The nature of the Rossi test makes it impossible to fake. At least, that will be my opinion until someone suggests a plausible method of faking it. Just saying it might be fake does not make the case. Saying that stage magicians can fool watt meters makes no case at all. They can't. You can dismiss that idea. The kind of thing they do -- causing lions to seemingly vanish -- is not like fooling a watt meter or heating tap water to 40°C as measured by a thermocouple. Kidwell cited a display in Disneyland once of a hot tap and cold tap water that produced an sensory illusion that a third tap was at a different temperature than it really was. That would not fool a thermocouple. Hollywood special effects people could easily make a fake experiment produce hot water out of nowhere. But when you see their work up close, on the stage set, without camera angles or video special effects, the illusion vanishes. Their methods are blatantly obvious. Suppose you visited the stage set of 2001 Space Odyssey. You would not be fooled into thinking this is a real space ship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2001_CENTRIFUGE_SET.jpg Prudence and caution, that's all I'm suggesting. What's the rush to judgment? Either way? I am not rushing. I have been hearing about Rossi on and off for a year. Focardi and others I trust have been working with him for 2 years or more. I am all but convinced his claims are real. I have no serious doubts left, after the 18-hour test. If he were the first person in history to report Ni-H, I would have lots of doubts! Every individual experiment might have been deception. It's the combination, the multiple independent confirmations, that rule this out routinely. It is also the nature of the experiment. Some experiments are much easier to fake than others. Some, such as the first nuclear bomb explosion are absolutely impossible to fake. That was definitely not a chemical explosion, or an optical illusion. Rossi's tests are on the nuclear bomb end of the scale. Curiously, many experiments that today are considered conclusive were actually on the inconclusive or it-might-be-fake end of the scale. See the book The Golem. (Hmmm . . . It would not have been difficult to fake the first nuclear reactor, Pile 1 at U. Chicago. Most cold fusion experiments could be faked by me with no difficulty. I guess you could fake Pam Boss's neutron results with a neutron source.) This is being demonstrated outside of normal scientific protocols. There is a reason for those protocols. I'm also aware that Rossi has his reasons, which may be legitmate, to keep this secret. But the consequence of the secrecy is increased skepticism and suspicion. That's simply natural. It is natural. Also, his reasons are definitely legitimate. He has no patent. He stands to lose a secret worth hundreds of billions of dollars if the nature his material is
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
-- From: Jed Rothwell ..Subject: Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux ... Here is an example of an experiment that could be faked. Dennis Cravens proposed to use Pd-D powder to produce heat inside a thermoelectric device that would light an LED. Now Cravens is as honest as the day is long, and I would not accuse him of faking anything. But I told him that in my opinion this experiment would not be convincing because it would be easy to hide a tiny battery and thin wires in such a device, to keep the LED glowing for weeks. The set up would seem suspicious to intelligent people with a suspicious turn of mind. People such as Levi, who described prudential checks for hidden wires and the like. Jed, thanks for the compliment... I think Yes, it would be hard to fake much over 1kW... wall plugs being what they are, gauge of wires being what they are. (unless you used part of the plumbing as your current carrier). So it is becoming very interesting -if you believe any steam numbers over a few kW. I do not know what I think about Rossi. However, I am now clearing my decks and starting to work on a replication - the best I can without specifics of catalysts, operating parameters. I do feel strongly that someone somewhere MUST try a similar experiment. (replication impossible without Rossi telling all and that is not going to happen for a while) It looks like the lot may fall to me. I had been working with 1 -10 gram samples for gas loading. I will now be trying Ni powder kg + size samples. I am still trying to get the parts but after my lab makeover (the snow is melted and I am ready to go back to work), I should be able to dump up to 25 kW and remain at constant temp for the work. My real target will be in the 1 to 2 kW range but I want extra cooling- just in case. I still have to gather some bigger pumps, a large dewar, drill holes in the wall for extra water flow, and have a vessel machined ---Open lab, nothing hidden, pumping from barrel to barrel for short runs for reality checks, there will even be a place for someone to us a clamp on amp meter for the entire lab if they want... I figure I may have something going within a month or two with a little luck. Dennis Cravens PS. I could not get to the critical mass for Pd in my system to light the LED and could not sustain the sample at an elevated working temperature. PPS - for the curious few- I will be able to dump lots of heat since I live on a mountain stream and plan on using counter flow cooling on my outflow.
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Dennis wrote: Jed, thanks for the compliment... I think It was a compliment. My point about that proposed experiment was that it was not a good means of convincing skeptical people. That many not matter. No experiment can accomplish every goal. The LED experiment would be fascinating and ground breaking in many ways. Robert Park or Joshua Cude would dismiss it as a fake, but heck, I dismiss them as fakes. I do not know what I think about Rossi. However, I am now clearing my decks and starting to work on a replication - the best I can without specifics of catalysts, operating parameters. I do feel strongly that someone somewhere MUST try a similar experiment. Lots of people feel that way, and are doing similar experiments. As far as I know, Brian Ahern is leading the pack. Ask him for some of his material. He was one of these people who made a large impact at ICCF-16 without being there. He told me he will never go to India because someone he knows went there for a week and got some kind of infection. They couldn't cure it back in the States, and he died from it a few years later. Scary. India is pretty grim. But not as bad as China, in my opinion. Most of the people on buses and on the street seem in good shape, with nice clothes and cell phones. They seem busy doing useful work. They are as friendly as Italians. They also drive like Italians, only more so. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Lots of people feel that way, and are doing similar experiments. As far as I know, Brian Ahern is leading the pack. Ask him for some of his material. He was one of these people who made a large impact at ICCF-16 without being there. He told me he will never go to India .. - Jed Yes, I am in contact with Brian and have traded a few recipes. Dennis Cravens
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
At 04:07 PM 2/25/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: The assertion that a determined con artist can do this or that strikes me as inadequate. A con artist is not a magician capable of changing the laws of physics or magically influencing instruments. Uh, Jed, a con artist is indeed a magician, that is, someone skilled at the art of producing illusion. I meant a real magician, with supernatural powers. A mythical person. Okay. But my point remains. A stage magician is indeed skilled in the art of producing illusions, but these are optical illusions or sleight of hand tricks. They fool people. They cannot fool instruments. There are no examples of such a thing happening in the history of science, as far as I know. If you or anyone else knows of an example, let's hear it. Otherwise, please stop saying it can happen. There have been dramatic demonstrations, I've read about them, but I don't care to look them up. I'm simply going to assert that, given enough motivation, I could fake a demonstration like that reported. I'd have to have the motivation, and I certainly don't. I'm not interested in fake anything. If you think it could not be done, you are suffering from a poverty of imagination. Would it be easy? Not particularly. I'd want to control certain things, but they would not necessarily be obvious. Unlikely? Perhaps! But, Jed, there are plenty of reasons to be suspicious here, just general reasons. That there is this or that appearance doesn't prove things either way. There are examples of con-men -- not stage magicians -- who substituted fake instruments for real ones. There are also many, many badly designed experiments that were either scams, or tantamount to a scam. I have seen some. They did not fool me for a moment. I am nowhere near as knowledgeable as Focardi, Levi or Gallantini. The notion that you could set up such a simple, fool-proof first-principle experiment with them and have it turn out to be faked strikes me as so improbable it is not worth worrying about. I disagree, but do not know if we will have proof on this being such a case. If he comes up with the 1 MW demo, or even something lesser than that, which can be *independently verified*, great! That would prove that this was not a fake. Sometimes, however, a person believes that they are *just about to make it work,* and they need to generate support. So they fake it till they make it. That's the kind of thing I've heard about before. That's also happened with faked research results. The person believed that their results were real, but, damn it! something happened! Here, we can make this look better by a leetle data seelection. Nobody will notice, since, after all, my theory is correct. By waiting, I will be depriving the world of the benefits of this fabulous theory or process. Besides, I'm running out of money Probably, if Rossi disappears, we will have strong reason to think it was fake. Or is that just what the Repressive Power Cabal would want us to think? The arguments could go on for years Here is an example of an experiment that could be faked. Dennis Cravens proposed to use Pd-D powder to produce heat inside a thermoelectric device that would light an LED. Now Cravens is as honest as the day is long, and I would not accuse him of faking anything. But I told him that in my opinion this experiment would not be convincing because it would be easy to hide a tiny battery and thin wires in such a device, to keep the LED glowing for weeks. The set up would seem suspicious to intelligent people with a suspicious turn of mind. People such as Levi, who described prudential checks for hidden wires and the like. You are correct, and that is one reason why I don't place much credence in demonstrations. Arata ran a stirling engine. So what? You could run a stirling engine with the heat of formation of palladium deuteride. What if the deuterium simply has some delayed deuteride formation effect? I'm impressed more by calorimetry from techniques that are independently verified. Even if it's more complicated. When we know how to make stuff that can be scaled up, great. It has to be reliable, remember. Not some nice heat most of the time, then the damn thing melts down! The point is, you can easily hide a thin wire to light an LED, but you cannot hide a wire that carries 130 kW. Jed, you are setting too high a bar, making assumptions. Energy can be stored, for release upon a trigger. I'm telling you, the demo could be faked. Without collusion. With collusion, it gets much easier. Collusion can happen. It's possible. We are not talking the ordinary process of science here. We are talking about a staged demonstration under the control of an inventor/promoter/entrepreneur. There are reasons to be cautious. Very good reasons. Let's look at this in a year, okay? The nature of the Rossi test makes it
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Dennis wrote: Yes, it would be hard to fake much over 1kW... wall plugs being what they are, gauge of wires being what they are. (unless you used part of the plumbing as your current carrier). Ah! That's one I hadn't thought of. So it is becoming very interesting -if you believe any steam numbers over a few kW. You do realize, I hope, that the latest test had no steam. See the links at http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm. That was the point of it. Plus I suppose at 130 kW with the low flow rate it might have exploded. Ed Storms thinks the machine cannot explode. I hope he is right, but I would like to see much more engineering stress-test proof of that before the technology is deployed. The Jan. 14 test with steam was pretty good. A lot of the criticism of it was unwarranted. No experiment is perfect. Except in rare instances, an experiment will leave unanswered questions and legitimate doubts. I think the Feb. 10 experiment was a great follow up. It answered the open questions, and put to rest the doubts. It was exactly the right technique. Together they seem conclusive. Maybe in a few weeks we will think of some new legit doubts. One thing that critics should avoid is the I could do it better standard. Yeah, you could do it better. So could Levi and Rossi. Anyone could, with enough money and time and an ideal setting. The NRL test bed is a better calorimeter, and so is the one at Hydrodynamics in Georgia. But this calorimeter is not bad. I've seen worse. I have seen experiments that cost much more at top-notch institutions that were not as well-designed as this. Don't reject real world results because you can imagine an ideal result. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good (Voltaire's dictum). - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: There have been dramatic demonstrations, I've read about them, but I don't care to look them up. I'm simply going to assert that, given enough motivation, I could fake a demonstration like that reported. I'd have to have the motivation, and I certainly don't. I'm not interested in fake anything. If you think it could not be done, you are suffering from a poverty of imagination. Or a surfeit of experience. I have seen some of these machines in person, and read about many others. Not only would they be dead simple to fake, but most of them demonstrate nothing. Absolutely nothing! The worst example was the Correa claim that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. No, it doesn't! It isn't a little guy standing with his arms out. And their claim that a gadget placed in sunlight was somehow absorbing energy from somewhere other than the sun . . . I don't recall the details. I have never heard of one that presents any mystery or open question at all, except for one: the Papp machine that was apparently accidentally sabotaged by Feynman, when he pulled the plug on the control current. I have no idea what happened there, but I think Feymman was criminally irresponsible. The accident killed one person and severely hurt another. Would it be easy? Not particularly. I'd want to control certain things, but they would not necessarily be obvious. Unlikely? Perhaps! Impossible. Until someone can propose a plausible a way to fake the two Rossi demos, I will consider that impossible. Without specifics, the claim that it might be faked cannot be tested or falsified. I disagree, but do not know if we will have proof on this being such a case. If he comes up with the 1 MW demo, or even something lesser than that, which can be *independently verified*, great! This is about as independent as can be. The fact that he was standing in the room has no bearing on it. A person standing in a room cannot influence thermocouples or power meters, or make tap water feel like bath water. Or, if he could influence it, with secret hidden electrical controls or what-have-you, he wouldn't have to stand in the room. He could be a continent away, secretly controlling it by cell phone with virtual presence. Nowadays, being physically present or absent does not mean as much as it used to. That would prove that this was not a fake. Sometimes, however, a person believes that they are *just about to make it work,* and they need to generate support. So they fake it till they make it. That's the kind of thing I've heard about before. That's also happened with faked research results. The person believed that their results were real, but, damn it! something happened! Here, we can make this look better by a leetle data seelection. Sure, that happens all the time, but it would absurd to claim that happened in this instance. You are correct, and that is one reason why I don't place much credence in demonstrations. Arata ran a stirling engine. So what? You could run a stirling engine with the heat of formation of palladium deuteride. Yup. I agree with that. I think I even said that to Arata, which is one of the reasons he refuses to talk to me. The point is, you can easily hide a thin wire to light an LED, but you cannot hide a wire that carries 130 kW. Jed, you are setting too high a bar, making assumptions. Energy can be stored, for release upon a trigger. The Feb. 10 Rossi demo energy cannot be stored by chemical means. That is absolutely, positively, out of the question, amen. That was the whole point of letting it run for 18 hours. The energy to drive an itty-bitty LED for months can be hidden in a watch battery. I'm telling you, the demo could be faked. Without collusion. With collusion, it gets much easier. Well of course. You need not repeat that. If Levi is in cahoots with Rossi, the whole thing goes out the window. Heck, they might not have done the second experiment. They might be pretending. The only proof we have of it are a few numbers sent by e-mail. If Levi is in on it there are a hundred ways the Jan. 14 experiment might have been faked. Witnesses mean nothing. (I would like to know how they caused that burst of gamma rays that Celani detected.) None of this means anything if you do not trust Levi. I acknowledge that. I trust him. Skeptics outside of Sweden will not trust him, and they will not accept these results for that reason. Robert Park will dismiss Levi as a criminal and a lunatic. Joshua Cude will say he must be an incompetent idiot who can be fooled by some simple trick such as hidden wires or dry ice looking like steam. Cude has the notion that experts such as Jalbert are making obvious errors that any expert in tritium could find, but they haven't bothered to look because the data is marginal anyway and they moved on. A person who believes that should have no difficulty imagining it would be
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
At 06:20 PM 2/25/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Impossible. Until someone can propose a plausible a way to fake the two Rossi demos, I will consider that impossible. Without specifics, the claim that it might be faked cannot be tested or falsified. Why does this sound so familiar? Until someone can propose a plausible mechanism that will explain cold fusion, I will consider it impossible. Here, I'm merely asserting the possible depth of human ingenuity. With faking a demo, that is. I'll claim that faking a demo -- or maybe a couple of demos! -- is easier than discovering or developing what Rossi claims to have discovered or developed. I'll claim that the financial implications might far exceed in value the cost of corrupting an observer, if that were necessary. And, again, I need to emphasize, these are general considerations, not, in any way, a claim that anyone has committed any fraud or deception. I do not have any evidence of deception, and am only asserting a theoretical possibility. Nothing that I write about this should be taken as impugning the integrity of Rossi or anyone else involved. If I had evidence, I would disclose it, I'm not afraid of consequences from disclosing the truth. But I have no such evidence. What I can say is that I believe, were it necessary, that I could design a fake demo, given time and some funding. I don't intend to do this, just to win some silly argument. There are ways around all the objections I've seen, through a combination of methods. Barring something unforseen, we will have a much better idea in less than a year or so. I propose waiting to find out, eh? Meanwhile, how about an effort to point out to the U.S. patent office that their policy has been totally stupid and defeats the purpose of patent law, the encouragement of disclosure? At best, this is preventing Rossi from disclosing his invention, for fear of losing protection, and at worst, it would be providing cover for a fraud by legitimizing the secrecy. Bad idea all around. Tell me again, what is the harm of allowing a patent on a perpetual motion machine? If the inventor pays the fees? And the patent states, for example, that no proof was provided, that the issuance of a patent does not validate the alleged invention? Patents don't validate alleged inventions, necessarily, or, hey, would you like to buy a thin gamma-ray shield? According to this here patent, protection is guaranteed.
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
At 05:37 PM 2/25/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Dennis wrote: Yes, it would be hard to fake much over 1kW... wall plugs being what they are, gauge of wires being what they are. (unless you used part of the plumbing as your current carrier). Ah! That's one I hadn't thought of. This is my point, there may be a million things you haven't thought of. The suspicion of fraud is not controvertible without independent and thorough examination. In a way, it's totally unfair. It's like all the criticism of cold fusion that amounts to there must be something wrong. You were correct that this is not a falsifiable hypothesis. But it's not a scientific hypothesis, it is a principle of prudence. I would never assert that because there might be fraud in any result, therefore we should discard the result. The norm is, when there is full disclosure, to assume honesty and probity of reports. What complicates the matter here is the secrecy. This is not a claim that the secrecy is improper, only that it has certain natural consequences. Now, speaking about the plumbing, if this were copper tubing, it would make a very high-current conductor. But you would need two. One might use the offical power wiring as one side of a circuit, and the plumbing as a return. Suppose the plumbing was the ground side. It's exposed, but it would be safe, you could touch it. The power supply wiring, let it be silver wire. There are two or three wires, really bundles of wires, it looks like a normal power cord. Let the voltage be high. I bet you could run easily ten times as much power through it as you've been expecting. Or more. I'm not describing all possible details. Let there be some way of storing up energy in the device before releasing it, initially. So, say, you have a reservoir with water, and you heat that up with your current, to just below boiling. A membrane dissolves at a certain temperature and mixes this water with the rest of the water, which is connected to the output, which, until then, was just sending on feed water, low temperature, maybe rising slowly. Suddenly you have a rapid increase in temperature. Look at that power burst! And from then on, the thing runs from the input power, which I expect could be more than 10 KW. And that's as far as I'll go. I am not familiar with the exact experimental details. I just know that one could make a demo that would look mightly good, somewhat similar to what I've seen described. I'm not responding to the February demo specifically. Perhaps that demo could be explained by the input power trick described, alone, without the burst energy appearance from a hot water reservoir. I don't know. And, indeed, that's my point. No claim here of fraud is implied. The possibility of fraud does not, at all, imply actual fraud. The fake demo I'm describing would require special wiring and connection for the wall plug. That requires that the site be under control of the fraud. It would require a solid grounding of the water feed pipe. That might be easy to arrange, on safety grounds. It might easily be accomplished through the pump connections. A sophisticated version of this fraud would allow someone to test the plug with ordinary devices or a meter. Power electronics hidden in the wall would only kick in with high voltage when the demo load was presented.
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: Why does this sound so familiar? Until someone can propose a plausible mechanism that will explain cold fusion, I will consider it impossible. Wrong comparison. The comparison you should make is: Until someone can prove otherwise, I am sure that cold fusion is a mistake. If you have no evidence it is a mistake, that hypothesis is not allowed. No evidence it is fake, that hypothesis is out. Any hypothesis has to be supported by evidence. It is a positive assertion. It has no meaning without supporting evidence. It cannot be right or wrong. A plausible mechanism, on the other hand, is not needed to support an observation because the observation alone is the positive assertion. There are any number of unexplained observations. As long as you can prove cells divide, you don't need to explain the mechanism (DNA, in this case). As a practical matter, regarding this particular hypothesis, stage magicians do not have detailed knowledge or skill in physics or chemistry. They would not know how to do an experiment that would confuse a professor of physics. They do not know any special tricks with steam or water or some arrangement with wires or instruments that a professor would fail to understand. To suggest that they understand experiments better than professors is like suggesting that they could speak some sort of gibberish and fool me into thinking it is Japanese. They understand human psychology and perception. Humans do not perceive these effects; thermocouples do. Stage magicians do not know how to make instruments malfunction, or how to make computers record data incorrectly. An engineer or hacker given access to the instruments would know how do these things. That is a different skill set. It is at least plausible that Rossi has hired cat burglars who sneaked into the university and changed the watt meter and thermocouples to produce false readings. That is physically possible. The notion that a stage magician could accomplish something like this on site as the experiment is underway by swapping the meter when no one is looking is ruled out by video and computer data recordings. Tell me again, what is the harm of allowing a patent on a perpetual motion machine? If the inventor pays the fees? It would take up valuable time of Patent Office examiners. It would be like paying them to dig holes and fill them up. We should not ask professionals to waste their time doing pointless things outside their job description. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: Ah! That's one I hadn't thought of. This is my point, there may be a million things you haven't thought of. Nope. That does not work. A good experiment cannot have a million possible problems. If we had to think up a million ways that an experiment might be wrong (or fake -- pretty much the same thing) then no experiment would ever prove anything, and there would be no progress. A bad experiment can have a large number of possible errors (or ways to make it fake). The skeptical assertion that there might be an undiscovered error is fundamentally at odds with the scientific method for the same reason. If we allow this argument, then no issue will ever be decided, no experiment ever conclusive. There has to be a statute of limitations on critiques. Quoting Melich and Rothwell's comments on the 2004 DoE review: Some skeptics claim that there might be a yet-undiscovered error in the experiments. See the comment by Beaudette about this, above, if the measurements are incorrect, then an avid pursuit of the 'science' must in due course explicitly and particularly reveal that incorrectness. More to the point, the claim that there might be an undiscovered error is not falsifiable, and it applies to every experiment ever performed. There might be an undiscovered error in experiments confirming Newton’s or Boyle’s laws, but these experiments have been done so many times that the likelihood they are wrong is vanishingly small. Furthermore, skeptics have had 20 years to expose an experimental artifact, but they have failed to do so. A reasonable time limit to find errors must be set, or results from decades or centuries ago will remain in limbo, forever disputed, and progress will ground to a halt. The calorimeters used by cold fusion researchers were developed in the late 18th and early 19th century. A skeptic who asserts that scientists cannot measure multiple watts of heat with confidence is, in effect, rejecting most textbook chemistry and physics from the last 130 years. As a practical matter, there is no possibility that techniques such as calorimetry, x-ray film autoradiography or mass spectroscopy are fundamentally flawed. It must be emphasized that although cold fusion results are surprising, the techniques are conventional and instruments are used within their design specifications. . . . Flow calorimetry experiments similar to this, with boiling water or flowing water, have been done many times. The potential errors are well understood and their number is strictly limited -- unless you are aiming for the kind of precision SRI achieved. In an experiment with only 4 main parameters -- input power, inlet temperature, outlet temperature and flow rate -- the number of potential significant errors will small, and so will the number of ways deliberately fake data can be surreptitiously introduced. When the method is complicated, and the results close to the margin, with many parameters with, for example, the possibility of recombination producing a significant error, then there are many ways an error can creep in, and many ways to deliberately introduce fake data. Complexity and a low s/n ratio invite error, misinterpretation or fraud. This experiment is as simple as anything can be, and the s/n ratio is astronomical. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Jed Rothwell wrote: The worst example was the Correa claim that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. No, it doesn't! It isn't a little guy standing with his arms out. He claimed to have electrical evidence that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. I assume your rejection is based on a critique of the evidence rather then just the belief that it is physical nonsense. harry
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Harry Veeder hlvee...@yahoo.com wrote: He claimed to have electrical evidence that a stationary gold leaf electroscope does work. For the audience: this means it performs work. (The English it does work is confusing, as it could mean it does what it is supposed to do.) I assume your rejection is based on a critique of the evidence rather then just the belief that it is physical nonsense. Actually, it was mostly a discussion between Storms and Correa. I was mainly agreeing with Ed. As far as Ed and I could make out, the assertion was that work is performed by the gold leaf in the act of staying up, against the force of gravity. We pointed out a couple of problems, theoretical and experimental: The physics of this system are well known (better known to Ed than me!) and they do not include it doing work. Granted this boils down to the assertion that conventional theory is right and Correa's is wrong, but the point is, there does not seem to be a hole in the conventional theory. If it was producing energy, the gold leaf device would have to produce heat or an electric current or some other detectable source of expended energy, and there does not seem to be one. (In the example of the guy holding out his arms, he does do work, contracting muscles, and that produces heat. The electroscope is analogous to someone with his arms held up with ropes, or with a beach ball under each arm.) In other words, there does not seem to be experimental evidence of work. The electroscope performs work as the arms rise or descend. But not when they are stationary. That's our take on it, anyway. (Regarding an object suspended with a rope: it does, actually perform work, at extremely low power. It stretches out the rope, moving slightly, until eventually the rope breaks. It happens so slowly you could not detect the heat from molecules moving around or fibers breaking. It resembles the work done as a crack forms in stressed automobile glass. At a given temperature without rain or high wind, the crack forms and spreads at a remarkably even rate, very slowly, with some fixed number of molecules participating every day.) - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
I wrote: In an experiment with only 4 main parameters -- input power, inlet temperature, outlet temperature and flow rate -- the number of potential significant errors will BE small, and so will the number of ways deliberately fake data can be surreptitiously introduced. This is a bit like playing chess with only 4 pieces, a king and queen on both sides, and nothing else. The number of lines of attack are strictly limited. The problem is simplified. This is a key concept to computer security and program testing as well, as I expect everyone here knows. Limited, well defined inputs and outputs, and modularity. I did not mean there are only 4 ways to fake this experiment! I did not mean that every method of attack (introducing fake data) corresponds exactly to a potential error, although most of them are congruent. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
At 08:45 PM 2/25/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: Why does this sound so familiar? Until someone can propose a plausible mechanism that will explain cold fusion, I will consider it impossible. Wrong comparison. The comparison you should make is: Until someone can prove otherwise, I am sure that cold fusion is a mistake. If you have no evidence it is a mistake, that hypothesis is not allowed. No evidence it is fake, that hypothesis is out. Uh, Jed, what I wrote was about parallel language, familiar. You had written this: Impossible. Until someone can propose a plausible a way to fake the two Rossi demos, I will consider that impossible. Without specifics, the claim that it might be faked cannot be tested or falsified. I noticed the parallel between util someone can propose a plausible way to fake the two Rossi demos (your language) and what I've heard from skeptics, over and over, a drumbeat: until someone can propose a plausible mechanism that will explain cold fusion. Sorry, this is a report of a personal experience, not a claim of identity. I'm seeing a similar kind of logic. Until someone can prove otherwise, what you now introduce, is quite different. Any hypothesis has to be supported by evidence. It is a positive assertion. It has no meaning without supporting evidence. It cannot be right or wrong. Well, we can make hypotheses with little evidence. It is not usually none, even if the evidence is not stated. Stated as a hypothesis, it's correct, it cannot be right or wrong. Period. It doesn't matter if there is evidence or not! A hypothesis with lots of evidence can be wrong, and one with no evidence may be right. Lucky guess. But, as I said, no evidence is rare. Unstated evidence is much more common. A plausible mechanism, on the other hand, is not needed to support an observation because the observation alone is the positive assertion. There are any number of unexplained observations. As long as you can prove cells divide, you don't need to explain the mechanism (DNA, in this case). You are correct about not needing evidence for observations. However, the trouble typically comes in with the interpretation of observations. What we call observations are often complex conclusions, inferred or deduced from observations. There are degrees to this, in a sense every observation is an inference, indirect, at least as tranlated into language Very philosophical. All about pointing out that my general observation -- that word! is that it's possible to create very convincing fakes, often by playing on assumptions. Such as a limitation on power that could be transferred through a power cord of a certain size. Yes, I'm sure there is a limit, but a series of assumptions were made in Jed's comments on this, and magicians play on and use common -- but inaccurate under the special conditions of the trick -- assumptions of the observer. As a practical matter, regarding this particular hypothesis, stage magicians do not have detailed knowledge or skill in physics or chemistry. Oh, then never mind. Obviously, since Rossi has some detailed knowledge or skill in physics or chemistry, he culd not possibly be a magician. Uh, Earth to Jed! I'm talking about human ingenuity. Are you saying that Rossi could not possibly be ingenious enough to create a fake demo? They would not know how to do an experiment that would confuse a professor of physics. That's correct. It would take a magician familiar with physics, perhaps. Certainly that would be the case here. Ordinarily, magicians can fool physicists about as well as they can fool anyone else. But in this case, the fooling would be about creating an impression for a physicist, so, yes, knowledge of physics would be necessary. The demo would not be impressive to a short-order cook, perhaps. Or maybe it would I don't want to underestimate the capacity of a short-order cook to appreciate fine magic! [...] It is at least plausible that Rossi has hired cat burglars who sneaked into the university and changed the watt meter and thermocouples to produce false readings. That is physically possible. The notion that a stage magician could accomplish something like this on site as the experiment is underway by swapping the meter when no one is looking is ruled out by video and computer data recordings. Ah, if this demo was at the university and Rossi had no access to the power arrangements, his device was just brought in and plugged in, the speculations about wiring are completely off. This would take collusion or a cat burglar, so to speak. Could be done. I can imagine this as the plot of some TV intelligence agency mystery. But it all gets much more complicated. Factory demo, far easier. The thing gets much more difficult if that tin-foil thing was carried into a neutral site and the apparatus was plugged in. The
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
At 09:07 PM 2/25/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: Ah! That's one I hadn't thought of. This is my point, there may be a million things you haven't thought of. Nope. That does not work. A good experiment cannot have a million possible problems. If we had to think up a million ways that an experiment might be wrong (or fake -- pretty much the same thing) then no experiment would ever prove anything, and there would be no progress. This is a misunderstanding. There may be a million things we have not thought of. However, there is no requirement or necessity that we think of every possible error or artifact or -- in this case -- mechanism for fraud. With a single report, lots of opportunities exist for error or, yes, fraud. With many reports, and especially with independent confirmations -- as with helium confirming excess heat -- the possibility of artifact or error becomes more and more remote, until we routinely disregard it. A bad experiment can have a large number of possible errors (or ways to make it fake). A good experiment may also have a large number of possible errors! The skeptical assertion that there might be an undiscovered error is fundamentally at odds with the scientific method for the same reason. No, it's largely irrelevant to the main approach of the method. It's a reasonable operating assumption, for a time, with an extraordinary claim. As long as it is not forgotten that the task, then, is to find that undiscovered error, not to sit with assuming that it exists and then turning off the radio. If we allow this argument, then no issue will ever be decided, no experiment ever conclusive. There has to be a statute of limitations on critiques. That's preposterous, actually. Nothing is every finally conclusive. However, doubt recedes and becomes increaingly preposterous. My opinion is that cold fusion passed this point more than a decade ago, for those who were familiar with the evidence. Some may hold out longer than others, and I do not find that offensive, as long as it is not preposterously asserted in blatant contradiction to the well-confirmed evidence. Quoting Melich and Rothwell's comments on the 2004 DoE review: Some skeptics claim that there might be a yet-undiscovered error in the experiments. See the comment by Beaudette about this, above, if the measurements are incorrect, then an avid pursuit of the 'science' must in due course explicitly and particularly reveal that incorrectness. Yes. There was a major failure on the part of the physicists, to understand that there was, indeed, some unexplained anomaly here, confirmed as such, widely enough to not be easily dismissed as just one of those occasional mysteries that are never explained. They failed to be curious, a serious failure in those who love science; they failed because they had become attached to outcome, and to avoiding threats to the solidity of their knowledge. More to the point, the claim that there might be an undiscovered error is not falsifiable, and it applies to every experiment ever performed. It is not falsifiable, which means that it is not a scientific theory. That does not mean it is without worth. It is a routine application of ordinary prudence, to isolated observations. When the observations are no longer isolated, it is being applied outside its legitimate scope. There might be an undiscovered error in experiments confirming Newton's or Boyle's laws, but these experiments have been done so many times that the likelihood they are wrong is vanishingly small. That's right, which is why findings that those laws are not accurate under some conditions were accepted only because the necessary conditions were outside of the normal experimental range of all those many confirmations. Most experiments were not done with relative velocities that were an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, eh? With cold fusion, the skeptics claimed that a huge body of experimental work would have to be wrong if CF was real. That was pure fluff, bad reasoning. All that work had been done in a plasma, and the prior work with palladium deuteride was not, almost without exception, at loading above 70%. If, in some rare case, loading above 70% were reached, and there were some excess heat, it was probably not noticed, or was passed of as just one of those things that happen. Furthermore, skeptics have had 20 years to expose an experimental artifact, but they have failed to do so. I've made the point many times. A reasonable time limit to find errors must be set, or results from decades or centuries ago will remain in limbo, forever disputed, and progress will ground to a halt. There is no specific time limit. However, because experimental evidence has accumulated, because, many times, skeptics examined it, and tried their own experiments, but the Great Artifact was
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: That's correct. It would take a magician familiar with physics, perhaps. Certainly that would be the case here. Ordinarily, magicians can fool physicists about as well as they can fool anyone else. No doubt they can, but they cannot fool thermocouples or computers. Once the experiment is set up by the professor, optical illusions and the like can no longer disguise the course of events. I, on the other hand, can fool a computer. (Somewhat. Given enough time . . . Okay, I would know where to start.) If you are saying Rossi might be a master hacker and instrument wizard, you have a point. Yes, there are various lines of attack, if you have the resources of the FBI at your disposal, with technical experts in many fields. There are three stages open to attack: Before the experiment. A stage magician could not persuade the professor do the experiment the wrong way. Perhaps someone highly skilled in hypnosis could do this, with a post-hypnotic suggestion, i.e. after you awake you will forget everything that happened today, but when it comes time to do the Rossi experiment, you will use this thermocouple instead of the one in the cabinet . . . During. The instruments are in control, and impervious to illusions. After. A stage magician could not convince the professors to change their judgement or evaluation of the results. He cannot shake their professional competence in their own field. This mental ability that cannot be bamboozled by the techniques used to make tigers disappear from the stage. As I said, you can use rapid double talk or sleight of hand to do a card trick or to pick my pocket. You can easily fool me with the disappearing tiger act. But no matter how fast you talk or how dazzling your moves may be, you could never fool me into thinking you are speaking Japanese, when you are actually speaking gibberish. The sound effects guy on Prairie Home Companion does wonderful imitation French, Swedish and Japanese. It sounds like Japanese, and he mixes in some real Japanese words. It might fool someone who does not speak the language but it would never fool me, no matter how well he does it. You could never confuse a professor about physics or make him believe that 1 calorie does not equal 4.2 joules. But in this case, the fooling would be about creating an impression for a physicist, so, yes, knowledge of physics would be necessary. A physicist does not draw conclusions from an impression. He draws it from numbers recorded by instruments. You have to change the numbers, by hacking the computer, or pen recorder, or thermocouple. Yes, you would have to know as much about the experiment as the professor, and probably a lot more about the instruments. As I said, I do not think a stage magician has any relevant skills. An engineer or programmer would. Anyway, I think it is unlikely that Rossi has such skills or that he can pay others to execute nefarious hacking and the like. So unlikely, I discount that possibility. By the way, this is why it is absurd that Nature magazine sent The Amazing Randi to disprove homeopathy. He has zero qualifications. I once communicated with him for a couple of weeks regarding cold fusion. As I recall he and his supporters claimed he could find the trick and disprove it. I sent him some papers by McKubre (or maybe Miles?) and said something like: Do your worst. Where are the tricks? Show me the errors. What doesn't add up? It was apparent that he had no idea what the papers were about. Show him into a lab and he would not know which end of the calorimeter is up. You can't play a trick when you have no idea what the wires are or what the numbers on the screen represent. A mass media blowhard skeptic assured me he could find the trick. I pointed him to the 60 Minutes program and asked him what he thought Violante was doing (running a cathode through a cold roller), and what the various components on McKubre's calorimeter are. He had no clue. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: With a single report, lots of opportunities exist for error or, yes, fraud. With many reports, and especially with independent confirmations . . . This is not a single report. People have done flow calorimetry millions of times. Seriously, Prof. Levi did not invent the techniques used in this experiment. The content of the cell and cell behavior cannot cause the calorimetry to produce the wrong result. There is no need to know what is in the 1 L mysterious inner box. You can -- and ideally you should -- treat that as a black box. You should have no preconceived idea of what it will do. That is the best way to get the right answer. It resembles the blind tests for helium done on the samples Miles mailed to other labs. When the person operating the calorimeter knows nothing about the cell content that improves confidence in the result. The calorimeter will tell you more about what is in the black box than Rossi himself knows. It will reveal tricks such as a hidden thermal mass, or something warmed up ahead of time. That is what the instrument is for. Your assertion that this is a single result is like saying in 1989 we cannot trust SIMS mass spectroscopy when applied to cold fusion because SIMS have not been used for that purpose before. There may be some attributes of cathodes that call for special care in the use of SIMS. But this was not the first time people used SIMS. There are some aspects of doing calorimetry with electrolysis over several weeks that make it tricky, and different than calorimetry with other chemical reactions. But not that different. Not terra incognito, or unprecedented. This is also not the first time people have observed heat from the Ni-H system. For that matter, it is not the first time independent experts have worked with Rossi and confirmed his results. Of course it would be better if Rossi were not in the room, and better still if they could make the powder and gadget from scratch. But to call this a single report is exaggerating. For one thing, it is two reports, with steam and hot water. They are mutually reinforcing. Much better than one or the other alone. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
At 10:34 AM 2/24/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Rich Murray mailto:rmfor...@gmail.comrmfor...@gmail.com wrote: During a long meditation today, I wondered about the floor under Rossi's demo -- is there a space under it that could allow wires or thin metal tapes to carry 15 KW electric power from public electric power on a different meter than that for the building, with provision for delivery of the power up the table legs to the device . . . It would have to be 130 kW, not 15 kW. A 130 kW power feed is a large, thick copper wire. You could only make a tape capable of doing that with room temperature superconductors. If Rossi has found a way to do that, that would be nearly as remarkable as discovering a stable, scalable cold fusion reaction. He would deserve the Nobel prize. Why would he hide this accomplishment or pretend it is something else? Let's dispose of this immediately. An operating hypothesis that Rossi is a fraud cannot be dismissed by refuation of any particular fraud mechanism. This is why many -- including myself -- aren't ready to jump for anything that has not been independently confirmed, and not merely by observation of a controlled demo. Rothwell has assumed a particular voltage, in order to determine the feed size. High voltage could be used. Further, there could be a combination of techniques. I'm not understanding how one would need 130 KW to get, what was it, a 10 KW demo? But all this is beside the point. A determined and skilled con artist could arrange an appearance like what we have seen so far, it's simply not beyond possibility. As you see in the photos, what you are describing is impossible. The machine is sitting on a separate block of wood, which is place on the table at an angle. The machine is raised above the wood with a clear gap underneath. There is no place to hide wires. The two metal supports holding the device up appear to be ordinary metal, not some exotic superconducting material, so they are far too small to carry 15 kW, never mind 130 kW. Also, as Levi noted in the interview yesterday, he poked around inside the device and saw that it was mainly Pb shielding. He would have noticed hidden wires. I think you can safely put aside this hypothesis. No. Not safe against a sophisticated con. This is *not* a charge that Rossi is being deceptive. I am merely pointing out that the possibility exists, and, I must note, con artists sometimes have accomplices. So an involved scientist might have been duped, or might have been paid. This points out that an independent replication by someone connected with Rossi, by itself, can leave behind some suspicion, or maybe even one replication by someone apparently not connected. What about the Rowan University confirmation of BlackLight Power demonstrations? Note, again, I'm not claiming that Rowan was corrupt! Or even that they were fooled in some way. Just that, with something with as much implication as the Rossi reactor would have if real, there are very high stakes and therefore very high caution is required. If Rossi produces reactors for sale, or for complete, independent replication (where they can be dismantled), and they work for significant power, hey, I and others will fall down in admiration. If.
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: I'm not understanding how one would need 130 KW to get, what was it, a 10 KW demo? It produced 130 kW for a while. QUOTE: Initially, the temperature of the inflowing water was seven degrees Celsius and for a while the outlet temperature was 40 degrees Celsius. A flow rate of about one liter per second, equates to a peak power of 130 kilowatts. The power output was later stabilized at 15 to 20 kilowatts. http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3108242.ece But all this is beside the point. A determined and skilled con artist could arrange an appearance like what we have seen so far, it's simply not beyond possibility. It is impossible as far as I know. There are only two techniques in this situation: chemical fuel, and electric heating. The use of fake instruments is ruled out because Levi brought his own. The assertion that a determined con artist can do this or that strikes me as inadequate. A con artist is not a magician capable of changing the laws of physics or magically influencing instruments. Unless you can suggest a specific technique that such a con artist might employ, I think this assertion cannot be tested or falsified. As I said before, I do not know of any instance in this history of science in what a con man managed too fool competent scientists for weeks at a time, especially in such a fundamentally simple experiment. People say that such things have happened. Skeptics insist that they happen all the time. But I do not know of any specific instances. All of the con-man over unity machines I have heard of or seen personally did not fool me for 5 minutes, and would not fool an scientist allowed to test them with his own instruments, and poke around inside the way Levi did. No. Not safe against a sophisticated con. Unless you can suggest a specific method I do not think this assertion is meaningful. There is nothing sophisticated about flow calorimetry on this scale. It is incredibly simple, and first-principle. J. P. Joule conducted experiments on this scale with a river and waterfall during his honeymoon. This is *not* a charge that Rossi is being deceptive. I realize that. I am merely pointing out that the possibility exists, and, I must note, con artists sometimes have accomplices. If you are saying that Levi is an accomplice then I fully agree -- this could easily be a scam in that case. I discount that likelihood for the reasons given by Levi in interview linked above. So an involved scientist might have been duped, or might have been paid. Duped how? Unless you can come up with a method this is like saying there may be an undetected error. That statement is true of every experiment ever conducted since Newton. Every experiment conducted in the last 500 years might have involved someone duping someone else, with fake instruments or bogus results published to attract attention. That is highly unlikely but conceivable. It is a useless hypothesis since you cannot disprove it. This points out that an independent replication by someone connected with Rossi, by itself, can leave behind some suspicion, or maybe even one replication by someone apparently not connected. That is true, but the suspicion it leaves behind is more of an emotional issue than a rational one that can be rigorously proved or refuted. It resembles what I pointed out earlier: that higher power gives more confidence in the results, and a 10 W experiment seems better than a 0.5 W one. There is no technical reason for that, yet for most people higher power seems more convincing. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
Note that when the machine initially started up, it had ~80 W input, a liter per second flow, and the outlet temperature was 40°C. This continued for a while. I take that to mean long enough for someone to put his hand on the outlet pipe to confirm that the tap water was coming out at body temperature. If I had been there I would do that instinctively, to confirm that the outlet temperature probe is working right. I would also be scared shitless, not to put too fine a point on it. The machine was obviously outputting ~10 times more power than it was intended to output. In my opinion, there is not the slightest chance this result could be faked by some stage magic technique. Palpable heat at body temperature is instantly recognizable. You would never confuse a tap-water bath for a nice hot 40°C Japanese bath. Even if the flow rate was somehow much lower than it appeared to be, and even if there were magic chambers in the outlet tube that vector the hot water to the outer layer of the tube (as someone suggested), there is no way you could produce a palpable level of heat with this much input power, or with hidden chemical fuel. The 5°C temperature difference later in the test is not palpable. Not easily felt, in any case. That requires you believe the instruments. Measuring this flow rate precisely is not easy, but not necessary either. An error plus or minus 10% would make no substantive difference. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux
At 05:09 PM 2/24/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: The assertion that a determined con artist can do this or that strikes me as inadequate. A con artist is not a magician capable of changing the laws of physics or magically influencing instruments. Uh, Jed, a con artist is indeed a magician, that is, someone skilled at the art of producing illusion. Unless you can suggest a specific technique that such a con artist might employ, I think this assertion cannot be tested or falsified. That's correct. It's not a scientific theory. It's a prudent and practical understanding. The possibility of a con only cuts so far, but those who have assets and who don't beware of cons often lose those assets. As I said before, I do not know of any instance in this history of science in what a con man managed too fool competent scientists for weeks at a time, especially in such a fundamentally simple experiment. I know that magicians can fool people quite thoroughly. Yes, they control access. People say that such things have happened. Skeptics insist that they happen all the time. But I do not know of any specific instances. All of the con-man over unity machines I have heard of or seen personally did not fool me for 5 minutes, and would not fool an scientist allowed to test them with his own instruments, and poke around inside the way Levi did. No. Not safe against a sophisticated con. Unless you can suggest a specific method I do not think this assertion is meaningful. There is nothing sophisticated about flow calorimetry on this scale. It is incredibly simple, and first-principle. J. P. Joule conducted experiments on this scale with a river and waterfall during his honeymoon. Hey, send Rossi a check, for all I care. (I don't think he's asking for money, though he seems to be complaining about his expenses ) This is *not* a charge that Rossi is being deceptive. I realize that. I am merely pointing out that the possibility exists, and, I must note, con artists sometimes have accomplices. If you are saying that Levi is an accomplice then I fully agree -- this could easily be a scam in that case. I discount that likelihood for the reasons given by Levi in interview linked above. Prudence and caution, that's all I'm suggesting. What's the rush to judgment? Either way? So an involved scientist might have been duped, or might have been paid. Duped how? Unless you can come up with a method this is like saying there may be an undetected error. That statement is true of every experiment ever conducted since Newton. Every experiment conducted in the last 500 years might have involved someone duping someone else, with fake instruments or bogus results published to attract attention. That is highly unlikely but conceivable. It is a useless hypothesis since you cannot disprove it. Every individual experiment might have been deception. It's the combination, the multiple independent confirmations, that rule this out routinely. This points out that an independent replication by someone connected with Rossi, by itself, can leave behind some suspicion, or maybe even one replication by someone apparently not connected. That is true, but the suspicion it leaves behind is more of an emotional issue than a rational one that can be rigorously proved or refuted. It resembles what I pointed out earlier: that higher power gives more confidence in the results, and a 10 W experiment seems better than a 0.5 W one. There is no technical reason for that, yet for most people higher power seems more convincing. The higher power does tend to rule out lesser explanations than fraud. Smaller power production might more easily be the result of some artifact, that's all. The emotional impact is also not to be neglected. This is being demonstrated outside of normal scientific protocols. There is a reason for those protocols. I'm also aware that Rossi has his reasons, which may be legitmate, to keep this secret. But the consequence of the secrecy is increased skepticism and suspicion. That's sim;ly natural.
