Jed wrote: <snip> > > > > > > Ditto claims by Mills and Correa. As far as I know, the only anomalous > > > energy claim that has claimed any scientific basis in conventional theory > > > is cold fusion. Of course many people disagree, but Hagelstein and others > > > believe it can be explained with textbook physics. > > > >Jed's brush is too wide. Mills does not claim 'anomalous energy' . . . > > I classify both cold fusion and the Mills claims as "anomalous" energy. > "Anomalous" is not synonymous with "unbelievable" -- it just means there is > no explanation. Mills, unlike CF, does not have a textbook physics > explanation. He proposes to rewrite the textbooks. That does not mean he is > wrong, but it does mean he must be cognizant of the fact that most > scientists will find his claims very difficult to swallow. I am sure he > knows that!
CQM is audacious. There is no "accepted" explanation for LENR, despite Haglestein's efforts. So far as I know, it does not have predictive value, in the sense of what to do next to get energy yield. Mills is not the first to propose a 'sub-quantum' state for the hydrogen atom, nor is he the first to observe exothermic reactions between hydrogen and ionized argon. However, he is the first to formulate a specification for a catalytic reaction to induce the sub-quantum state, and to conduct experiments to demonstrate substantial energy yield, which predicitons have been verified by other investigator. Flowing from his theory are simple equations which yield significant parameters of the first 20 elements of the periodic table with high precision, which are laid out in spreadsheets anyone can examine. > > Mills is much, much better and far more credible than people like the > Methernitha crowd, Greg Watson, or for that matter Correa. But he still has > a wide credibility gap, and he still has not made a real effort to convince > people. The last thing he told me, years ago, is that he does not want to > convince people, and that he likes things the way they are. (That was also > the last thing I heard from the late James Reding while he was diligently > shredding Patterson's prospects. Several CF researchers have also told me > they like being big fish in a small pond.) Mills has pursued his research, systematically posting reports on his website for all to see, as well as updating his book, to be downloaded for free. The only people he has needed to convince are those who have funded him to the tune of some $50 million, and the executives of corporations doing due diligence toward serious development pratnerships. Public acclaim is irrelevant at the moment. Reding's fatal error was rejecting the buyout offer by Motorola, who has the deep pockets to pursue the technology, and perhaps the discipline to do process control, which apparently Patterson lacked. > > Many years ago Mills supposedly had energy producing devices which would > have convinced any reasonable engineer, such as the devices he and > Thermacore developed, described by Donald Ernst in 1992. Assuming those > claims were not a horrible mistake, or for some reason they could not be > replicated, Mills could have easily used those devices to convince the > entire world that his claims are valid. I do not know what to make of the > fact that he failed to do that. I am forced to conclude that: He did and still does. Jed is well versed in calorimetry. All he has to do is follow the thread in my earlier post on BLP future to look up the water bath calorimetry which shows an energy yield from hydrogen which is 100 X that of burning it, and that in a catalytic reaction with a noble gas! > > 1. Either the claims fell through for some reason I never heard about, or Jed was not paying close enough attention then or now. Mills abandoned electrolytic cells because he could not get a high enough energy density. His target then was utility boilers. The electrolytic cell has resurfaced as a source of hydrogen for his proposed automotive hydrogen filling station. The gas phase reactions have demosntrated high energy density, but scaling up to industrial levels takes lots of money and other skills. Same for LENR, in which *really active* cells are irreproduceable accidents. BLP cells just sit there and cook as long as you want. > > 2. Mills is stark-staring crazy, like most other people in over-unity > energy biz. He has never claimed to be in the 'over-unity' energy business. His posture is that of a responsible scientist-businessman courting major industrial partners in the development of energy resources. > > I have heard many times that it is actually: > > 3. Mills is working on some ultra clever secret business scheme. Jed is again not paying attention, but jumping to conclusions, as the business plans have been posted on the BLP website for years and updated periodically. What is not publicized is *who* he is neogtiating with. > But I do not believe this, because I simply cannot imagine any business > strategy that would have worked better than revealing the whole thing back > in 1992, and letting events take their natural course. It is hard to > imagine any scenario that would have eventually worked out with Mills being > less than a dozen times richer than Bill Gates by now, and him being the > most famous and respected person on earth. After 14 years millions of > people would have seen the effect, and I think there is simply no question > Mills would have been given the full credit for it, and objections would > have been swept aside by now, by the force of public opinion. Jed is restating his model of how other people should act. An earlier version of the above paragraph is his "Inventors Disease" in which he castigated CF investigators for not producing simple demo cells or toys which would have unleashed a flood ofn entreprenural development to the betterment of all. There is a phase of the development of a technology when this is true and will happen. But Nature will have her own way, and the CF field still has not produced *really active* cells. Mills is actually much closer to that phase now. There hasn't been anything "hidden" since the BLP website went up years ago, anymore than there is anything "hidden" since lenr-canr.org went up. BLP reactors are not tabletop toys. I have heard Mills wish that more would duplicate his work; it's not that hard for a comeptent investigator, or even an amateur. Jeff Fink has invested significant time, money and effort in replicating the Correa PAGD effect. I have suggested to him that he might try a BLP reactor. You can start by tearing up a microwave oven and doing some plumbing. You will need a simple spectroscope to see the hydrogen alpha line broadening, which is a signature of the BLP reaction. There is a lot of useful empirical work to be done in scaling up the reaction. Within months there may be some announcement of a partnership between BLP and X, and possibly an IPO which will generate publicity to the effect that there is something 'real'. Then I would expect a flurry of experimentation inthe manner Jed applauds. It is not that he is wrong, at all, is is that this appears at a certain phase. For example, the rush of development of electrical gnerators and motors did not happen until after Faraday's experiments, and radio after Hertz's experiments. Even then the invetion of real radio was done by Tesla, who was much more than a tinkerer, and preceded Marconi, who copied aspects of his work. Tesla was recognized by the USPTO as the inventor of radio by issuance of a patent in 1936, after years of debate. > > > >. . . there is a measureable fuel consumption, many documentated and > >detailed experiments, and confirmation by other observers. > > Oh come now. Yes, we all agree that Mills has done some interesting > experiments, but the confirmations by other observers hardly compares to > the confirmations available for CF. Confirmation is confirmation. Quantity is not of the essence. > Most of the confirming evidence he > cited years ago was only distantly related to his claims. Again, Jed was not paying close attention, both to 'claims' and to 'evidence'. All this would be > forgivable -- indeed it would be the only viable path forward -- if Mills > had not held in his hands devices that would have convinced millions of > engineers worldwide back in 1992. If you can convince engineers you do not > need to worry what the physicists think. You can ignore them along with the > patent office, Scientific American, and the rest of the peanut gallery. > Engineers far outnumber physicists, and they have much greater access to > capital and the real-world levers of power. Jed has done quite well as an entrepreneur in the tidy world of programming, which was made tidy by the efforts of hundreds, if not thousands of engineers who created that tidy world by doing battle with Nature in creating reliable electronic components, including microcircuits. I'm an engineer who has seen up close the pain to product development, the continuing agony of mass production of color picture tubes, and have come to understand the chasm which separates the R&D lab and the production floor. What Mills had produced in the lab are well done demonstrations of effects. The road from there to useful devices will take lots of money. Engineers have to be convinced of the reality of the effects by doing their own experiments, and need confidence that the BLP team can safely guide them in product development. From all evidence, I don't think the Jed really has any idea of all that is entailed, although I respect him for what he has accomplished. >From my persepective from a once-world class corporation, Mills has been making all the right moves, but success is not guaranteed until it happens. Jed's perspective is different. Mike Carrell
