On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Joshua Cude <joshua.c...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> Well, it is if an experiment can be easily designed to make such >> suspicions impossible. As would be the case here, if the claims were true. >> > > Seriously, It is nearly impossible to design a demonstration that will > eliminate all suspicions, in all people. Some people, such as Robert Park, > simply will not believe a claim, no matter how much evidence you present. > Even if Park were to attend a first-rate demonstration of the Rossi device, > one that addresses all of the issues raised here, he would refuse to believe > it. He would make up other objections. I mean it when I say that people can > make up unlimited numbers of reasons to dismiss a finding. > This is so profoundly wrong I can't believe you keep repeating it. If your predictions for cold fusion were to come to pass, and cars would never need refueling if they contained D-Pd or H-Ni in the magic configuration, and if homes could be powered by a D-Pd generator, and if oil wells and coal mines would shut down, and CO2 levels began to drop, all while our increasing energy needs were easily satisfied by D-Pd or H-Ni, you can't seriously believe that Bob Park and his ilk would continue to be skeptical of this new energy source. Disagreement about mechanism might persist, but not about the energy. Or, you are admitting that it is nearly impossible that such a future will come to pass. And while I chose such an extreme to contradict the absolute statement, far less is required to completely remove skepticism, and it has been repeatedly spelled out. If Rossi came in with a device of roughly the same size and weight, and set it in the center of the conference room with nothing connected to it; no wires, no hydrogen lines, nothing. And it gave off 1 kW of heat continuously for several hours with no change in appearance or mass, he'd have the rapt attention of the room. One kW is a familiar amount of power, being comparable to hair driers, toasters, kettles, and space heaters, so people would know about how much heat to expect. If that device kept throwing heat for a day or a week, and esp. if such a device were given over to skeptics' custody (with appropriate legal and video control on tampering), the skepticism would melt away. But Rossi's device was not even close to this. It had electrical connections providing up to 1.5 kW input, and hydrogen lines, and therefore requiring much more careful measurement of output power. I am quite certain that as long as cold fusion demonstrations depend on the measurement of output power, the world will ignore them. The claim is of an energy source a million times that of chemical sources, and yet chemical sources do not need power measurements to prove they are real. As someone here said, I know combustion of natural gas produces heat because my house is warmer than the outside. And Rossi's measurement of output power is so ambiguous as to be laughable. It can change by a factor of 8 without any change in the reported measurements (flow rate & temperature). The only thing that changes over that range of power is the wetness of the steam, a rather more subtle measurement, the raw values of which were not even given, let alone given as a function of time. Finally, the short duration of the demo and the likelihood of less than 1 kW power beyond the electrical input, make it quite unremarkable, which is of course why it has got so little attention. > > The scientific method demands that an arbitrary limit be placed on > objections. It is a matter of opinion how much proof is needed, and how many > objections should be met, but you cannot leave the question undecided > indefinitely. > I don't know where you get your information about the scientific method, but this is quite the opposite of the way I understand science. There is no limit on objections, and questions are never settled. In religion, where faith is a virtue, questions are settled, but in science where faith is a vice, there are only greater and lesser degrees of certainty. Of course, many observations, and even some theories, reach the point of virtual certainty, but to suggest that has been reached by an experiment with restricted access, not independently replicated, and where measurements are clearly ambiguous and controversial is completely at odds with the scientific method. Reasonable objections, such as those raised with the Rossi device, are easily dealt with by independent replication, or at the very least unrestricted access by observers, who could rather quickly, and transparently, determine the liquid content of the steam. Claims of flow-rate, no matter how simple, are checked and rechecked in independent experiments. The sort of query about flow rate would never come up in legitimate scientific settings, because the model of pump would be reported. Even in the demo, the use of a single reservoir without refilling would have made a satisfying visual elimination of the suspicion. > But you cannot keep moving the goalposts and asking for more and more > proof, and is your standard is: "Are the skeptics satisfied? Does anyone > still have doubts?" then you will keep moving the goalposts indefinitely. > There is no movement of the goal posts in the Rossi case. His demo is less, not more convincing than earlier cold fusion experiments. You want to believe that skeptics will never be convinced so you can claim progress in the field, but the simple requirement of an unambiguous demonstration has not changed; it has simply not been met. In fact on this list, on Oct 6, you demonstrated that you understand the criteria that need to be met to convince the world, and by implication, that they had not yet been met. You said, in contradiction to what you said above: "With a small (half liter) insulated cell, the surface area should be small enough that the heat from the outer wall will be palpable (that is, sensible). ... It is utterly impossible to fake palpable heat.... I do not think any scientist will dispute this. ...An object that remains palpably warmer than the surroundings is as convincing as anything can be..." Many people still dispute special relativity. > That's true, but it's not a relevant comparison. First, because the manifestations of relativity in ordinary life are subtle, and second, because the skeptics of relativity do not deny that the theory is consistent with experimental observations, and is a useful predictive tool, but because they object to the philosophical interpretation; they prefer to add complexity to the theory with an ether that has properties that make its existence unprovable. A new energy source would have blatant manifestations in ordinary life, and the disagreement in cold fusion is about the validity of the experimental observations. Cold fusion researchers should not be forced to do boil off experiments > again and again just because the latest crop of nitwits in Wikipedia are > unaware of the steps taken to ensure that unboiled water did not leave the > cells at Toyota and the French AEC. > If it works, they should most certainly be forced to repeat it. Otherwise, how will they replace fossil fuels. A few anecdotal stories about water boiling away without skeptical witnesses, to which you can add the story of the transient pinned geiger counter (even though cold fusion is radiationless), will not power my car. > > You do have to trust Levi, Celani and Dufour and some other people. > Why? They were hand-picked by Rossi. And anyway, C & D seem to remain somewhat sketical, and Levi seems downright incompetent, just based on the claim that the power transfer can go from 1 kW to 10 kW in a matter of minutes. But the quality of that report clinches that opinion. I doubt they would, because it would be out of character, and there does not > seem to be a motive. > That represents a pretty flimsy basis for a scientific revolution. I don't think defending Rossi's demo is going to do cold fusion any favors. There will never be a 1 MW plant based on H-Ni. He's already extended the date twice, and as October approaches, there will be technical problems forcing the date into 2012, and he will have to reduce the goal by an order of magnitude, and then further. And it will never converge to anything useful. And then, after 2 or 3 years, when it becomes obvious that Rossi is all hot air, the cold fusion advocates will have to rationalize the support for such an obviously flawed demo, from a man with record. And that will damage the credibility of the community when it tries to promote the next cold fusion revolution.
