Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <a...@lomaxdesign.com> wrote:

> Okay, to Jed, and perhaps to others, this is confirmation of prior work.
> But because it's "secret protocol" it's weak in that respect.


It isn't all that secret. I have known that it is Ni-H cold fusion for a
year, and people in Italy have known for 2 years. Groups there and in the
U.S. are working somewhat frantically to determine what the other 2 elements
are. One of them told me that they have achieved the equivalent of 800 W per
liter of powder (with a smaller actual volume), which is not far from what
Rossi reported.

Ed Storms and others at ICCF-16 remarked that Rossi has already revealed the
biggest and most important secret: that this can be done, i.e., that high
temperature, high power density Ni-H cold fusion exists. Others will soon
figure out how it is done. The situation is somewhat similar to what
happened after the first use of atomic weapons. Scientists in Russia had
detailed reports from spies, but even if they had not had these reports,
they would have soon figured out how to make a bomb because the biggest
secret was that you could make a bomb. Japanese scientists secretly figured
out a great deal about it, hiding their research from the occupation.



> I agree that the existence of (possibly) similar prior work is supportive,
> and is reason to be less likely to dismiss Rossi out-of-hand.


It is similar. No doubt about it. Assuming Rossi's claims are real, there is
plenty of precedent for them.


Jed, you have pointed out that he may be shooting himself in the foot with
> his secrecy.


He may yet shoot himself. It is an awkward strategy that can only work for a
short time.



> It's just not true that if he disclosed everything he'd "lose everything."
> It depends on how he discloses and to whom.
>

The only way he can succeed is with a patent. That's what I thought, and
discussions with people in the know at ICCF-16 confirmed that.



> His strategy might be reasonable. But a consequence of that strategy is
> that I'm not going to believe that Rossi is a demonstration of cold fusion.


That's rather short-sighted of you. You do not know what is going on inside
a Pd-D cathode either. You can look right at it, and learn all there is to
know from the ENEA database, but you still do not know. If U. Bologna
publishes a more detailed, convincing report describing the 18-hour run,
there will be practically no room left to doubt this. David Kidwell told me
that if they could have the Rossi device in their 10 kW-scale testbed at the
NRL, they could conclude within an hour that it is real, and they would not
have to know the first thing about what is inside it. (The testbed is
described in ICCF-16 paper ET01. It is way better than the U. Bologna
calorimeter. It resembles the industrial-scale testbed at Hydrodynamics,
Inc., which was designed by the Dean of Mech. Eng. at Georgia Tech. That
system was bulletproof as far as I know -- and as far as the Dean knew.)

Kidwell did say he would insist they conduct a test with Rossi not present.
I think this is slight case of magical thinking. I do not see how a person
standing in a room can affect dial thermometers and watt-meters.



> I'm not going to claim that it's fraud, on the other hand. I'm going to
> claim that *I don't know* and that I think I don't have enough information
> to decide.
>

You will soon, if we get a better report from Levi. I think you can be 95%
sure it is real now. The fraud hypothesis is awfully far fetched, and getter
farther fetched with each new test. Frankly, I don't think it is worth
worrying about.


Again, depending on so many details about which we know nothing, so far, and
> may not ever know.


What do you mean "we" Kemo Sabe? (Quoting the old joke about the Lone Ranger
surrounded by hostile Indians.)



> I've argued that making a huge fuss over Rossi simply discredits the field
> . . .


I don't see why. For one thing, other researchers are not responsible for
what Rossi claims, except perhaps Focardi. Levi is not a cold fusion
research. Or he wasn't before Jan. 14.



> Some of the damage will be done anyway. People are already using Rossi as
> an example of overblown, inflated claims.


I don't see any damage. People will say that it is fraud or inflated no
matter who makes what claim. Heck, they say that about Energetics Tech.,
even after SRI replicated them spot on with some cathodes. So far I have not
seen any evidence that Rossi has made inflated claims. On the contrary, he
said it was 12 kW and it was probably closer to 15 kW. That will not
surprise anyone familiar with calorimetry. The method they used was very
lossy, as I said.



> That could backfire, for them, but, then, if Rossi doesn't show up with his
> 1 MW reactor, we end up looking very foolish.


I doubt he will complete that within a year! I am hoping we can persuade him
to let the NRL and others test the smaller gadget. That's better than a 1 MW
machine. More convincing, in a way.

I sure as heck would not want to be present in Florida when they turn on the
big machine! The radiation Celani detected lasted for a fraction of a
second. If something like that lasts for a few seconds, I imagine it might
kill everyone within 100 m. It seems like a stupendously bad idea to scale
up to 1 MW at this stage.


If someone trusts Rossi, thinks that his work is solid, great.


I wouldn't trust Rossi personally as far as I can throw him. I trust
calorimetry. I trust that no stage magician or con-man can fool a watt-meter
or thermometer. I have never heard of an incident in which a con-man did
manage to fool scientists using their own, off-the-shelf instruments.
Believe me, I have seen and heard of a wide variety of con-men and bogus
over-unity energy claims. I am practically an expert on that. None of them
stood up to more than a few days of tests. None were replicated, and none
were replications of previous work (as Rossi is).

Don't forget that Levi et al. conducted tests and calibrations for 6 weeks
prior the Jan. 14 test. It there was something like a hidden thermal mass,
they would have seen that in a few hours the first day. You do not have to
know anything about what is in the machine to see that. Calorimetry alone
tells you a great deal about a black box. As I said, so far, it is the only
reliable means we have of knowing anything about the contents or inner
workings of the cathode black boxes in Pd-D cold fusion.

- Jed

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