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
