On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Joshua Cude <joshua.c...@gmail.com> wrote: > Believers (or at least claimants) are responsible to provide data to > support their claims.
> Skeptics just need to show why the data does not support the claims, > by showing the data is also consistent with another interpretation. > If the other interpretation is more plausible, then the claim > becomes even more unlikely. I disagree and I will explain. For the 1MW demo, the data, as well as the claims, are provided by Rossi et al. IT IS THEREFORE EQUALLY EASY TO FAKE THE DATA AS TO FAKE THE CLAIMS. This means that it is meaningless to judge the data in the light of the claims, or to judge the claims in the light of the data. The only thing we can do is look for INCONSISTENCIES. INCONSISTENCIES can be physical or logical. - A PHYSICAL INCONSISTENCY would be, for instance, Rossi claiming that the water flow rate was X, and someone deducing from pictures and footage that X is not possible because of observed or reported pipe diameters, pressures, etc. - A LOGICAL INCONSISTENCY would be a non sequitur, i.e., Rossi claiming that an amount X of excess heat was produced based on data Y and Z, while X depends on an unknown quantity T. Claiming that some subset of the data could be achieved using a particular method M is not useful if the method M contradicts the body of information provided by Rossi. For example, claiming that the same results could be obtained by storing heat in graphite and having it released during the demo is useless. It is useless, because according to Rossi's description of the reactor, the reactors contain no large amount of graphite (or unicorn poo) capable of storing that much heat, nor do they contain a mechanism for thermally insulating that graphite until the demo starts and then providing a controlled heat exchange. If, on the other hand, you manage show that the shell of the reactor, as deduced from the known data, can store the pre-heating energy and release it during the demo at the observed rate, then you're in business and can claim that the data does not unambiguously support the conclusion that excess heat was produced. Now, as I said in the initial post of this thread: The amount of water heated proves that a large quantity of excess energy was released during the demonstration. Persons who wish to claim that this excess energy might have come from the pre-heating period need to provide plausible accumulation, storage and retrieval mechanisms compatible with the claimed geometries of the reactors. -- Berke Durak
