Re: CMNS: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
In reply to Brian Ahern's message of Tue, 30 Jan 2018 22:54:07 +: Hi, There is another point here too. IIRC a mass spec works by ionizing a particle then measuring the mass to charge ratio. A deep level D2* molecule has an ionization potential in the tens of kV, so is unlikely to be detected by a mass spec. at all. > >Good point! Thanks for the clarification of my mis-calculation. > > >From: mix...@bigpond.com >Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2018 2:58 PM >To: vortex-l@eskimo.com >Subject: Re: CMNS: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries > >In reply to Brian Ahern's message of Tue, 30 Jan 2018 12:24:09 +: >Hi, >[snip] >>I did not mean to discredit Mel's work. I am sure it was well done, but it is >>difficult to measure 100mWatts of excess energy when Gerald Pollack says that >>amount of energy can simply be stored in the water from background >>illumination. >> >> >>The lack of ionizing radiation is a great hurdle to advancing CF in light of >>Mills. Mills says that the mass spec data for He-4 could just as well be D2* >>(deep Dirac level ) That would have a reduced mass over D2. >[snip] >The difference between D2 and He4 is 23.8 MeV. The difference between D2 & D2* >is less than 1 MeV (?). I'm not sure a mass spec would even be able to detect >the difference between the latter two, considering that it takes quite a >sensitive one to detect the difference between the former two. > >Regards, > > >Robin van Spaandonk > >local asymmetry = temporary success Regards, Robin van Spaandonk local asymmetry = temporary success
Re: CMNS: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
Good point! Thanks for the clarification of my mis-calculation. From: mix...@bigpond.com Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2018 2:58 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: CMNS: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries In reply to Brian Ahern's message of Tue, 30 Jan 2018 12:24:09 +: Hi, [snip] >I did not mean to discredit Mel's work. I am sure it was well done, but it is >difficult to measure 100mWatts of excess energy when Gerald Pollack says that >amount of energy can simply be stored in the water from background >illumination. > > >The lack of ionizing radiation is a great hurdle to advancing CF in light of >Mills. Mills says that the mass spec data for He-4 could just as well be D2* >(deep Dirac level ) That would have a reduced mass over D2. [snip] The difference between D2 and He4 is 23.8 MeV. The difference between D2 & D2* is less than 1 MeV (?). I'm not sure a mass spec would even be able to detect the difference between the latter two, considering that it takes quite a sensitive one to detect the difference between the former two. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk local asymmetry = temporary success
Re: CMNS: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
In reply to Brian Ahern's message of Tue, 30 Jan 2018 12:24:09 +: Hi, [snip] >I did not mean to discredit Mel's work. I am sure it was well done, but it is >difficult to measure 100mWatts of excess energy when Gerald Pollack says that >amount of energy can simply be stored in the water from background >illumination. > > >The lack of ionizing radiation is a great hurdle to advancing CF in light of >Mills. Mills says that the mass spec data for He-4 could just as well be D2* >(deep Dirac level ) That would have a reduced mass over D2. [snip] The difference between D2 and He4 is 23.8 MeV. The difference between D2 & D2* is less than 1 MeV (?). I'm not sure a mass spec would even be able to detect the difference between the latter two, considering that it takes quite a sensitive one to detect the difference between the former two. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk local asymmetry = temporary success
Re: CMNS: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
I did not mean to discredit Mel's work. I am sure it was well done, but it is difficult to measure 100mWatts of excess energy when Gerald Pollack says that amount of energy can simply be stored in the water from background illumination. The lack of ionizing radiation is a great hurdle to advancing CF in light of Mills. Mills says that the mass spec data for He-4 could just as well be D2* (deep Dirac level ) That would have a reduced mass over D2. The excess heat could arise as D2* without any gamma rays. Thermacore Corp got 50 watts of excess power for H2O electrolysis with nickel in 1996. I was involved with Thermacore at that time and I found their results to be credible, but it would not scale up. How can this be reconciled with CF? From: melmil...@juno.com Sent: Monday, January 29, 2018 7:02 PM To: m...@theworld.com Cc: ahern_br...@msn.com Subject: Re: CMNS: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries Mitchell, Thank-you for defending my C/F work against the false allegations by Brian Ahern. I would like to add the following: 1. Radiation was measured in the 1990 experiments showing the correlation of excess heat and helium-4 production. Dental film placed close to the cell showed fogging in both experiments, and these results were shown in the publication. Many later experiments not producing any excess heat gave no fogging of such dental films. Later experiments showed high G-M radiation counts for some Pd/D experiments. 2. The 1990 experiments with excess power gave some of the highest values that I observed reaching about 0.38 W of excess power. 3 .Calculations show that my cell producing 0.100 W of excess power at a cell current of 0.525 A will theoretically produce 10.7 ppb He-4 for the D + D = He-4 reaction. The measurement of He-4 for this experiment reported a value of 12.2 ppb. Subtracting my background gives 7.4 ppb. These measurements of He-4 claimed an accuracy of +- 0.1 ppb, thus this result is a 74 sigma effect in terms of the He-4 measurements. This experiment was the most accurate in terms of He-4 measurements. Other groups measuring He-4 for my experiments reported an accuracy of about +-1.0 ppb. Even for a 5 ppb measurement above background, this represents a 5 sigma effect. The background using metal flasks was 4.5 +-0.5 ppb for experiments with no excess power, and this background was always subtracted in my reports of He-4 production. 4. The diffusion of He-4 was later measured for these same glass flasks, and the results would not have affected my 1990 results using these glass flasks. There was no diffusion of He-4 into the metal flasks that were later used. 5. My 1990 results used Pd/HO as controls. There was no excess power measured and no He'd produced. 6. This work has been replicated by several different groups including Mackerel at SRI with funding from DAR PA. Mel Miles On Fri, 26 Jan 2018 08:12:35 -0500 "Dr. Mitchell Swartz" mailto:m...@theworld.com>> writes: January 26, 2018 Brian, Please, I expect more from you. Yet, you continue untruthful and wrongful statements, now BROADCAST ON BOTH CMNS and VORTEX. Please re-consider Brian, because yours is a wrongful attack on Mel Miles who does not deserve this - and my field which does not deserve this. Reasons: 1) penetrating ionizing radiation is FORBIDDEN. (see paper for refs). This is not the first time you havae ignored this. 2) watts is power, not energy. This, too, is not the first time you did this. And at MIT we now measure MICROWATTS in a calibrated fashion. 3-6) Mel, if memory serves, DID account for diffusion and DID do background calibrations. So why do you say otherwise? Show me the data/info to back up your claims -- beyond your hearsay. I would like this for the following reasons: First, Mel Miles did more calibration, and data collection, than you ever did on any Manelis expt or any nanomaterial expt I saw at your home. Second, my aqueous expts got 5-15 watts excess power for years (from ICCF10 to the Stirling engine expts, for example) and I have shared privately with you MOAC#3 data showing more than 100 W of excess power just this month So, you should consider stopping attacking those in the CF/LANR/LENR field for several reasons. First, there is no reason to attack because YOUR work did not give excess heat. Why? If you remember, I took several of your samples, and added D and then they worked. They worked with gas loading (as the next paper at ICCF21 will show) and they worked with the JET Energy novel loading method which gave the open demos, and the other papers (e.g. see 2nd paper) You should read THOSE papers, too; since I gave YOU full acknowledgement. Second, the field and XSH are REAL, and attacking the few remaining scientists is wrong as it has NO REAL BASIS is just luddite-
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
H LV wrote: I mean what was the concentration of He-4 in the vessel before the start of > the experiment? > Let me recommend you read the reviews and then the original sources by Miles for that info. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
Bob Thanks for agreeing. I also think there is conflict between what bureaucrats want and what experimenters want. Experimenters want to do an experiment and get new results and then have the theory changed. But bureaucrats want is to keep things the same and not change things; i.e. they don't want the theory to change, they want the existing theory to be dogma. see: Bureaucrats versus Science.(The Trouble with Physics)(Book review) - Quadrant | HighBeam Research | | | | || | | | | | Bureaucrats versus Science.(The Trouble with Physics)(Book review) - Quadra... The Trouble with Physics, by Lee Smolin; Penguin, 2007, $59.95. LORD KELVIN, in the late... | Article from Qu... | | | | Bureaucrats want dead science, but experimenters want living science that changes as new facts are discovered. Well as for me: scientists ignore their history of how they got to where they are now. Einstein worked on unified field theory, so did a lot of other people and that history is ignored from what is taught to physics student, so they grow up ignorant. Roger On Friday, 26 January 2018, 7:10, "bobcook39...@hotmail.com" wrote: #yiv5996356374 #yiv5996356374 -- _filtered #yiv5996356374 {font-family:Helvetica;panose-1:2 11 5 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;} _filtered #yiv5996356374 {panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv5996356374 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}#yiv5996356374 #yiv5996356374 p.yiv5996356374MsoNormal, #yiv5996356374 li.yiv5996356374MsoNormal, #yiv5996356374 div.yiv5996356374MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:11.0pt;}#yiv5996356374 a:link, #yiv5996356374 span.yiv5996356374MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv5996356374 a:visited, #yiv5996356374 span.yiv5996356374MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:#954F72;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv5996356374 .yiv5996356374MsoChpDefault {} _filtered #yiv5996356374 {margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}#yiv5996356374 div.yiv5996356374WordSection1 {}#yiv5996356374 Roger- I agree with your timely addition regarding “science” excluding different thinking. I would note that Hagelstein’s editorial cited below uses the term “science community” instead of your term “science” to designate the social entity which excludes different thinking. The following from Hagelstein’s editorial in which he discusses the fields of nuclear and condensed matter physics is pertinent to this issue: “The current view within the scientific community is that these fields have things right, and if that is not reflected in measurements in the lab, then the problem is with those doing the experiments. Such a view prevailed in 1989, but now nearly a quarter century later, the situation in cold fusion labs is much clearer. There is excess heat, which can be a very big effect; it is reproducible in some labs; there are not commensurate energetic products; there are many replications; and there are other anomalies as well. Condensed matter physics and nuclear physics together are not sufficiently robust to account for these anomalies. No defense of these fields is required, since if some aspect of the associated theories is incomplete or can be broken, we would very much like to break it, so that we can focus on developing new theory that is more closely matched to experiment.” From my perspective Hagelstein is too soft on the establishment’s “science community.” The Corporate, University, Government Complex, driven by financial gains , should be fingered as the problem Institution.Unfortunately schools of higher learning are part of this nightmare IMHO as Hagelstein suggests. They at the mercy of the government funding/research grants scheme to control thought in many areas and the production of real data in the detail necessary to fully understand the natural laws or nature. Hagelstein concludes his editorial with the following: “Excess heat in the Fleischmann- Pons experiment is a real effect. There are big implications for science, and for society. Without resources science in this area will not advance. With the continued destruction of the careers of those who venture to work in the area, progress will be slow, and there will be no continuity of effort.” I think Hagelstein is wrong in avoiding recognizing the saving grace afforded by the likes of Mills,Rossi and others around the world to exist and function on meager funding, producing real controlled excess heat via LENR without understanding the detailed science or fundamental natural laws. The control/power hungry “science community” will eat crow in my optimistic humble opinion (IMOHO). Bob Cook From: ROGER ANDERTON Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2018 3:55 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com; c...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries >There are
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
I mean what was the concentration of He-4 in the vessel before the start of the experiment? Harry On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 1:42 PM, H LV wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 9:58 AM, Jed Rothwell > wrote: > >> Brian Ahern wrote: >> >>> >> >>> >>> >> >> 3. The background He-4 was ~ 5pm >>> >> >> Yes. That is actually a strength. It is so low that anything like a leak >> would be far above the amounts Miles measured. >> >> > > What was the concentration of He-4 before the start of experiment? > > > >> >> >>> 4. The measured He-4 was only 5 ppB ! >>> >> >> As I said, a leak would be hundreds of times higher. >> >> >> 5. The diffusion rates of He-4 through the walls was simply dismissed. >>> >> >> No, it was measured repeatedly, over the course of a few years. >> >> >> > Harry >
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 9:58 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: > Brian Ahern wrote: > >> > >> >> > > 3. The background He-4 was ~ 5pm >> > > Yes. That is actually a strength. It is so low that anything like a leak > would be far above the amounts Miles measured. > > What was the concentration of He-4 before the start of experiment? > > >> 4. The measured He-4 was only 5 ppB ! >> > > As I said, a leak would be hundreds of times higher. > > > 5. The diffusion rates of He-4 through the walls was simply dismissed. >> > > No, it was measured repeatedly, over the course of a few years. > > > Harry
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
I wrote: 3. The background He-4 was ~ 5pm >> > > Yes. That is actually a strength. It is so low that anything like a leak > would be far above the amounts Miles measured. > > > >> 4. The measured He-4 was only 5 ppB ! >> > > As I said, a leak would be hundreds of times higher. > A leak would also produce completely random results uncorrelated with the excess energy. See Abd's analysis of this experiment, and mine: http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/108/04/0574.pdf http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJintroducti.pdf
RE: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
From: Brian Ahern > I would like to put some perspective on the Mel Miles presentation. 1. No radiation accompanied the He-4… [snip]… A simpler explanation is that the excess energy was that described by Gerald Pollack in: The fourth phase of water. That avoids the need to explain the lack of radiation. Water can store energy absorbed by background infrared radiation. Brian, the Pollack explanation might well apply to the Graneau water explosions and similar experiments but cannot explain the 6 months of multi-watt gain of P&F in France or why the helium disappears when protium is used instead of deuterium. However, “deep electron levels” in one form or another (in a composite theoretical version of Holmlid/Mills/Meulenberg/Lawandy etc) can elegantly explain almost everything in LENR and beyond. Slightly off point, let me segue to a letter-to-the-editor from Ron Bourgoin which appears in IE# 135 and which expresses a thought on the deep electron theory which is important to explain Holmlid. Side note: Unfortunately, Ron Bourgoin passed away recently. He was a physicist and expert in HTSC with several inventions in the field. Revisiting the Segré-Chamberlain Experiment The Segré-Chamberlain experiment in the fall of 1955 shot antiprotons into stationary protons. The experiment produced collision fragments that were thought at the time to be annihilation products, but based on the article by William L. Stubbs in IE #129, the proton consists of nine muons, which means that what Emilio Segré and Owen Chamberlain observed in 1955 were constituents of the proton, not annihilation events. The experiment indicates the inherent instability of the proton….
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
Brian Ahern wrote: > > 1.No radiation accompanied the He-4 > Yes, that is true of all cold fusion experiments. If there were radiation, it would not be cold fusion. > 2. The excess energy was about 100 milliwattsWatts for several hours > The peak was around 500 mW. 3. The background He-4 was ~ 5pm > Yes. That is actually a strength. It is so low that anything like a leak would be far above the amounts Miles measured. > 4. The measured He-4 was only 5 ppB ! > As I said, a leak would be hundreds of times higher. 5. The diffusion rates of He-4 through the walls was simply dismissed. > No, it was measured repeatedly, over the course of a few years. > 6. no background calibrations were attempted leaving an open question. > That is incorrect. Background calibrations were done with samples of air and samples from flasks not subject to electrolysis. All samples were evaluated by three different labs in blind tests (single blind). > 7. the work was done in 1993 and never corroborated > Because the Navy fired Miles for publishing the results. > This evidence was well intentioned, but very far from bullet proof. > I think it is more bulletproof than you realize. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
I would like to put some perspective on the Mel Miles presentation. 1.No radiation accompanied the He-4 2. The excess energy was about 100 milliwattsWatts for several hours 3. The background He-4 was ~ 5pm 4. The measured He-4 was only 5 ppB ! 5. The diffusion rates of He-4 through the walls was simply dismissed. 6. no background calibrations were attempted leaving an open question. 7. the work was done in 1993 and never corroborated This evidence was well intentioned, but very far from bullet proof. A simpler explanation is that the excess energy was that described by Gerald Pollack in: The fourth phase of water. That avoids the need to explain the lack of radiation. Water can store energy absorbed by background infrared radiation. The LENR community does not recognize that the excess power outputs are at the milliwatt level. From: Jed Rothwell Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2018 5:48 PM To: Vortex; c...@googlegroups.com Subject: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries A trusting soul over at lenr-forum.com<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flenr-forum.com&data=02%7C01%7C%7C4fc3c7a1a8b544dd528008d5637ca7da%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636524309392203114&sdata=t2d90VR%2FaYHUukXwI%2FUfNr5GxIjaTyPnEGNXz57ybOc%3D&reserved=0> wrote that science does not exclude different thinking, meaning it does not reject valid ideas: Seriously, look over those accomplishments and tell me science excludes different thinking. With some example such as: http://discovermagazine.com/2010/oct/12-most-important-science-trends-30-years<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdiscovermagazine.com%2F2010%2Foct%2F12-most-important-science-trends-30-years&data=02%7C01%7C%7C4fc3c7a1a8b544dd528008d5637ca7da%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636524309392203114&sdata=Sr7TbZCv5DxJRIYlD%2FCBpF46qyhcIhqhtOt4Nf6FOLo%3D&reserved=0> We have often discussed this issue here. There is no need to reiterate the whole issue but let me quote my response. If you have not read Hagelstein's essay linked to below, you should. There are countless examples of "science" excluding different thinking. This is what prompted Max Planck to write that progress in science occurs "funeral by funeral." He explained: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” I have mentioned famous examples of rejection. They include things like the airplane, the laser and the MRI. I put the word science in quotes above because it is not science that excludes so much as individual scientists who do. They do this because rejecting novelty is human nature, and scientists are ordinary people with such foibles despite their training. See Peter Hagelstein's essay here, in the section, "Science as an imperfect human endeavor:" http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinontheoryan.pdf<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flenr-canr.org%2Facrobat%2FHagelsteinontheoryan.pdf&data=02%7C01%7C%7C4fc3c7a1a8b544dd528008d5637ca7da%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636524309392203114&sdata=oW8N9uMj3KAamQacSJxEs2LUyj87ztP%2BZA3bvNdNoao%3D&reserved=0> Many scientists not very good at science, just as many programmers write spaghetti code, and many surgeons kill their patients. A surprising number of scientists reject the scientific method, such as the late John Huizenga, who boldly asserted that when an experiments conflicts with theory, the experiment must be wrong, even when he could not point to any reason. One of the absurd claims made with regard to this notion is that science never makes mistakes; that in the end it always gets the right answer and it never rejects a true finding, so no valuable discovery is ever lost. Since many claims have been lost and then rediscovered decades later this is obviously incorrect. More to the point, this claim is not falsifiable. If a true discovery is lost to history we would not know about it. Because it is lost. The logic of this resembles the old joke about the teacher who says, "everyone who is absent today please raise your hand." In other technical disciplines such as programming, people forget important techniques all the time. The notion that science does not make mistakes is pernicious. It is dangerous. Imagine the chaos and destruction that would ensue if people went around thinking: "doctors never make mistakes" or "bank computer programmers never make mistakes" or "airplane mechanics never make mistakes." - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
In the world aptly described where, science progresses funeral by funeral, this was an observation about the naysayers, not the innovators. The rare innovator and their innovations are lost funeral by funeral and there is no tally of the numbers and importance of the losses inflicted upon this world by the countless pissant not puissant naysayers. The baby boom generation educational system history will show became little more than pimped professorial puppy mills. There parents could purchase for their offspring yet another most expensive and pretentious 'sticker' and the world became overwhelmed with lost science puppies. The puppies with no outlet for said training have in most cases moved on to normal lives. Sadly more than a few have become armchair cranks, malcontents, critics - collectively trolls. The internet has proven to be an almost perfect puddle for said failing foolish puppies to troll, splash, and piddle in. On top of this anonymous posting, the perfect prescription for 'anti-social media' has removed the last semblance of humanity in science as the plentiful puppies proceed into prognosticating grumpy old dogs fouling the pathways of science that no one cleans up after. What separates real scientists from the puppies is time out of the armchair at the lab bench, and NO, 'theory' is not synonymous with experiment. From: bobcook39...@hotmail.com [mailto:bobcook39...@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, January 26, 2018 7:10 AM To: ROGER ANDERTON ; vortex-l@eskimo.com; c...@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries Roger- I agree with your timely addition regarding "science" excluding different thinking. I would note that Hagelstein's editorial cited below uses the term "science community" instead of your term "science" to designate the social entity which excludes different thinking. The following from Hagelstein's editorial in which he discusses the fields of nuclear and condensed matter physics is pertinent to this issue: "The current view within the scientific community is that these fields have things right, and if that is not reflected in measurements in the lab, then the problem is with those doing the experiments. Such a view prevailed in 1989, but now nearly a quarter century later, the situation in cold fusion labs is much clearer. There is excess heat, which can be a very big effect; it is reproducible in some labs; there are not commensurate energetic products; there are many replications; and there are other anomalies as well. Condensed matter physics and nuclear physics together are not sufficiently robust to account for these anomalies. No defense of these fields is required, since if some aspect of the associated theories is incomplete or can be broken, we would very much like to break it, so that we can focus on developing new theory that is more closely matched to experiment." >From my perspective Hagelstein is too soft on the establishment's "science community." The Corporate, University, Government Complex, driven by financial gains , should be fingered as the problem Institution. Unfortunately schools of higher learning are part of this nightmare IMHO as Hagelstein suggests. They at the mercy of the government funding/research grants scheme to control thought in many areas and the production of real data in the detail necessary to fully understand the natural laws or nature. Hagelstein concludes his editorial with the following: "Excess heat in the Fleischmann- Pons experiment is a real effect. There are big implications for science, and for society. Without resources science in this area will not advance. With the continued destruction of the careers of those who venture to work in the area, progress will be slow, and there will be no continuity of effort." I think Hagelstein is wrong in avoiding recognizing the saving grace afforded by the likes of Mills, Rossi and others around the world to exist and function on meager funding, producing real controlled excess heat via LENR without understanding the detailed science or fundamental natural laws. The control/power hungry "science community" will eat crow in my optimistic humble opinion (IMOHO). Bob Cook From: ROGER ANDERTON <mailto:r.j.ander...@btinternet.com> Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2018 3:55 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com <mailto:vortex-l@eskimo.com> ; c...@googlegroups.com <mailto:c...@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries >There are countless examples of "science" excluding different thinking. This is what prompted Max Planck to write that progress in science occurs "funeral by funeral." He explained: "A new scientific truth does not triump
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
For me the most shocking case is about Semmelweis and before him Alexander Gordon de Aberdeen. http://www.antimicrobe.org/h04c.files/history/Lancet%20ID-Alexander%20Gordon%20puerperal%20sepsis%20and%20modern%20theories%20of%20infection%20control%20Semmelweis%20in%20perspective.pdf The most shocking is that the illiterate poor mothers wer totally aware of the statistics and prefered to give birth on the street front to the hospital not to be helped by doctors who regularly were infecting them. The doctors were deluded sincerely since for example one doctor suicided after exchange with Semmelweis when he understood he killed a cousin. Motivated beliefs are not conscious computations, but looks very sincere, yet it is a motavated self blinding. http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/REP_4_BW_nolinks_corrected%201.pdf The worst motivation are not money (in fact money should help as real innovations and discovery can be expected to give money and fame to the discoverer), but laziness, ego, fear of change, ideology...It is not far from the Innovation Dilemna... 2018-01-26 2:53 GMT+01:00 Jed Rothwell : > A follow-up posting by me: > > Cold fusion is not unique. There are many, many examples of previous > claims that were rejected even though the proof was rock solid, and there > was no reason to doubt the claims. Lasers, the MRI and h. pylori are good > examples. I have studied much of this history, digging up old books and > contemporaneous original sources. People don't like to talk about these > events so you seldom see them in history textbooks. > > I think there are many causes. As I said, it is human nature. Another > major contributing factor is money. M-o-n-e-y, especially research funding. > The locus of opposition to cold fusion has been the hot fusion program > researchers, for obvious reasons. You see this in other institutions. The > coal industry is fighting tooth and nail against natural gas and wind > power. The congressman from Big Coal (WV) tried to pass a law banning the > use of wind turbines, ostensibly because they kill birds. That's ridiculous > for many reasons, not least because coal kills orders of magnitude more > birds than wind per megawatt-hour, not to mention 20,000 Americans per year. > > The extent of opposition, and the irrationality of it, is surprising. You > have to read original sources to get a sense of it. Take early aviation. > Before 1908, practically no one believed that airplanes are real. The > Scientific American printed vicious, irrational, unscientific attacks > against claims, and the Wright brothers -- very similar to their attacks > against cold fusion. (The Sci. Am. still has it in for the Wrights, > repeating their nonsense attacks as recently as 2003.) In 1908 the Wrights > demonstrated in France and in Washington DC and become famous overnight. > They were on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. Hundreds of thousands > of people saw them fly over the next several months. They were given awards > by every country including a gold medal issued by Congress in 1909. > Starting in 1909 there were air races with 10 or 20 pilots competing. > > So, you would think the controversy would end, wouldn't you? Nope. I have > newspaper accounts and books describing events as late as 1912, where, for > example, a person showed up with an airplane packed into railroad shipping > containers in a Midwestern city, and advertised he would demonstrate > flights before a paying crowd. He was arrested for fraud. The citizens > threatened to tar and feather him because "everyone knows people can't > fly." They sheriff told the pilot to get out of town in the dead of night. > Apparently the citizens of that city thought the national press coverage > was, in modern parlance, "fake news." They did not trust those big city > newspapers. > > You see similar disbelief and opposition to things like self-driving cars > today. There are many unfounded and hysterical claims about them. Someone > in the comment section at the N. Y. Times said that a terrorist might use a > self-driving car to drive on the sidewalk and mow down pedestrians, and it > would not be the terrorist's fault because the robot is in charge. > Obviously, the cars are programmed not to leave the road or run down > anyone! Another letter claimed that thousands of self-driving cars on the > New Jersey Turnpike might suddenly to exit to the island Service Centers. > The letter writer seemed to think they might pile on top of one-another in > a gigantic demolition derby, trying to occupy the same parking spaces. > Again, obviously, a robot car that can drive in traffic would not try to > park in a spot that was already taken. Such objections resemble one of the > main objections made by scientists circa 1908 who did not believe airplanes > were possible: "even if you can fly, there is no way to slow down and land > safely." These people apparently never watched a pigeon turn up its wings > to a steep angle of
RE: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
Roger- I agree with your timely addition regarding “science” excluding different thinking. I would note that Hagelstein’s editorial cited below uses the term “science community” instead of your term “science” to designate the social entity which excludes different thinking. The following from Hagelstein’s editorial in which he discusses the fields of nuclear and condensed matter physics is pertinent to this issue: “The current view within the scientific community is that these fields have things right, and if that is not reflected in measurements in the lab, then the problem is with those doing the experiments. Such a view prevailed in 1989, but now nearly a quarter century later, the situation in cold fusion labs is much clearer. There is excess heat, which can be a very big effect; it is reproducible in some labs; there are not commensurate energetic products; there are many replications; and there are other anomalies as well. Condensed matter physics and nuclear physics together are not sufficiently robust to account for these anomalies. No defense of these fields is required, since if some aspect of the associated theories is incomplete or can be broken, we would very much like to break it, so that we can focus on developing new theory that is more closely matched to experiment.” >From my perspective Hagelstein is too soft on the establishment’s “science >community.” The Corporate, University, Government Complex, driven by >financial gains , should be fingered as the problem Institution. Unfortunately schools of higher learning are part of this nightmare IMHO as Hagelstein suggests. They at the mercy of the government funding/research grants scheme to control thought in many areas and the production of real data in the detail necessary to fully understand the natural laws or nature. Hagelstein concludes his editorial with the following: “Excess heat in the Fleischmann- Pons experiment is a real effect. There are big implications for science, and for society. Without resources science in this area will not advance. With the continued destruction of the careers of those who venture to work in the area, progress will be slow, and there will be no continuity of effort.” I think Hagelstein is wrong in avoiding recognizing the saving grace afforded by the likes of Mills, Rossi and others around the world to exist and function on meager funding, producing real controlled excess heat via LENR without understanding the detailed science or fundamental natural laws. The control/power hungry “science community” will eat crow in my optimistic humble opinion (IMOHO). Bob Cook From: ROGER ANDERTON<mailto:r.j.ander...@btinternet.com> Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2018 3:55 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com<mailto:vortex-l@eskimo.com>; c...@googlegroups.com<mailto:c...@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries >There are countless examples of "science" excluding different thinking. This >is what prompted Max Planck to write that progress in science occurs "funeral >by funeral." He explained: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by >convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its >opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with >it.” but the "new generation" is taught dogma; textbooks are locked into teaching things that are wrong but refuse to be corrected for instance: certain things should be mentioned but are not mentioned to the "new generation" allowing them to live in ignorance: John S. Bell<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_S._Bell>, "On the impossible pilot wave". Foundations of Physics 12 (1982) notes: "But why then had Born not told me of this 'pilot wave'? If only to point out what was wrong with it? Why did von Neumann not consider it? More extraordinarily, why did people go on producing 'impossibility' proofs, after 1952, and as recently as 1978? When even Pauli, Rosenfeld, and Heisenberg, could produce no more devastating criticism of Bohm's version than to brand it as 'metaphysical' and 'ideological'? Why is the pilot wave picture ignored in text books? Should it not be taught, not as the only way, but as an antidote to the prevailing complacency? To show that vagueness, subjectivity, and indeterminism, are not forced on us by experimental facts, but by deliberate theoretical choice?" https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory On Wednesday, 24 January 2018, 22:49, Jed Rothwell wrote: A trusting soul over at lenr-forum.com<http://lenr-forum.com/> wrote that science does not exclude different thinking, meaning it does not reject valid ideas: Seriously, look over those accomplishments and tell me science excludes different thin
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
A follow-up posting by me: Cold fusion is not unique. There are many, many examples of previous claims that were rejected even though the proof was rock solid, and there was no reason to doubt the claims. Lasers, the MRI and h. pylori are good examples. I have studied much of this history, digging up old books and contemporaneous original sources. People don't like to talk about these events so you seldom see them in history textbooks. I think there are many causes. As I said, it is human nature. Another major contributing factor is money. M-o-n-e-y, especially research funding. The locus of opposition to cold fusion has been the hot fusion program researchers, for obvious reasons. You see this in other institutions. The coal industry is fighting tooth and nail against natural gas and wind power. The congressman from Big Coal (WV) tried to pass a law banning the use of wind turbines, ostensibly because they kill birds. That's ridiculous for many reasons, not least because coal kills orders of magnitude more birds than wind per megawatt-hour, not to mention 20,000 Americans per year. The extent of opposition, and the irrationality of it, is surprising. You have to read original sources to get a sense of it. Take early aviation. Before 1908, practically no one believed that airplanes are real. The Scientific American printed vicious, irrational, unscientific attacks against claims, and the Wright brothers -- very similar to their attacks against cold fusion. (The Sci. Am. still has it in for the Wrights, repeating their nonsense attacks as recently as 2003.) In 1908 the Wrights demonstrated in France and in Washington DC and become famous overnight. They were on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. Hundreds of thousands of people saw them fly over the next several months. They were given awards by every country including a gold medal issued by Congress in 1909. Starting in 1909 there were air races with 10 or 20 pilots competing. So, you would think the controversy would end, wouldn't you? Nope. I have newspaper accounts and books describing events as late as 1912, where, for example, a person showed up with an airplane packed into railroad shipping containers in a Midwestern city, and advertised he would demonstrate flights before a paying crowd. He was arrested for fraud. The citizens threatened to tar and feather him because "everyone knows people can't fly." They sheriff told the pilot to get out of town in the dead of night. Apparently the citizens of that city thought the national press coverage was, in modern parlance, "fake news." They did not trust those big city newspapers. You see similar disbelief and opposition to things like self-driving cars today. There are many unfounded and hysterical claims about them. Someone in the comment section at the N. Y. Times said that a terrorist might use a self-driving car to drive on the sidewalk and mow down pedestrians, and it would not be the terrorist's fault because the robot is in charge. Obviously, the cars are programmed not to leave the road or run down anyone! Another letter claimed that thousands of self-driving cars on the New Jersey Turnpike might suddenly to exit to the island Service Centers. The letter writer seemed to think they might pile on top of one-another in a gigantic demolition derby, trying to occupy the same parking spaces. Again, obviously, a robot car that can drive in traffic would not try to park in a spot that was already taken. Such objections resemble one of the main objections made by scientists circa 1908 who did not believe airplanes were possible: "even if you can fly, there is no way to slow down and land safely." These people apparently never watched a pigeon turn up its wings to a steep angle of attack, spread its tail, stall, and land. That is exactly how an airplane lands, and you can be sure the Wright brothers knew that before they glided the first time. Here is a famous quote about how it is impossible to land an airplane: "And, granting complete success, imagine the proud possessor of the aeroplane darting through the air at a speed of several hundred feet per second! It is the speed alone that sustains him. Once he slackens his speed, down he begins to fall. He may, indeed, increase the inclination of his aeroplane. Then he increases the resistance necessary to move it. Once he stops he falls a dead mass. How shall he reach the ground without destroying his delicate machinery?" Source: Newcomb, Simon. *Outlook for the Flying Machine. The Independent*, October 22, 1903. http://www.foresight.org/news/negativeComments.html You can see that Prof. Newcomb is describing how to land an airplane, yet he does not even realize he is! If he were here, now, I would say: "Professor, you just answered your own question. All you need to do is glide to within a few feet above the ground and then do what you just described. You fall a dead mass the last few feet, and then roll to a stop." Most of the objections to c
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
Jed, I have never stated nor thought that everything Rossi has said or done should be accepted without question. So you are making that up. I think there is significant evidence that some of his E-Cats worked & suggested several times it would be better to wait and see than dismiss everything with the certainty that you do. Why do you think he is building a factory? As I reported elsewhere there is evidence that he is doing so. -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell To: Vortex Sent: Thu, Jan 25, 2018 1:30 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries Adrian Ashfield wrote: Jed, I find your comment rather ironic considering your dismissal of everything that Rossi has done. You imply that I must accept all new claims without question. That would be as irrational as rejecting all of them out of hand. You imply that I am not capable of evaluating claims. If I can read McKubre and conclude that he is right, I can read the Penon report and conclude that Rossi is wrong. The suggestion that a person who uses ordinary judgment and evaluates claim is somehow "ironic" is a new definition of irony. Actually, I cannot imagine how a technically competent person could read the Penon report and not conclude that Rossi was wrong. Axil Axil and other Rossi supporters have finessed this problem by refusing to read the report. Robert Park used the same technique to reject all cold fusion results -- he refused to look at them. That's ironic! - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
Adrian Ashfield wrote: Jed, I find your comment rather ironic considering your dismissal of > everything that Rossi has done. You imply that I must accept all new claims without question. That would be as irrational as rejecting all of them out of hand. You imply that I am not capable of evaluating claims. If I can read McKubre and conclude that he is right, I can read the Penon report and conclude that Rossi is wrong. The suggestion that a person who uses ordinary judgment and evaluates claim is somehow "ironic" is a new definition of irony. Actually, I cannot imagine how a technically competent person could read the Penon report and *not* conclude that Rossi was wrong. Axil Axil and other Rossi supporters have finessed this problem by refusing to read the report. Robert Park used the same technique to reject all cold fusion results -- he refused to look at them. That's ironic! - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
So far so good, said the man after jumping off the top of a skyscraper. Why do you suppose Rossi is building a factory? -Original Message- From: Brian Ahern To: vortex-l Sent: Thu, Jan 25, 2018 7:25 am Subject: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries Dismissal is to kind a word. Rossi should ave been prosecuted. How did that October demo go? I think my 31st Rossi prediction held. I am 31 - 0 since 2009.
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
Dismissal is to kind a word. Rossi should ave been prosecuted. How did that October demo go? I think my 31st Rossi prediction held. I am 31 - 0 since 2009. From: Adrian Ashfield Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2018 6:10 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries Jed, I find your comment rather ironic considering your dismissal of everything that Rossi has done.
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
>There are countless examples of "science" excluding different thinking. This >is what prompted Max Planck to write that progress in science occurs "funeral >by funeral." He explained: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by >convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its >opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with >it.” but the "new generation" is taught dogma; textbooks are locked into teaching things that are wrong but refuse to be corrected for instance: certain things should be mentioned but are not mentioned to the "new generation" allowing them to live in ignorance: John S. Bell, "On the impossible pilot wave". Foundations of Physics 12 (1982) notes: "But why then had Born not told me of this 'pilot wave'? If only to point out what was wrong with it? Why did von Neumann not consider it? More extraordinarily, why did people go on producing 'impossibility' proofs, after 1952, and as recently as 1978? When even Pauli, Rosenfeld, and Heisenberg, could produce no more devastating criticism of Bohm's version than to brand it as 'metaphysical' and 'ideological'? Why is the pilot wave picture ignored in text books? Should it not be taught, not as the only way, but as an antidote to the prevailing complacency? To show that vagueness, subjectivity, and indeterminism, are not forced on us by experimental facts, but by deliberate theoretical choice?" https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory On Wednesday, 24 January 2018, 22:49, Jed Rothwell wrote: A trusting soul over at lenr-forum.com wrote that science does not exclude different thinking, meaning it does not reject valid ideas: Seriously, look over those accomplishments and tell me science excludes different thinking. With some example such as: http://discovermagazine.com/2010/oct/12-most-important-science-trends-30-years We have often discussed this issue here. There is no need to reiterate the whole issue but let me quote my response. If you have not read Hagelstein's essay linked to below, you should. There are countless examples of "science" excluding different thinking. This is what prompted Max Planck to write that progress in science occurs "funeral by funeral." He explained: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” I have mentioned famous examples of rejection. They include things like the airplane, the laser and the MRI. I put the word science in quotes above because it is not science that excludes so much as individual scientists who do. They do this because rejecting novelty is human nature, and scientists are ordinary people with such foibles despite their training. See Peter Hagelstein's essay here, in the section, "Science as an imperfect human endeavor:" http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinontheoryan.pdf Many scientists not very good at science, just as many programmers write spaghetti code, and many surgeons kill their patients. A surprising number of scientists reject the scientific method, such as the late John Huizenga, who boldly asserted that when an experiments conflicts with theory, the experiment must be wrong, even when he could not point to any reason. One of the absurd claims made with regard to this notion is that science never makes mistakes; that in the end it always gets the right answer and it never rejects a true finding, so no valuable discovery is ever lost. Since many claims have been lost and then rediscovered decades later this is obviously incorrect. More to the point, this claim is not falsifiable. If a true discovery is lost to history we would not know about it. Because it is lost. The logic of this resembles the old joke about the teacher who says, "everyone who is absent today please raise your hand." In other technical disciplines such as programming, people forget important techniques all the time. The notion that science does not make mistakes is pernicious. It is dangerous. Imagine the chaos and destruction that would ensue if people went around thinking: "doctors never make mistakes" or "bank computer programmers never make mistakes" or "airplane mechanics never make mistakes." - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
Jed, I find your comment rather ironic considering your dismissal of everything that Rossi has done.
[Vo]:Science does sometimes reject valid discoveries
A trusting soul over at lenr-forum.com wrote that science does not exclude different thinking, meaning it does not reject valid ideas: Seriously, look over those accomplishments and tell me science excludes > different thinking. With some example such as: http://discovermagazine.com/2010/oct/12-most-important-science-trends-30-years We have often discussed this issue here. There is no need to reiterate the whole issue but let me quote my response. If you have not read Hagelstein's essay linked to below, you should. There are countless examples of "science" excluding different thinking. This is what prompted Max Planck to write that progress in science occurs "funeral by funeral." He explained: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” I have mentioned famous examples of rejection. They include things like the airplane, the laser and the MRI. I put the word science in quotes above because it is not science that excludes so much as individual scientists who do. They do this because rejecting novelty is human nature, and scientists are ordinary people with such foibles despite their training. See Peter Hagelstein's essay here, in the section, "Science as an imperfect human endeavor:" http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinontheoryan.pdf Many scientists not very good at science, just as many programmers write spaghetti code, and many surgeons kill their patients. A surprising number of scientists reject the scientific method, such as the late John Huizenga, who boldly asserted that when an experiments conflicts with theory, the experiment must be wrong, even when he could not point to any reason. One of the absurd claims made with regard to this notion is that science never makes mistakes; that in the end it always gets the right answer and it never rejects a true finding, so no valuable discovery is ever lost. Since many claims have been lost and then rediscovered decades later this is obviously incorrect. More to the point, this claim is not falsifiable. If a true discovery is lost to history *we would not know about it*. Because it is lost. The logic of this resembles the old joke about the teacher who says, "everyone who is absent today please raise your hand." In other technical disciplines such as programming, people forget important techniques all the time. The notion that science does not make mistakes is pernicious. It is dangerous. Imagine the chaos and destruction that would ensue if people went around thinking: "doctors never make mistakes" or "bank computer programmers never make mistakes" or "airplane mechanics never make mistakes." - Jed