[Vo]:OT: Insanity of the innumerate
The innumerate American public can apparently be made to believe anything by statistical manipulation. Consider this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/04/ AR2011020406845.html http://tinyurl.com/6blxd3z The jobless rate fell to 9 percent in January from 9.4 percent in December and 9.8 percent in November. Employers added only 36,000 jobs last month, a quarter of what forecasters had expected. The above numerical inconsistency should be instantly self evident, an indication of the degree to which labor statistics have been redefined and manipulated into meaningless. If adding 36,000 jobs represents 0.4 percent of the labor market, then the TOTAL labor market consists of (36000 people) / 0.004 = 9 million people. How insane is that? The government's own statistics: http://www.bls.gov/fls/flscomparelf/population.htm http://tinyurl.com/4zg5j55 shows the labor market in 2009 to consist of 235,801,000 people. That is 235 million vs 9 million, a mere 2600 percent discrepancy. The market should have added about 9.4 million jobs to get that 0.4 percent decrease in unemployment. That's not counting the young people and immigrants coming into the market, less retirees. The discrepancy is largely attributed to people who have given up on looking for jobs. Have all those 9 million people taken out of the job market been asked if they really do no longer want jobs? Makes me wonder just how bad inflation and other statistics really are. Retirees like me find it increasingly difficult to pay ever increasing food and energy bills, while interest paid on savings is almost non-existent. And yet inflation is supposedly held in check, deflation is the main worry. It is bad enough the general public swallows numbers like this, but there is no excuse for the media. It is difficult to imagine why there is not outrage in the public and congress. Well maybe not. No outrage from the public or media I assume means status quo in congress. Status quo in the congress means the lobbyists remain happy. Perhaps more sensible statistics can be found here: http://www.shadowstats.com/ Too bad you have to pay for them, and pay the government for producing their numbers as well. This subject might be completely off topic, if the dismal science, economics, were not a science, and if the government numbers were not highly anomalous! This also reflects on our educational system, which is apparently putting out illiterate, innumerate, illogical and uncritical sheep by the millions, which does not bode well for American science and engineering curricula, nor for the quality of future teachers. Without change, an age of fantasy, superstition, and magic, a new dark age, approaches. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:OT: Insanity of the innumerate
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. -Samuel Clements
[Vo]:A nucleating agent for pycno?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XJofRQJrQ4feature=related You have probably seen this old video of what can be done with NIB magnets (in capable hand of a well-known vortician). Like hydrogen atoms, the spherical magnets have two poles, and prefer to be linked together as 2D strings instead of 3D topology. I am using the conventional argument that a one-atom thickness of anything is 2D, which may, or may not, be literally true. Certainly from all we know about graphene - the one atom thickness performs much differently than 3D forms. OK - assuming that spillover hydrogen starts out as 2D atoms on the dielectric surface, as in the conventional view.. The $64 question then is whether a dielectric nucleating agent can allow - say a 60 unit (or larger) 2D sphere of hydrogen (with special bosonic properties) to form around its exterior ? From Bill's demo, one can see the approximate interior space relative to the ball diameter. I would guess it to be about eight times larger than one ball - but whatever it is would allow a guesstimate of the approximate OD for a workable nucleating agent. In fact, the known diameter of buckyballs - which themselves can be excitons, holding a charge, could work for spillover ! The structure of a standard buckminsterfullerene is a truncated icosahedron made of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons, with a van der Waals diameter of about 1 nanometer. That is larger than ideal for 60 units of monatomic hydrogen, but buckyballs can form in larger sizes, and presumably anything using one as a template could do the same. For instance: C60, C70, C76, and C84 molecules, are produced in carbon soot in nature. Jones
[Vo]:Chennai
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/chennai/desktop-reactor-cold-storage-235 Local stories, coming from Chennai are likely to appear here before they appear in the USA.
[Vo]:failures of H-Ni cold fusion tests with water cooling -- possible heat and O2 and H2 release via electrolysis by up to 220 V AC from shorts and deposited metals with danger of shocks and explos
failures of H-Ni cold fusion tests with water cooling -- possible heat and O2 and H2 release via electrolysis by up to 220 V AC from shorts and deposited metals with danger of shocks and explosions: Rich Murray 2011.02.05 This vision came to this morning, as I woke up with my blindfold and O2 nose mask feed, so I thought I would make the rough ideas available immediately, since the presentation re the 10 KW Rossi results will start in 14 hours in Chennai, India -- also there is a severe electric shock hazard, as well as explosions from steam pressure and H2-O2 recombination. http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/files/Levi,%20Bianchini%20and%20Villa%20Reports.pdf With the Rossi cell, the initial water flow was 168 gm in 45 seconds, 3.7 gm/s. The hydrogen pressure in the cell for the Test 2 demo was 80 bar. As it can be seen the system was turned on just around 16.55. After approx 30 minutes a kink can be observed in the (Y). Because input power ( 1120W also checked via and clamp amperometer ) was not modified (see fig.5 later) this change of slope testify that the reactor was ignited. After a startup period approx 20 minutes long were the reactor power was almost constant taking the water to ≈75 °C a second kink is found when the reactor fully ignites rising the measured temperature at 101.6 +/-0.1 °C and transforming the water in to steam. The initial high temperatures from the 1120 W electric power input may stress the cooling water pipe inside the cell, opening leaks and releasing water into the cell interior, which would form high pressure steam, further stressing cell components, and leading to more water leakage, as well as electrical shorts from the heating resistors and their wires, which in turn can electrolyze the water into H2 and O2, further increasing cell gas pressures, and facilitating electrochemical corrosion of nickel, copper, and stainless steel cell components, leading to the spread of metal particles and deposits within the cell, and so increasing the conductive paths available for more electrical and H2-O2 recombination hot spots. All this could generate the measured excess heat after ignition, continuing after the input electric power is reduced to 400 W. In addition, a 220 V AC leak could start to operate from within the cell back into the cooling water pipe and along the water flow to any electric grounds within the input and output directions, heating the water and producing H2 and O2 gas, which may be a component of the observed steam output. If accumulated within a nearby closet with a drainage sink for the hot water output, H2 and O2 could produce a dangerous explosion. Copper may be deposited in substantial amounts on the nickel nanopowder over a run of 6 months. Similar processes may have occurred in many other experiments since 1989. Before ending [Test1] all the power was reduced and then switched off from the resistors and also the hydrogen supply was closed. No pressure decrease was noted in the H2 bottle. Even in this conditions the system kept running self sustaining, for about 15 minutes until it was decided to manually stop the reaction by cooling the reactor using a large water flux (note the decrease of the water input temperature). In [Test2] the power measured was 12686 +/- 211 W for about 40 min with a water flux 146.4g +/- 0.1 per 30 +/- 0.5 s. The mean input power during the test was 1022 W. During the test the main resistor, used to ignite the reaction, failed due to defective welding. Even in that condition the reactor successfully started operation using the other resistors but the duration of the experiment in full power (≈40 min) was “too short” to observe a self sustaining reaction. [ Note: defective welding ...] Fig. 5 Power adsorbed during tests in W. The time abscissa has 15min tics from counted from the first record. Spikes in [Test 1] are due to line voltage spikes. The anomalous behavior in [Test 2] is clear. [ line voltage spikes , or intermittent shorts in the cell? ] http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg33306.html [ This is the first of an 26 post debate... ] [Vo]:Most papers from Piantelli are authored by Focardi Jed Rothwell Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:39:18 -0700 I referred to Piantelli the other day. It turns out I have no papers by him at LENR-CANR.org. There are several by his co-author Focardi, such as: Focardi, S., et al., Large excess heat production in Ni-H systems. Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis. A, 1998. 111A: p. 1233. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/FocardiSlargeexces.pdf I think Piantelli is the leader of the group. I have not heard if they responded to the critique by Cerron-Zeballos et al. Cerron-Zeballos did a careful, year-long attempt to replicate, as you see in the paper. As far as I can tell, they disproved the Focardi claims. I with [wish] that more cold fusion experiments were replicated with this kind of care. - Jed http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CerronZebainvestigat.pdf
[Vo]:Robert Park, DNA, and ionization
Robert Park repeatedly states, in various ways, that electromagnetic radiation we are typically exposed to, such as from cell phones, can not cause cancer because the photons do not carry enough energy to ionize the DNA. (See a couple of examples appended below.) This is a short sighted analysis, but not surprising given that physicists are not necessarily biochemists. What Park is overlooking is that ionization, the photoelectric effect, is not necessary to damage DNA or other molecules important to life functions. Chemical reactions can be triggered by very small potential differences, and such chemical reactions can result in changes to important molecules, including DNA. Such changes can be effected by ordinary electrochemical means, when electrochemical potentials are in close balance, or via potential triggered ion exchange through membranes, such as across cellular membrane barriers. Nerve dendrites are conductive paths with lengths sufficient to act as antennas for short wavelength EM waves. They can thus resonantly build potentials when EM radiation stimulated, and their membranes can act as barriers through which ions can tunnel to chemically affect molecules on the other side. The biochemistry involved in potential EM damage is a complex field with large scope. For example see the paper by Peter Kovacic1 and Ratnasamy Somanathan: http://www.scribd.com/doc/34247981/EMF-Mechanism-Cell-Signaling-Bio- Processes-Toxicity-Radicals http://tinyurl.com/4ao3rlf On Apr 24, 2010, at 10:27 AM, Robert Park wrote: WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 23 Apr 10 Washington, DC 1. CELL PHONES: FIVE BILLION ARE IN USE AROUND THE WORLD. In spite of unsubstantiated reports that cell phone radiation increases the risk of brain cancer, sales soared in the first decade of the 3rd Millennium. Cell phones became a $1 trillion business. There was no corresponding increase in brain cancer, but perhaps there is a long latency period. Cancer victims have no way of knowing what caused their cancer, but the media had made their cell phones the suspect. The clear scientific conclusion that cell phone radiation could not be the cause, http://jncl.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/93/3/166 , went largely unreported. In short, microwave photons do not have enough energy to create a mutant strand of DNA. That can’t happen until you get to the blue limit of the visible spectrum. In the interest of full disclosure, let me state that although I own a cell phone I don’t normally carry it, and can’t even remember my number. I find cell phones to be rude and intrusive. My wife insists I carry it when I travel so I can dial 911 in an emergency. That’s OK. On Jan 1, 2011, at 5:02 AM, Robert Park wrote: 2. PHOTONS: WHAT ALBERT EINSTEIN KNEW ABOUT CELL-PHONE RADIATION. Maybe I missed it, but I have seen nothing from major media sources refuting the preposterous claim that radiation from cell phones and other wireless devices is linked to human health problems. We are bathed in microwave radiation. Most of it is as natural as sunshine, but wireless communication, including cell phone radiation, is not. What do we know about the effect of this stuff on the human body, and how long ago did we know it? The starting point is 1905, sometimes called Albert Einstein's miracle year. One of the four miracle papers he published that year dealt with the photoelectric effect. He treated the light striking an object as particles called quanta, having energy equal to the frequency times the Planck constant. This predicted a photoelectron threshold at the extreme blue end of the visible spectrum, below which there would be no photoemission. Almost nobody believed him, including Robert Millikan, perhaps the world's greatest experimentalist. The photoelectric effect had already been explained with Maxwell’s wave theory, but experimental confirmation was lacking. Einstein wasn't bothered; he had other great things to do while waiting for confirmation. Millikan did the experiment in 1917; it agreed perfectly with Einstein's theory. The 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Einstein for his theory of the photoelectric effect. Millikan won the Prize two years later. Their results show that microwaves are great for warming pizza and they don't cause cancer. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Robert Park, DNA, and ionization
In reply to Horace Heffner's message of Sat, 5 Feb 2011 11:34:39 -0900: Hi, [snip] Robert Park repeatedly states, in various ways, that electromagnetic radiation we are typically exposed to, such as from cell phones, can not cause cancer because the photons do not carry enough energy to ionize the DNA. (See a couple of examples appended below.) This is a short sighted analysis, but not surprising given that physicists are not necessarily biochemists. [snip] By this logic an ion source (which is typically excited by radio waves), would then also be incapable of producing ions. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:OT: Insanity of the innumerate
On 02/05/2011 04:09 AM, Horace Heffner wrote: The innumerate American public can apparently be made to believe anything by statistical manipulation. Consider this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/04/AR2011020406845.html http://tinyurl.com/6blxd3z The jobless rate fell to 9 percent in January from 9.4 percent in December and 9.8 percent in November. Employers added only 36,000 jobs last month, a quarter of what forecasters had expected. Horace, these statistics -- the size of the labor force, aka the employment rate, and the number of unemployed people, aka the unemployment rate -- are typically reported together, but typically also are accompanied by a notice that they are determined by two different surveys, and may, consequently, disagree. IIRC the former is done by a survey of employers, the latter by a survey of households. The occasional glaring discrepancies between the two numbers are not news, at least not to Wall Street Journal readers. I see no compelling reason to disbelieve the official explanation, nor to conclude that somebody must be lying, because the statistics are confusing.
Re: [Vo]:Defkalion Energy has no knowledge of Rossi, and Leonardo Company is defunct
On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 10:21 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: Anybody get Greek TV on their cable? Ecat was covered on national TV in Greece today: http://talefta.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html T
Re: [Vo]:Replicating Rossi at home
In reply to Jones Beene's message of Fri, 4 Feb 2011 15:19:52 -0800: Hi, There are a number of things this paper doesn't take into consideration (as I understand it). 1) Highly concentrated positive charges on a surface would tend to repel other positive charges in the neighborhood (not yet on the surface), thus preventing growth of the structures Lawandy describes. 2) He neglects the repulsive (for surface ions) force of the positive charge that accumulates in the interior of the dielectric as electrons migrate from the interior toward the surface. The likely effect of taking this into account however would just be a weakening of the potential, not its removal. 3) He assumes that the surface is an impenetrable barrier, when in fact rather than remain separated, the positive surface charges are likely to simply migrate into the substance and mingle with the electron cloud within. (Which is exactly what happens with substances such as Pd, Ni, Ti, Fe and some other metals.) (This migration of charge (ions) is another form of dielectric breakdown; the usual form being electron migration). Note that he mentions kV potentials for highly concentrated nano structures. IMO such potentials would inevitably lead to charge migration. However I grant that if my arguments can be invalidated, then this mechanism would appear to explain many of the observations pertaining to CF. [snip] Perhaps you don't like it because you prefer the hydrino explanation better? :) Jones Like you, I am trying to find theories that fit the facts. However so far I haven't found one that meets all criteria. I frequently point out how hydrino theory explains some aspects because I understand it better than I understand most other theories, and because so far IMO it has less holes in it than other theories, with the possible exception of Horace's Deflation Fusion theory, though I don't really understand that well enough to be sure of what the holes might be (I have a few suspicions, but I haven't really put in the time and effort to confirm or reject them). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:OT: Insanity of the innumerate
On Feb 5, 2011, at 12:14 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: I see no compelling reason to disbelieve the official explanation, nor to conclude that somebody must be lying, because the statistics are confusing. Perhaps more sensible statistics can be found here: http://www.shadowstats.com/ Despite minor changes to the system, government reporting has deteriorated sharply in the last decade or so. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/primers-and-reports http://www.shadowstats.com/article/employment http://www.shadowstats.com/article/276-employment-2009-benchmark- revision The surplus jobs created by start-up firms, which get added on to the payroll estimates each month as a special add-factor, have been revised lower. Prior to the benchmark revision, the Birth-Death Model appears to have been adding an average of about 72,000 extra jobs per month (roughly 861,000 per year), but that appears to have been revised now to an average of about 42,000 per month (roughly 509,000 per year). This monthly bias should be negative, on average. Since it is not, the BLS continues to overestimate monthly growth in payroll employment. During the Clinton Administration, discouraged workers — those who had given up looking for a job because there were no jobs to be had — were redefined so as to be counted only if they had been discouraged for less than a year. This time qualification defined away the long-term discouraged workers. The remaining short-term discouraged workers (less than one year) are included in U.6. Adding the excluded long-term discouraged workers back into the total unemployed, unemployment — more in line with common experience as estimated by the SGS-Alternate Unemployment Measure — dropped to about 21.2% in January from 21.9% in December. While there likely were some seasonal aberrations in the January reporting, the SGS measure is based on the reported U.6 measure and usually varies with it. See the Alternate Data tab at www.shadowstats.com for a graph and more detail. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
[Vo]:Rossi funders on Greek national TV
People from Defkalion Green Technologies were on national television in Greece. See: http://talefta.blogspot.com/ The other company is definitely: http://leonardocorp1996.com/ Rossi graciously apologized for the confusion about the names and the 1-week wild-goose chase several people engaged in trying to track down the information. I apologized to him for the harsh tone of my message. (I am sorry for the tone but I am glad I went public and made a big deal about it. I and several others asked Rossi and others about the company, and they kept telling us it is Defkalion Energy. If I had not raised a fuss the mass media would have reported that company has never heard of him, and the company in Florida is defunct. They were about to report that.) - Jed
[Vo]:quote from: A primer for electroweak induced LENR.
The analysis presented in this paper leads us to conclude that realistic possibilities exist for designing LENR devices capable of producing `green energy', that is,production of excess heat at low cost without lethal nuclear waste, dangerousgamma-rays or unwanted neutrons. The necessary tools and the essential theoretical know-how to manufacture such devices appear to be well within the reach of the technology available now. Vigorous efforts must now be made to develop such devices whose functionality requires all three interactions of the Standard Model acting in concert. Concluding remarks from this paper, A primer for electroweak induced low-energy nuclear reactions Y N SRIVASTAVA, A WIDOM and L LARSEN published in PRAMANA - JOURNAL OF PHYSICS c. Indian Academy of Sciences Vol. 75, No. 4 October 2010 http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2010/2010Srivastava-Primer.pdf
Re: [Vo]:Defkalion Energy has no knowledge of Rossi, and Leonardo Company is defunct
Stephen A. Lawrence sa...@pobox.com wrote: So, stsalikoglou is clearly associated with defkalion-energy.com (which is presumably where the Defkalion Energy confusion came from, please note) . . . I think so. From what Rossi told me, I gather he did not think the exact name mattered. He said -- in effect -- there are many Greek companies named Defkalion this or that, and so what? He did not realize that people were trying to verify his claims. In retrospect I don't think he was trying to stop people from doing that, or trying to cover up anything. He seemed genuinely surprised to hear that reporters were calling around contacting Defkalion Energy. He apologized for giving us the wrong information. Mixing up the name of company that plays a key role in your affairs and not correcting the problem for a week while people ask questions about it seems like odd behavior to me. Most people would consider it suspicious. Many readers here were suspicious, and probably still are. I don't blame you! If I did something like this, you might worry that I was suffering from Alzheimer's disease or a tumor. (Seriously) But many people have told me that Rossi lives in his own world, with his own standards, and he does things that seem outlandish by normal standards. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Defkalion Energy has no knowledge of Rossi, and Leonardo Company is defunct
Stephen A. Lawrence sa...@pobox.com wrote: He [Levi] emphasizes that the experiment must be carefully prepared with a very strict protocol to avoid any doubt. And implies that there needs to be a further replication. If he's so convinced, why the need for further testing? There is always a need for further testing. Seriously. Getting back to my favorite example, the Wrights proved they could stagger off the ground and barely fly in a semi-controlled fashion in December 1903. In 1904 they proved they could do it again sometimes, but often they proved only that they could crash spectacularly or that in hot weather with low air pressure they could not fly. It took more tests to prove to non-expert observers that the first flight was not a fluke or a carnival stunt. (The Wrights themselves were expert enough to judge the first 4 flight tests on Dec. 17 as complete success, but they were the only experts in the world on that day.) In the case of Rossi, many loopy skeptical objections have been raised, but one or two plausible ideas that might explain away the results have been proposed. It would be good to disprove these objections by doing a long run. We are not accusing Rossi of being dishonest by asking for something like a 10-hour run. That is just dotting the i and crossing the t. Again, this sounds like future tense -- Levi thinks this still needs to be verified. At least, that's how I read this. Well . . . Maybe he is just talking the way a careful academic scientist talks. Or maybe he thinks, as I do, that this is such an astounding breakthrough it calls for additional verification. It does NOT call for extraordinary proof as skeptics love to say (quote the Cosmos TV series). More ordinary proof is fine. Rossi told me that Levi et al. are doing additional tests. That's good. They may not report on them for some time. I see no need to rush. No, not in the least. His statements are thoroughly hedged. He's obviously not accusing Rossi of anything, but he sure doesn't sound totally convinced to me. I think that he and other observers who have seen the test are convinced, but you have to calibrate his way of talking. Academic scientists tend to hedge everything they say so much it sometimes sounds as if they lack confidence. It is a style of speaking. You don't say I am sure of X. You put it in the passive voice and wrap it in semantic cotton wool: strong indications with reliable instrumentation that give a reliable approximation within the known error bounds that X is highly probable . . . - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Defkalion Energy has no knowledge of Rossi, and Leonardo Company is defunct
Anyway, I would summarize the situation as doubts melting away- the process is real and important. and on the way to become a technology. It has NO theory yet, OK - but which variant of cold fusion has a first rate (i.e. one that predicts what to do)- usable theory? Obviously development is always risky.Cousin Jed could tell more about the risks in early aviation- for example. On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 9:16 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Stephen A. Lawrence sa...@pobox.com wrote: He [Levi] emphasizes that the experiment must be carefully prepared with a very strict protocol to avoid any doubt. And implies that there needs to be a further replication. If he's so convinced, why the need for further testing? There is always a need for further testing. Seriously. Getting back to my favorite example, the Wrights proved they could stagger off the ground and barely fly in a semi-controlled fashion in December 1903. In 1904 they proved they could do it again sometimes, but often they proved only that they could crash spectacularly or that in hot weather with low air pressure they could not fly. It took more tests to prove to non-expert observers that the first flight was not a fluke or a carnival stunt. (The Wrights themselves were expert enough to judge the first 4 flight tests on Dec. 17 as complete success, but they were the only experts in the world on that day.) In the case of Rossi, many loopy skeptical objections have been raised, but one or two plausible ideas that might explain away the results have been proposed. It would be good to disprove these objections by doing a long run. We are not accusing Rossi of being dishonest by asking for something like a 10-hour run. That is just dotting the i and crossing the t. Again, this sounds like future tense -- Levi thinks this still needs to be verified. At least, that's how I read this. Well . . . Maybe he is just talking the way a careful academic scientist talks. Or maybe he thinks, as I do, that this is such an astounding breakthrough it calls for additional verification. It does NOT call for extraordinary proof as skeptics love to say (quote the Cosmos TV series). More ordinary proof is fine. Rossi told me that Levi et al. are doing additional tests. That's good. They may not report on them for some time. I see no need to rush. No, not in the least. His statements are thoroughly hedged. He's obviously not accusing Rossi of anything, but he sure doesn't sound totally convinced to me. I think that he and other observers who have seen the test are convinced, but you have to calibrate his way of talking. Academic scientists tend to hedge everything they say so much it sometimes sounds as if they lack confidence. It is a style of speaking. You don't say I am sure of X. You put it in the passive voice and wrap it in semantic cotton wool: strong indications with reliable instrumentation that give a reliable approximation within the known error bounds that X is highly probable . . . - Jed
