Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
At 07:47 PM 3/27/2010, Francis X Roarty wrote: Abd, I asked about the normal rate of neutron capture because I thought it might change with fractional hydrogen. Always the optimist I find myself looking for the mechanism by which it could work. I really feel we already have all the information we need to solve this mystery but no one wants to borrow parts from one another to solve it correctly. Probably not change, if by fractional hydrogen you mean hydrogen with a Mills electron in a fractional state (1/N fraction of the mimimum Bohr orbit). Neutrons would be very little affected, if at all, by the electrons. As to information to solve the mystery, I think not. What we need is for theorists, using the various extant theories or new ones, to make predictions, and then see if subsequent experiment matches the predictions. Sure, it is quite possible that, among the various theories, there are elements that, put together, might explain the results, but no theory as far as I know is satisfactory to explain all of what we already know. Some are closer than others, and if we could narrow it down with partial predictive success, we might get closer. But I haven't seen publication of predictions, beyond the first successful one, Preparata's prediction of helium as the predominant ash of the heat-producing mechanism. It appears that there is rivalry in the field, to some degree, instead of cooperation. That impedes progress. It may not be possible to fix this, because the potential rewards of being the first with the right theory or magic technique that could lead to practical power generation are so great. It could be that this would not be at all fair, because any discovery now in this field will build on the work of others. I.e., the theoretician may come up with the magic key that explains everything. But to get there, very likely, the field was cleared by all the dead ends and failures. It may sound silly, but we need to fund more failures, very specific failures, to clear the field. Along with some successes. In real science, no experiment is a failure. In engineering, failures are also important, but only a little, which is why engineering does better when there is a solid theoretical foundation, when new science does not have to be discovered.
[Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
Just so I understand what all the fuss is about.. Is it because he is pushing neutron capture when he is supposed to be unbiased? I watched the Youtube presentation and frankly I liked it. How often does neutron capture occur normally? Does neutron capture get accelerated by catalytic action?
Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
I never quit! I was temporarily locked out for a short time due to a misunderstanding. As I have said several times, I quit CMNS only because I am lazy about keeping track of information, and I don't want to upset anyone there. Francis X Roarty wrote: Just so I understand what all the fuss is about.. Is it because he is pushing neutron capture when he is supposed to be unbiased? I do not know what the fuss is about. He was terribly upset with me because I reported that during the ACS press conference, he relayed questions via e-mail from Larsen. It turns out someone else was doing that. Why that would upset him is a complete mystery to me. It seems like an innocuous thing to do, and an innocuous mistake on my part. I think he was also upset because people criticized him for shoddy work, such as using the trick from How to Lie with Statistics. If someone caught me doing that, I would be embarrassed and apologetic, not upset with that person. Perhaps he has not read that book and he did not realize the technique is considered deceptive. I should have pointed it out the first time he did it, here. People get riled up for reasons that make no sense to me. I expect he will be back soon. I should probably not write too many snide comments about him in the meanwhile, since he can always read the archives. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
At 11:34 PM 3/26/2010, fznidar...@aol.com wrote: Something ate our friend. If the professional is still alive in the belly of the whale, he'll be back. Maybe even a new, improved version. Meanwhile, those who are close to him can still communicate with him where he sits, in his self-constructed confinement. Maybe you can bring him out. I'm not giving up, though I'm not trying directly any more. I'd gladly respond to any mediation attempts, though. If I've done something wrong by confronting what I found, I'd like to know. I won't quit the list because someone criticizes me, I'm sure. Check out my participation on Wikipedia! I've stopped editing, generally, but only because an arbitrator opined that I'd violated a sanction, without explaining why my actions were violations, so, since I'd rather not be blocked right now, I've simply stopped all of it for a time. I didn't trash my account, spike my password, or stuff like that which editors abused by Wikipedia process often do. And I'm working on Wikipedia and the entire WikiMedia Fourdation structure, from the outside. One step at a time.
Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
At 05:55 AM 3/27/2010, Francis X Roarty wrote: Just so I understand what all the fuss is about.. Is it because he is pushing neutron capture when he is supposed to be unbiased? I watched the Youtube presentation and frankly I liked it. How often does neutron capture occur normally? Does neutron capture get accelerated by catalytic action? No, you don't understand. I know it's a lot of material, but read the material about Krivit above, since the ACS press conference, say, and there is much more recently about Krivit, including his documents on the heat/helium issue. Then consider what's been said. The problem is only a little that he is aggressively pushing a single theory, though that does compromise his objectivity as a reporter. It is that, to do this, he attacks practically the entire cold fusion research community, and he criticizes the work in ways that show that he hasn't understood it. The issue is not Widom-Larsen theory, per se. It's how Krivit supports it by attacking differing theories using polemic and gross oversimplifications of the experimental evidence, its implications, and what others say about it. Neutron capture is apparently very rare normally, because of the shortage of slow neutrons, which are very readily captured by many nuclei. In other words, the issue would be the generation of slow neutrons, not acceleration of capture. Where are they coming from? I don't know how Larsen explains this, but if slow neutrons are available, we'd expect lots of reactions to be taking place that are not seen. Perhaps Larsen has an answer for this. I'd suggest that if he favors W-L theory, he has a lot of work to do to educate the rest of it as to why it's so explanatory in power, because, so far, what I know, and I've looked more than just a little, doesn't do that for me. As a journalist, it's fine for him to explain things, collect the information, and present it in a way that makes it understandable. But he's not a scientist, and he seems to be more interested in the politics, and creates political stories where there may be none. His very noisy claim that LENR is not fusion is little more than a linguistic quibble; as far as I can see, he accepts that helium is being produced, and if helium is being produced by neutron capture, it is a type of fusion, just not deuterium fusion, and probably the reaction isn't simple two-deuteron fusion anyway, though some possibilities have not been ruled out. By aggressively challenging fusion as being the product of a belief, rather than of serious experimental evidence, he is justifying the doubts of the skeptics. See, look, even Steve Krivit now admits that it isn't fusion, which is actually being said, and, mostly, his parallel message that it is, anyway, a nuclear reaction, is lost. His screeds cast doubt upon the honesty and competence of nearly every major cold fusion researcher, without any necessity. It's pretty bad.
Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
Abd, Thanks- I kind of figured there was more to it than I was processing. I asked about the normal rate of neutron capture because I thought it might change with fractional hydrogen. Always the optimist I find myself looking for the mechanism by which it could work. I really feel we already have all the information we need to solve this mystery but no one wants to borrow parts from one another to solve it correctly. Regards Fran
[Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
Frank Znidarsic
