Re: [Vo]:Is Rossi a 'black swan'?
I did not think much of the book The Black Swan. I am pretty familiar with most of the examples given by the author. Some people were surprised by them, but others were not. I was not, in some cases. Also, I thought the author has an ego problem. Anyway, the discovery of cold fusion by FP was definitely a black swan event, even to FP themselves, I think. It was one of the blackest swans in history. However Rossi is not a black swan in my opinion. At least, not to me, or to the readers here. Something like this has been likely for years. It is a extrapolation or extension of Arata and Piantelli. That is not to say I could have predicted this particular event, with this particular type of nano-particle (whatever type it is!). I mean that something along these lines is not a surprise. It will be a huge surprise to most members of the public, and to the opposition, but that does not make it a black swan as defined in the book. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Is Rossi a 'black swan'?
Well - not so fast. How can you assume LENR? Most of us here want to believe it is LENR, but where is the evidence of anything nuclear? Are you saying that excess heat over and above chemical makes it LENR by default? Maybe - It is clearly new physics but the lack of radioactivity at the demo (Levi paper) makes it less likely to be nuclear. This leaves three or four basic categories of non-nuclear or crossover reactions, as options: 1)QM based near nuclear tunneling but w/o nuclear alteration 2)Mills, or fractional ground states 3)Langmuir/Moller atomic hydrogen (active Casimir heating) 4)ZPE (other variations of the above) including Heffner's nuclear ZPE 5)MIMS - or metastable inner-shell molecular states. This is really another name for ballotechnics aka supra-chemistry since it deals with inner orbitals. 6)Any combination or permutation, including ZPE reactions which eventually accelerate nuclear decay to stable isotopes . there is plenty of overlap in this list - and most of these have been considered to be in the fold of LENR in the past, by default, but clearly the inventor has said over and over that this is not related to cold fusion . but also that he doesn't understand it. .and in any event, there is too little real data is available to contradict Rossi's own appraisal that it is not cold fusion. IOW it could be a completely new reaction, the 'black swan' or 'Goodyear moment' which was not a predictable outcome from the PF experiment. Jones From: Peter Gluck Interesting idea, but the Rossi cell was predictable. Globally we ( a rather small group) knew that LENR is possible in principle but very difficult to achieve in practice- at a technologically valuable level. Peter Jones Beene wrote: The 'Black Swan Theory' of human development was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to better explain the role of freaky randomness in history and science. Not just 'improbability' but utter unpredictability on one level, yet with the kind of hidden influences that makes it stochastic instead of pure randomness.
Re: [Vo]:Is Rossi a 'black swan'?
It doesn't matter if a swan is black or white, so long as it catches mice. (Deng Xiaoping http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/deng_xiaoping.html) I am not absolutely sure that the above quotation is exact; my memory is not more what it was, but what counts is that Rossi tries to sell an Energy Source and this is not unexpected. He says it is LENR- all we can say now is: vederemo. Peter On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 4:46 PM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: Well – not so fast. How can you assume LENR? Most of us here “want to believe” it is LENR, but where is the evidence of anything nuclear? Are you saying that excess heat over and above chemical makes it LENR by default? Maybe - It is clearly “new physics” but the lack of radioactivity at the demo (Levi paper) makes it less likely to be nuclear. This leaves three or four basic categories of non-nuclear or crossover reactions, as options: 1)QM based “near nuclear tunneling” but w/o nuclear alteration 2)Mills, or fractional ground states 3)Langmuir/Moller atomic hydrogen (active Casimir heating) 4)ZPE (other variations of the above) including Heffner’s “nuclear ZPE” 5)MIMS – or “metastable inner-shell molecular states”. This is really another name for “ballotechnics” aka “supra-chemistry” since it deals with inner orbitals. 6)Any combination or permutation, including ZPE reactions which eventually accelerate nuclear decay to stable isotopes … there is plenty of overlap in this list – and most of these have been considered to be in the fold of LENR in the past, by default, but clearly the inventor has said over and over that this is not related to “cold fusion” … but also that he doesn’t understand it. …and in any event, there is too little real data is available to contradict Rossi’s own appraisal that it is not cold fusion. IOW it could be a completely new reaction, the ‘black swan’ or ‘Goodyear moment’ which was not a predictable outcome from the PF experiment. Jones *From:* Peter Gluck Interesting idea, but the Rossi cell was predictable. Globally we ( a rather small group) knew that LENR is possible in principle but very difficult to achieve in practice- at a technologically valuable level. Peter Jones Beene wrote: The ‘Black Swan Theory’ of human development was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to better explain the role of “freaky” randomness in history and science. Not just ‘improbability’ but utter unpredictability on one level, yet with the kind of hidden influences that makes it stochastic instead of pure randomness.
Re: [Vo]:Is Rossi a 'black swan'?
In reply to Jones Beene's message of Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:46:28 -0800: Hi, [snip] . there is plenty of overlap in this list - and most of these have been considered to be in the fold of LENR in the past, by default, but clearly the inventor has said over and over that this is not related to cold fusion . but also that he doesn't understand it. [snip] ...yes, but remember he uses a very limited definition of CF, so all he's really saying is that it's not CF using heavy water in an electrolytic cell, which is obvious anyway. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
[Vo]:Is Rossi a 'black swan'?
The 'Black Swan Theory' of human development was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to better explain the role of freaky randomness in history and science. Not just 'improbability' but utter unpredictability on one level, yet with the kind of hidden influences that makes it stochastic instead of pure randomness. Taleb, rephrasing David Hume sez: the observation of even a million white swans does not justify the statement that all swans are white. And if you are from 'down-under', for example, you might have thought most were black. The main points of 'Black Swan Theory' (Wiki): 1. The disproportionate role of high-impact, hard to predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance and technology 2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities) 3. The psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the massive role of the rare event in historical affairs Randomness, of a special kind, plays a big part in these paradigm shifts, in the course of history. Physicists, especially at the PhD level, are exceedingly prone to the falling into the 'black swan' logical error in their thinking process, since they want to believe in the power of predictability, based on known facts and slight natural divergence. They simply cannot grasp that major and unpredictable divergence exists from what is known and that it is often the most important factor of all. Unfortunately, in analyzing most 'astounding' claims - they are often correct, and Bob Park can be up to 99% correct in spurts, since they only attack the weakest claims. They absolutely dread what is happening now in Bologna - to be exposed as completely wrong on the most important new development of their lifetime. This is why the Parks and Garwins of the world can be so dangerous to society in the final analysis - and yes, Park may have been a 'net negative' voice to the general public for all of these years for failing to take notice of the original 'black swan' back in 1989, despite being right most of the time otherwise. When the err, they can set back real progress by decades. Shame on you! . and you know who you are, so it is not necessary to name more names. Redemption is still possible. Progress, according to Taleb, absolutely depends on the occasional black swan - which is what we can call the Goodyear moment since it recognizes that accidental moments in science can be far more productive than the best-laid plans of mice and men. But they are not truly accidental either, yet I will save my 'what is stochastic?' rant for another time and place. Jones
Re: [Vo]:Is Rossi a 'black swan'?
Interesting idea, but the Rossi cell was predictible. Globally we ( a rather small group) knew that LENR is possible in principle but very difficult to achieve in practice- at a technologically valuable level. Based on a long saga of trial-and-error, in which seemingly the number of errors was much greater than the number of trials (in my personal opinion because only very clean surfaces can work) More specifically Piantelli's work has solved the problems of a working Ni-H cell, Piantelli has working cells. Before Rossi.If the Rossi cell is a real progress toward these- it is not known for sure. As regarding Taleb's book, I have reviewed it for my readers in the issue No 340 of my weekly newsletter Info Kappa- now continued at my blog Ego Out.(I will publish Informavore's Sunday 440 today) A great book, some parts as Extremistan vs Mediocristan are absolutely bright but the author insists too much demonstrating us that the experts- mainly in economics are stupid. When anti-intellectualism is extended to experts- bad things can happen. Peter On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 4:51 AM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: The ‘Black Swan Theory’ of human development was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to better explain the role of “freaky” randomness in history and science. Not just ‘improbability’ but utter unpredictabilityon one level, yet with the kind of hidden influences that makes it stochastic instead of pure randomness. Taleb, rephrasing David Hume sez: the observation of even a million white swans does not justify the statement that all swans are white. And if you are from ‘down-under’, for example, you might have thought most were black. The main points of ‘Black Swan Theory’ (Wiki): 1. The disproportionate role of high-impact, hard to predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance and technology 2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities) 3. The psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the massive role of the rare event in historical affairs Randomness, of a special kind, plays a big part in these paradigm shifts,in the course of history.Physicist s, especially at the PhD level, are exceedingly prone to the falling into the ‘black swan’ logical error in their thinking process, since they wantto believe in the power of predictability, based on known facts and slight natural divergence. They simply cannot grasp that major and unpredictable divergence exists from what is known and that it is often the most important factor of all. Unfortunately, in analyzing most ‘astounding’ claims - they are often correct, and Bob Park can be up to 99% correct in spurts, since they only attack the weakest claims. They absolutely dread what is happening now in Bologna – to be exposed as completely wrong on the most important new development of their lifetime. This is why the Parks and Garwins of the world can be so dangerous to society in the final analysis – and yes, Park may have been a ‘net negative’ voice to the general public for all of these years for failing to take notice of the original ‘black swan’ back in 1989, despite being right most of the time otherwise. When the err, they can set back real progress by decades. Shame on you! …and you know who you are, so it is not necessary to name more names . Redemption is still possible. Progress, according to Taleb, absolutely depends on the occasional black swan – which is what we can call the “Goodyear moment” since it recognizes that accidental moments in science can be far more productive than the b est-laid plans of mice and men. But they are not truly accidental either, yet I will save my ‘what is stochastic?’ rant for another time and place. Jones
