Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
What does Britz think, by the way, about excess heat? Has he
betrayed his current position?
The last I heard from him was when I wrote the Tally of Cold Fusion Papers:
<http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtallyofcol.pdf>http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtallyofcol.pdf
He went over the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions, even
though I take a poke at him on p. 35. Anyway, I originally wrote that
he does not think cold fusion is real. He objected to that. I asked
him to clarify his position. His response:
"Sigh, wrong once more. Britz does not believe that cold fusion does not exist,
he is not sure whether it does or not. There is a difference. I understand
that you are frustrated that I don't accept the overwhelming evidence, as you
see it, but don't categorise me among those who totally deny that may be a new
phenomenon. I do believe there may well be."
I shoehorned this into the paragraph on p. 33, along with a comment
he made in 1998:
"Based on this sample of 49, I [Jed] would reassign the 1,390 papers
as shown in Table 7. Although we differ in our evaluation of some
papers, my overall tally of positive/negative/undecided is within 5%
of Britz's. The biggest difference between us is in the conclusion we
draw from the literature as whole: I am convinced that cold fusion
does exist, but Britz does not think it exists. To be precise, he
says he is 'not sure whether it [exists] or not' He says he is:
'[not] among those who totally deny that may be a new phenomenon. I
do believe there may well be.' In the past he said: 'There are enough
quality positives for the original F&P system (tritium, some XS
[excess] heat) to force me to give it a (small) chance.'"
I sent this paragraph off to him for approval and he said:
"That's OK as it stands."
My guess is that he will not fully agree it is real unless the
establishment comes around and places like the APS and the DoE
endorse it. I get a sense he is a conformist, or he fears being
ridiculed. He used to say he was collecting papers on cold fusion as
a mere "hobby" -- like stamp collecting. He took pains to distance
himself from the subject, as if to assure people that he wasn't "one of them."
In the past I told him that if the results are real they might have
important consequences for society, and that a professional scientist
or engineer has a social responsibility to investigate and promote
important discoveries in his own field. Suppose a civil engineer
driving far from home happens to notices that a bridge is in
disrepair and may collapse. I say that even though that bridge is not
his responsibility, he has a larger professional responsibility to
report it to the authorities.
Britz did not want to hear that!
- Jed
