Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

Lennart Thornros  wrote:


> You go to three experts and the one who gives the correct answer is the
> REAL expert. That is the problem in a nutshell - experts are often wrong
> even if they say they are experts and it is hard to see which one is THE
> expert.  I assume you did not go to the two first experts even as you know
> they were less of an exper,t than the third one:)
>

Suppose all three had given me the same advice. I would be a fool to claim
that I know better, wouldn't I? Suppose I were to go several hundred
doctors, and almost every one of them recommended the same treatment? I
would be insane not to believe them.

To take a real-life medical example, the vast majority of doctors will tell
you it is good idea to vaccinate your children. Only a few dangerous quack
doctors will disagree. You should definitely go with the majority
consensus, because you do not want to see your child die in agony from
tetanus.

In the case of global warming, nearly every expert agrees. Okay, you will
find a small minority who disagree, but as a non-expert, you should go with
the consensus.


Getting back to the actual case of my rash, the second doctor, a GP, said
to me: "Well if it is not getting better, why don't you go see Dr.
So-and-so? He knows a lot about rashes." It is the mark of a true expert
that he knows the limits of his own knowledge. He does not suffer from the
Dunning-Kruger effect. He knows what he does not know.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Spin amplification and nucleon disintegration

[Axil Axil]

More...

[image: Inline image 1]

[image: Inline image 2]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:48 PM, Axil Axil  wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:11 PM,  wrote:
>
>> I
>> This implies
>> lots of neutrons, and lots of T neither of which are seen to any great
>> extent.
>>
>>  As you know, quarks are monopoles, Quarks make up protons. When a proton
> is exposed to a monopole magnetic field, it will decay.
>
>
> http://physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/EP/rubakov_rpp_51_189_88.pdf
>
> Monopole catalysis of proton decay
>
> Because Holmlid is seeing mesons, this a strong indicator that an Exotic
> Neutral Particle is producing a monopole field to disrupt protons.
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Spin amplification and nucleon disintegration

[Axil Axil]

more...

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.1374.pdf

Monopole catalysis of proton decay

The possibility that a GUT monopole could catalyse a baryon number
violating process was suggested as early as 1980 [117]. The central core of
a GUT monopole retains the original symmetry and contains the fields of the
superheavy gauge bosons that mediate baryon number violation. Within this
core the forces of the universe are still indistinguishable from one
another and the quarks and their leptons are, in this domain, the same
particles. Thus, it is not unreasonable to expect that baryon number
conservation could be violated in baryon-monopole scattering. However, it
was originally thought that the cross section of this process would be of
the order of the tiny geometrical cross section of the monopole core (∼
10−58 cm2 ). Figure 1: A depiction of a proton decay into a positron and a
neutral pion catalysed by a GUT monopole. Later studies by Rubakov [118,
119] and Callan [120, 121] concluded that these processes are not
suppressed by powers of the gauge boson mass. Instead, catalysis processes
such as p + Monopole→e + + π 0 , pictured in Fig. 1, could have strong
interaction rates. An explanation for a potentially large monopole
catalysis cross section is the following. The monopole core should be
surrounded by a fermion-antifermion condensate. Some of the condensate will
have baryon number violating terms extending up to the confinement region.
The increase in size of this region gives rise to the essentially geometric
cross-section: σBβ ∼ 10−27 cm2 , where β = v/c. However, there are
theoretical uncertainties in this arena and it is not certain that strong
catalysis is a general feature of all GUT theories. It may be that
catalysis does occur but at considerably lower rates, as is discussed
elsewhere [122, 123]. For example, it has been proposed [123, 124] that the
monopole catalysis cross section could have a 1/β 2 -dependence: σ ∼ (1
GeV)−2/β2 , at least for sufficiently low monopole-proton relative
velocities. It should also be noted that intermediate mass monopoles
arising at later stages of symmetry breaking, such as the doubly charged
monopoles of the SO(10) theory, do not catalyse baryon number violation.

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:53 PM, Axil Axil  wrote:

> More...
>
> [image: Inline image 1]
>
> [image: Inline image 2]
>
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:48 PM, Axil Axil  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:11 PM,  wrote:
>>
>>> I
>>> This implies
>>> lots of neutrons, and lots of T neither of which are seen to any great
>>> extent.
>>>
>>>  As you know, quarks are monopoles, Quarks make up protons. When a
>> proton is exposed to a monopole magnetic field, it will decay.
>>
>>
>> http://physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/EP/rubakov_rpp_51_189_88.pdf
>>
>> Monopole catalysis of proton decay
>>
>> Because Holmlid is seeing mesons, this a strong indicator that an Exotic
>> Neutral Particle is producing a monopole field to disrupt protons.
>>
>>
>

Re: [Vo]:Spin amplification and nucleon disintegration

[mixent]

In reply to  Jones Beene's message of Mon, 30 Nov 2015 11:59:11 -0800:
Hi,
[snip]
>As you may surmise, all of this comes back to an emerging premise for 
>understanding LENR based on Holmlid’s work. That premise is that at the very 
>heart of the reaction we find nucleon disintegration, first and foremost - 
>which is identified by a growing population of muons, which deposit some 
>excess energy but are also able to catalyze fusion, in the known way. 

Muon catalyzed DD fusion results in the standard branching ratios. This implies
lots of neutrons, and lots of T neither of which are seen to any great extent.
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

RE: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[MarkI-ZeroPoint]

Gee, how timely is this…

 

“Dr. Judith Curry is Professor and former Chair of the School of Earth and 
Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She delivered her 
verbal statement to last week's US Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on "Data 
or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate Over the Magnitude of the Human 
Impact on Earth’s Climate."

 

   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GujLcfdovE8=TLW-Xzkt74b0oxNDEyMjAxNQ=1

 

She too was then demonized and called a ‘heretic’ and ‘denier’ after she simply 
expressed her well informed opinion and suggestions as to how the field could 
improve…

 

One should immediately question the motive of anyone who attacks the person, 
tries to label them, instead of criticizing their suggestions or facts… 
propaganda is everywhere, in every sphere, be it political or commercial or 
academic. Perception is everything in the control freaks’ minds… and they 
actively manage the narrative and perception that they want to push… 

 

Time to clean house; clean up the corruption in all spheres, especially 
politics.

-Mark Iverson

 

Re: [Vo]:Spin amplification and nucleon disintegration

[Axil Axil]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:11 PM,  wrote:

> I
> This implies
> lots of neutrons, and lots of T neither of which are seen to any great
> extent.
>
>  As you know, quarks are monopoles, Quarks make up protons. When a proton
is exposed to a monopole magnetic field, it will decay.


http://physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/EP/rubakov_rpp_51_189_88.pdf

Monopole catalysis of proton decay

Because Holmlid is seeing mesons, this a strong indicator that an Exotic
Neutral Particle is producing a monopole field to disrupt protons.

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

MarkI-ZeroPoint  wrote:

Gee, how timely is this…
>
>
>
> “Dr. Judith Curry is Professor and former Chair of the School of Earth
> and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She
> delivered her verbal statement to last week's US Senate Commerce Committee
> Hearing on "Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate Over the
> Magnitude of the Human Impact on Earth’s Climate."
>
>

>
>
> She too was then demonized and called a ‘heretic’ and ‘denier’ after she
> simply expressed her *well informed* opinion and suggestions as to how
> the field could improve…
>

Yes. As I said, no matter how well science is settled, you can always find
a few experts within a field who disagree with the majority conclusions. I
would not be surprised if there are some professional astronomers who do
not believe the universe is expanding.

A minority always starts with exactly 1 person. In rare cases, it turns out
that person is right, and the other 20,000 people in the field are wrong.
It usually takes a long time to convince the others. That one person is
usually demonized and attacked personally. You can find examples here:

http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j38

This is human nature. It is politics, and politics are everywhere, in all
human interaction and in all institutions. You can no more extinguish
politics than you can escape from sexuality or dying of old age.

However, despite all that, as an outsider you should bet on the consensus.
Unless you have some deep inside connections and you know that the
institution is hopelessly corrupt and run exclusively by idiots, you have
to assume that for that most part the experts there are correct.

It is important to understand that people can be smart about one thing and
stupid about another. With regard to cold fusion the editors at the
Scientific American are stupid. They are ignorant and closed minded. But
with regard to other subjects they are not so stupid, and much of what they
say is worth listening to. It makes me nervous reading the magazine because
I can never be sure they are right . . . but that goes for every magazine
you read. And every bank you deposit money into, every airline and
hospital. From time to time, institutions we assume are professional and
well run turn out to be a shambles.

When I first met Gene Mallove, he was an insider and true believer in the
nobility of science. He had PdDs from Harvard and MIT. What could be more
mainstream? He had the idea that scientists are open minded, fair, and that
they embrace novelty and new ideas. I told him that scientists are pretty
much like everyone else -- like most people they hate and fear new ideas.
(I knew that because I read a lot of history, not because I am cynical.)

Gene later became so angry about the way mainstream science treated cold
fusion, he swung to the opposite extreme. He began to think that any
science maverick must be right, and the mainstream must be wrong. He
thought all science institutions must be corrupt. I said then -- and I
still say -- the situation is nuanced, and complicated. Both individual
people and institutions can be a mixture of smart and stupid, fair and
unfair.

One day Gene said to me with a sigh, "this does not end neatly like an
Arthur Clarke story, does it?" He meant there is never a time when the
scientists finally all agree, doubts are resolved, progress is made, and
the next great adventure begins. I think what happens more often is what
Planck described:

"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."


Regrettably, this is not happening with cold fusion. The opposite is
happening: the field is dying along with the generation who did the
experiments.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

Lennart Thornros  wrote:


> If scientists had THE answer than the rest of us would be obsolete.
>

That depends on THE question. If the question is highly complex and and it
takes years of effort to understand then yes, scientists have the answer
(if anyone does) and the rest of us have nothing.

That's how civilization works. If you want a tall building made of stone,
you must to leave it entirely up the architects and stonemasons.


I think reality is that to take good informed decisions one need to take in
> data from 'all walks of life'. The example given above about weather /
> climate is a good example. There is a cost involved and there are political
> issues to consider and on top of it all the problems are largest where the
> economy will be most hurt by a quick enforcement of a world with no CO2
> pollution.
>

Those are different questions. I agree that the rest of us must have a say
in them. Climatologists are the only ones qualified to answer some complex,
fundamental technical questions:

1. Are temperatures rising worldwide? They say yes.

2. If so, what is the cause of it? They say CO2 from humans.

Once they answer those questions it is up to the rest of us to make use of
their answers.

What I am saying is that no politician is qualified to contradict them.
Even highly educated people who are used to dealing with technical issues
-- such as the people here in this forum -- are not qualified to dispute
their answers. If you happen to have a degree related to climatology, you
can offer an educated guess. You can probably understand more about this
than 99% of the public. But you are still miles away from being qualified
to contradict the experts.

I know a thing or two about calorimetry and electrochemistry. More than,
say, the editors at the Scientific American. When I spend five minutes
listening to a discussion by Pam Boss or Mike McKubre, it is abundantly
clear to me that I know practically nothing compared to them. Since I do
not suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect I have no illusion that I might
argue with them when it comes to electrochemistry. I have read enough about
climatology to see that it is equally difficult to understand. Of course I
understand the basics about the greenhouse effect but that does not even
scratch the surface.

One more thing --

A small number of experts disagree with the majority on global warming.
That is always true, in any field, about any complex issue. When there is a
large majority you have to assume they are right. Dieter Britz does not
believe the excess heat in cold fusion is real. Yes, he is a world-class
electrochemist. But I know several hundred world-class electrochemists and
experts in calorimetry such as Robert Duncan. Britz is the only one in that
group who has any doubt about the heat. So I think those of us outside the
field looking in should assume he is wrong. A massive consensus among
experts is meaningful. Non-experts should respect it.

The "consensus" of mainstream scientists that cold fusion is wrong is not a
scientific consensus. It is a bunch of ignorant nitwits spouting off about
a subject they have no business discussing. That does not count.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

Bob Higgins  wrote:


> Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is likely increasing the global
> temperature - probably at a miniscule rate compared to the rate of warming
> due to natural cosmological and geothermal causes.
>

Yeah? How many papers on this subject have you published? Do you have a PhD
in some closely related subject?

Frankly, your tone irks me. Your categorical assertions rub me the wrong
way. If you were to say with some hesitation, "it seems to me . . ." or "I
have read thus-and-such in an authoritative journal that . . ." it would
sound more professional to me.

I have sat with world-class experts on electrochemistry and various physics
problems. I mean I have spend weeks in labs with people such as
Fleischmann, FRS and people with Nobel laureates. They wrote the book on
modern science. They have physical effects named after them. Those people
do not make assertions with the kind of overweening confidence you express
here. Even when the assertions pertain to their own area of expertise, they
still hedge them.

I am pretty sure that I were to ask these world-class scientists "what do
you think of global warming?" they would largely defer to the
climatologists. I am sure they would not claim "I know better than the
experts." The might say, "I have some doubts about thus and such . . ."



Cold fusion happens to be new subject in which there are no experts yet.
Anyone's opinion may have merit. Practically nothing is settled yet, except
the heat, and the ratio and helium to heat with the Pd-D system.
Climatology, on the other hand, is well developed, deep science, with data
going back thousands of years, and many confirmations. As I said, it is
related to weather prediction, and anyone can see that discipline has
improved by leaps and bounds in recent decades. It is impossible for me to
imagine that weather forecasts have made tremendous progress yet a closely
related field is completely at sea with no progress and no better proof
than it had decades ago. Science does not work that way.

- Jed

[Vo]:Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

[John Berry]

I tend not to agree with the belief of the author, but he has some good
points

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/ElectronBeamMagneticField.pdf


Currently there are two explanations. One surely must be wrong.

Re: [Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

[John Berry]

Robin, for what its worth I think you are probably right.

A free electron having a magnetic moment makes no sense to me.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:02 PM, Bob Cook  wrote:

>
>
> Where does the photon get its angular momentum, when it and its twin
> appear from positron-electron enillalation?
>
> I am not familiar with what line splitting the cyclotron frequency is.
>
> Bob Cook
>
> -Original Message- From: mix...@bigpond.com
> Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 7:43 PM
> To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
> Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic
> field
>
>
> In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 19:29:26 -0800:
> Hi,
> [snip]
>
>> IMO free electrons have no magnetic moment, because they have no "spin",
>> which
>>
> is not an intrinsic property of the electron, but rather a direct
>> consequence of
>> being bound to an atom.
>>
>> Now I would say that is a departure from conventional thinking.
>>
>
> Yup.
>
>
>> Can you further explain this conclusion?  I would guess that you would say
>> that an electron has no intrinsic angular momentum as well as photons
>> having
>> none.
>>
>
> No, I think photons do have angular momentum, though I don't think
> electrons do.
> But it's just a hunch. One of the things that makes me think this is the
> fact
> when a free electron circles in a magnetic field, you get cyclotron
> radiation,
> but I would expect line splitting of the cyclotron frequency if free
> electrons
> also had an intrinsic magnetic moment.
>
>
>> Bob Cook
>>
> Regards,
>
> Robin van Spaandonk
>
> http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
>
>

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[a.ashfield]

Jed,
I voted for you.

This is what I wrote my local paper.  I didn't mention LENR because they 
have published a number of my pieces on the subject already.


Adrian

To the Times.

The Paris climate accord means little beyond others saying they agreed 
with President Obama's opinion.  The agreement was held up for nearly 
two hours  while the US pressed for changing "shall" to "should".


Apparently developed countries /should/ commit to reduced emissions and 
/should /continue to provide financial support for poor nations to cope 
with climate change.   Congressional approval is not required for others 
to agree to this opinion and there is nothing legally binding to make 
them do anything.


As far as one can tell, nations will continue to do just what they were 
planning to do without this agreement.   At least we will not be locked 
in to something unnecessary when new sources of clean energy become 
visible, and there are several on the horizon right now.

[Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

Calling all cold fusion flacks!

I added a comment to this article at 10:15 (that's how you can find it). I
would appreciate up-votes to make it more visible:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/opinion/hope-from-paris.html

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

[mixent]

In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 19:29:26 -0800:
Hi,
[snip]
>IMO free electrons have no magnetic moment, because they have no "spin", 
>which
>is not an intrinsic property of the electron, but rather a direct 
>consequence of
>being bound to an atom.
>
>Now I would say that is a departure from conventional thinking.

Yup.

>
>Can you further explain this conclusion?  I would guess that you would say 
>that an electron has no intrinsic angular momentum as well as photons having 
>none.

No, I think photons do have angular momentum, though I don't think electrons do.
But it's just a hunch. One of the things that makes me think this is the fact
when a free electron circles in a magnetic field, you get cyclotron radiation,
but I would expect line splitting of the cyclotron frequency if free electrons
also had an intrinsic magnetic moment. 

>
>Bob Cook
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

[Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

[Bob Cook]

Robin--

You stated:

IMO free electrons have no magnetic moment, because they have no "spin", 
which
is not an intrinsic property of the electron, but rather a direct 
consequence of

being bound to an atom.

Now I would say that is a departure from conventional thinking.

Can you further explain this conclusion?  I would guess that you would say 
that an electron has no intrinsic angular momentum as well as photons having 
none.


Bob Cook

-Original Message- 
From: mix...@bigpond.com

Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 1:20 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

In reply to  John Berry's message of Tue, 15 Dec 2015 01:32:24 +1300:
Hi,
[snip]

IMO free electrons have no magnetic moment, because they have no "spin", 
which
is not an intrinsic property of the electron, but rather a direct 
consequence of

being bound to an atom.


I tend not to agree with the belief of the author, but he has some good
points

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/ElectronBeamMagneticField.pdf


Currently there are two explanations. One surely must be wrong.

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Spin amplification and nucleon disintegration

[Axil Axil]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.1374.pdf
Non-collider searches for stable massive particles

*Abstract*
The theoretical motivation for exotic stable massive particles (SMPs) and
the results of SMP searches at non-collider facilities are reviewed. SMPs
are defined such that they would be sufficiently long-lived so as to still
exist in the cosmos either as Big Bang relics or secondary collision
products, and sufficiently massive such that they are typically beyond the
reach of any conceivable accelerator-based experiment. The discovery of
SMPs would address a number of important questions in modern physics, such
as the origin and composition of dark matter and the unification of the
fundamental forces. This review outlines the scenarios predicting SMPs and
the techniques used at non-collider experiments to look for SMPs in cosmic
rays and bound in matter. The limits so far obtained on the fluxes and
matter densities of SMPs which possess various detection-relevant
properties such as electric and magnetic charge are given.

Holmlid should read this paper. It shows what can produce pions without
using a collider.

It is my contention that Rydberg matter produces these exotic stable
massive particles (SMPs) as an nanometric topological antenna that receives
and stores EMF in the context of a bose condensate.

As you know, quarks are monopoles. Quarks make up protons. When a proton is
exposed to a monopole magnetic field, it will decay.

http://physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/EP/rubakov_rpp_51_189_88.pdf

Monopole catalysis of proton decay

Because Holmlid is seeing mesons, this a strong indicator that an Exotic
Neutral Particle is producing a monopole field to disrupt protons.





On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 10:52 PM,  wrote:

> In reply to  Axil Axil's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 21:48:30 -0500:
> Hi Axil,
> [snip]
>
> I wasn't arguing against the general idea, just pointing out that if muons
> are
> being produced, then they are not catalyzing many fusion reactions.
>
> >On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:11 PM,  wrote:
> >
> >> I
> >> This implies
> >> lots of neutrons, and lots of T neither of which are seen to any great
> >> extent.
> >>
> >>  As you know, quarks are monopoles, Quarks make up protons. When a
> proton
> >is exposed to a monopole magnetic field, it will decay.
> >
> >
> >
> http://physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/EP/rubakov_rpp_51_189_88.pdf
> >
> >Monopole catalysis of proton decay
> >
> >Because Holmlid is seeing mesons, this a strong indicator that an Exotic
> >Neutral Particle is producing a monopole field to disrupt protons.
> Regards,
>
> Robin van Spaandonk
>
> http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
>
>

[Vo]:Re: LENR reactors need magnetic confinement

[Bob Cook]

Robin--

My comment was intended to apply to the local point in space that the light 
and magnetic field were occupying.   For example light passing through glass 
slows down and may change directions all due to the magnetic and electric 
fields it encounters in the glass.   The direction can be changed without 
the frequency or much intensity being being changed.  However both frequency 
and intensity can also change, particularly intensity--the amplitude of the 
light oscillating fields.   The frequency can also change significantly, 
but only in rare conditions where a Doppler shift can occur.  I can imagine 
that this could happen in a fast moving or rotating electric or magnetic 
field.


Light entering the intense magnetic field would regain its original 
characteristic upon exiting the field.  However, if your eyes were also in 
the magnetic field they would sense the changes effected by the magnetic 
field IMHO.


Bob Cook

-Original Message- 
From: mix...@bigpond.com

Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 1:23 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: LENR reactors need magnetic confinement

In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Thu, 3 Dec 2015 17:35:08 -0800:
Hi,
[snip]
My thought was that a strong magnetic field may disrupt the oscillating 
nature of the light—disturbance—as it passes through the magnetic field, 
changing its frequency and or intensity and direction of propagation.  I 
would assume that the magnetic field intensities would add at any instant 
of time and space.


If this were so, then one should see distortions of the background image 
when

looking at powerful magnets. There are none AFAIK.

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Spin amplification and nucleon disintegration

[mixent]

In reply to  Axil Axil's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 21:48:30 -0500:
Hi Axil,
[snip]

I wasn't arguing against the general idea, just pointing out that if muons are
being produced, then they are not catalyzing many fusion reactions.

>On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:11 PM,  wrote:
>
>> I
>> This implies
>> lots of neutrons, and lots of T neither of which are seen to any great
>> extent.
>>
>>  As you know, quarks are monopoles, Quarks make up protons. When a proton
>is exposed to a monopole magnetic field, it will decay.
>
>
>http://physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/EP/rubakov_rpp_51_189_88.pdf
>
>Monopole catalysis of proton decay
>
>Because Holmlid is seeing mesons, this a strong indicator that an Exotic
>Neutral Particle is producing a monopole field to disrupt protons.
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Re: LENR reactors need magnetic confinement

[mixent]

In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 19:21:38 -0800:
Hi,
[snip]
>Light entering the intense magnetic field would regain its original 
>characteristic upon exiting the field.  However, if your eyes were also in 
>the magnetic field they would sense the changes effected by the magnetic 
>field IMHO.

It should be possible to put a camera in close proximity to a powerful magnet,
then see if any change is detected as the magnet is turned on and off (would
need to be an electromagnet).

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

[John Berry]

Robin, the question and perhaps some of the following comments made here
lend evidence to you being correct.


On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:34 PM, John Berry  wrote:

> Robin, for what its worth I think you are probably right.
>
> A free electron having a magnetic moment makes no sense to me.
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:02 PM, Bob Cook  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Where does the photon get its angular momentum, when it and its twin
>> appear from positron-electron enillalation?
>>
>> I am not familiar with what line splitting the cyclotron frequency is.
>>
>> Bob Cook
>>
>> -Original Message- From: mix...@bigpond.com
>> Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 7:43 PM
>> To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
>> Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic
>> field
>>
>>
>> In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 19:29:26 -0800:
>> Hi,
>> [snip]
>>
>>> IMO free electrons have no magnetic moment, because they have no "spin",
>>> which
>>>
>> is not an intrinsic property of the electron, but rather a direct
>>> consequence of
>>> being bound to an atom.
>>>
>>> Now I would say that is a departure from conventional thinking.
>>>
>>
>> Yup.
>>
>>
>>> Can you further explain this conclusion?  I would guess that you would
>>> say
>>> that an electron has no intrinsic angular momentum as well as photons
>>> having
>>> none.
>>>
>>
>> No, I think photons do have angular momentum, though I don't think
>> electrons do.
>> But it's just a hunch. One of the things that makes me think this is the
>> fact
>> when a free electron circles in a magnetic field, you get cyclotron
>> radiation,
>> but I would expect line splitting of the cyclotron frequency if free
>> electrons
>> also had an intrinsic magnetic moment.
>>
>>
>>> Bob Cook
>>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Robin van Spaandonk
>>
>> http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
>>
>>
>

RE: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[MarkI-ZeroPoint]

Here’s the real issue Jed…

 

Didn’t you once argue vociferously, that science is NOT done by consensus???  
If not then it was some other Vort…

And,

I want to know what % of the ‘consensus’ (proponents), who are knowledgeable 
about the issue, AND, AND, AND, are NOT receiving some of their funding for 
climate-related research???  

I want to know exactly where each person is getting funding, or who’s ‘soft’ 
research position is being funded by climate-change related research, so their 
‘opinion’ can be weighted appropriately.

 

The internet and social media makes it s much easier to spread propaganda, 
to ‘manage the perception’, that I need to know how one’s livelihood is being 
funded… PERIOD.  FOLLOW THE $.  

 

It’s all about ‘Perception Deception’… get a clue!

 

-mark

 

From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 6:28 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

 

MarkI-ZeroPoint  wrote:

 

Gee, how timely is this…

“Dr. Judith Curry is Professor and former Chair of the School of Earth and 
Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She delivered her 
verbal statement to last week's US Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on "Data 
or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate Over the Magnitude of the Human 
Impact on Earth’s Climate."

 She too was then demonized and called a ‘heretic’ and ‘denier’ after she 
simply expressed her well informed opinion and suggestions as to how the field 
could improve…

 

Yes. As I said, no matter how well science is settled, you can always find a 
few experts within a field who disagree with the majority conclusions. I would 
not be surprised if there are some professional astronomers who do not believe 
the universe is expanding.

 

A minority always starts with exactly 1 person. In rare cases, it turns out 
that person is right, and the other 20,000 people in the field are wrong. It 
usually takes a long time to convince the others. That one person is usually 
demonized and attacked personally. You can find examples here:

 

http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j38

 

This is human nature. It is politics, and politics are everywhere, in all human 
interaction and in all institutions. You can no more extinguish politics than 
you can escape from sexuality or dying of old age.

 

However, despite all that, as an outsider you should bet on the consensus. 
Unless you have some deep inside connections and you know that the institution 
is hopelessly corrupt and run exclusively by idiots, you have to assume that 
for that most part the experts there are correct.

 

It is important to understand that people can be smart about one thing and 
stupid about another. With regard to cold fusion the editors at the Scientific 
American are stupid. They are ignorant and closed minded. But with regard to 
other subjects they are not so stupid, and much of what they say is worth 
listening to. It makes me nervous reading the magazine because I can never be 
sure they are right . . . but that goes for every magazine you read. And every 
bank you deposit money into, every airline and hospital. From time to time, 
institutions we assume are professional and well run turn out to be a shambles.

 

When I first met Gene Mallove, he was an insider and true believer in the 
nobility of science. He had PdDs from Harvard and MIT. What could be more 
mainstream? He had the idea that scientists are open minded, fair, and that 
they embrace novelty and new ideas. I told him that scientists are pretty much 
like everyone else -- like most people they hate and fear new ideas. (I knew 
that because I read a lot of history, not because I am cynical.)

 

Gene later became so angry about the way mainstream science treated cold 
fusion, he swung to the opposite extreme. He began to think that any science 
maverick must be right, and the mainstream must be wrong. He thought all 
science institutions must be corrupt. I said then -- and I still say -- the 
situation is nuanced, and complicated. Both individual people and institutions 
can be a mixture of smart and stupid, fair and unfair.

 

One day Gene said to me with a sigh, "this does not end neatly like an Arthur 
Clarke story, does it?" He meant there is never a time when the scientists 
finally all agree, doubts are resolved, progress is made, and the next great 
adventure begins. I think what happens more often is what Planck described:

"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."

 

Regrettably, this is not happening with cold fusion. The opposite is happening: 
the field is dying along with the generation who did the experiments.

 

- Jed

 

[Vo]:Re: LENR reactors need magnetic confinement

[Bob Cook]

That sounds like a good experiment.

Bob Cook

-Original Message- 
From: mix...@bigpond.com

Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 7:50 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: LENR reactors need magnetic confinement

In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 19:21:38 -0800:
Hi,
[snip]

Light entering the intense magnetic field would regain its original
characteristic upon exiting the field.  However, if your eyes were also in
the magnetic field they would sense the changes effected by the magnetic
field IMHO.


It should be possible to put a camera in close proximity to a powerful 
magnet,

then see if any change is detected as the magnet is turned on and off (would
need to be an electromagnet).

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

[Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

[Bob Cook]

Where does the photon get its angular momentum, when it and its twin appear 
from positron-electron enillalation?


I am not familiar with what line splitting the cyclotron frequency is.

Bob Cook

-Original Message- 
From: mix...@bigpond.com

Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 7:43 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 19:29:26 -0800:
Hi,
[snip]
IMO free electrons have no magnetic moment, because they have no 
"spin",

which

is not an intrinsic property of the electron, but rather a direct
consequence of
being bound to an atom.

Now I would say that is a departure from conventional thinking.


Yup.



Can you further explain this conclusion?  I would guess that you would say
that an electron has no intrinsic angular momentum as well as photons 
having

none.


No, I think photons do have angular momentum, though I don't think electrons 
do.
But it's just a hunch. One of the things that makes me think this is the 
fact
when a free electron circles in a magnetic field, you get cyclotron 
radiation,
but I would expect line splitting of the cyclotron frequency if free 
electrons

also had an intrinsic magnetic moment.



Bob Cook

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

[John Berry]

Strange, I pasted the link, but then the email accidentally sent
prematurely without the link:

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/126986/where-does-the-electron-get-its-high-magnetic-moment-from

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:38 PM, John Berry  wrote:

> Robin, the question and perhaps some of the following comments made here
> lend evidence to you being correct.
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:34 PM, John Berry 
> wrote:
>
>> Robin, for what its worth I think you are probably right.
>>
>> A free electron having a magnetic moment makes no sense to me.
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:02 PM, Bob Cook 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Where does the photon get its angular momentum, when it and its twin
>>> appear from positron-electron enillalation?
>>>
>>> I am not familiar with what line splitting the cyclotron frequency is.
>>>
>>> Bob Cook
>>>
>>> -Original Message- From: mix...@bigpond.com
>>> Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 7:43 PM
>>> To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
>>> Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic
>>> field
>>>
>>>
>>> In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Mon, 14 Dec 2015 19:29:26 -0800:
>>> Hi,
>>> [snip]
>>>
 IMO free electrons have no magnetic moment, because they have no "spin",
 which

>>> is not an intrinsic property of the electron, but rather a direct
 consequence of
 being bound to an atom.

 Now I would say that is a departure from conventional thinking.

>>>
>>> Yup.
>>>
>>>
 Can you further explain this conclusion?  I would guess that you would
 say
 that an electron has no intrinsic angular momentum as well as photons
 having
 none.

>>>
>>> No, I think photons do have angular momentum, though I don't think
>>> electrons do.
>>> But it's just a hunch. One of the things that makes me think this is the
>>> fact
>>> when a free electron circles in a magnetic field, you get cyclotron
>>> radiation,
>>> but I would expect line splitting of the cyclotron frequency if free
>>> electrons
>>> also had an intrinsic magnetic moment.
>>>
>>>
 Bob Cook

>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Robin van Spaandonk
>>>
>>> http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
>>>
>>>
>>
>

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

MarkI-ZeroPoint  wrote:

Here’s the real issue Jed…
>
>
>
> Didn’t you once argue vociferously, that science is NOT done by
> consensus???
>

As Damon Runyon said, "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle
to the strong, but that's the way to bet."

What I am saying is that when you are an outsider to a field, and
especially when the issue is highly technical and takes years to master,
your best bet is to assume that the consensus is correct. This sometimes
leads you to make an error of judgement, especially a Fallacious Appeal to
Authority.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

For example if you assume that the people at the DoE are experts on cold
fusion, you will incorrectly conclude their opinion on the subject is valid.

If you know little or nothing about a subject, it is safest to say: "I
assume the experts are right, but it is possible they are wrong. I cannot
judge."

Some technical issues are not difficult to judge. For example, most well
educated people have enough knowledge of statistics to see that vaccinating
children is safer than not vaccinating them even though in very rare cases
children die from vaccinations. Climate change, on the other hand is very
complex. I have read enough about it to confirm that. I have written
technical manuals and papers for the general public on cold fusion. I am
usually pretty good at judging when an area of science or technology can be
grasped by ordinary laymen -- or even a Georgia politician -- and when it
is likely to be far over their heads. Climate change is one of these things
that most people do not have the background to understand. You can see
that, for example, in two claims often made:

1. We cannot even predict the weather beyond a few days, so how can anyone
predict the distant future?

2. It is cold here this winter where I am in Washington DC, so there is no
global warming. (This is particularly ignorant when the southern hemisphere
happens to be experiencing record high heat.)

It is also a highly politicized issue, and politicized science attracts a
large numbers of irrational, angry people -- as you see the Wikipedia war
on cold fusion. It also attracts conspiracy theorists. In the case of cold
fusion, these are nutty people who think the oil companies have suppressed
it, and in the case of global warming they are equally nutty people who
think that large numbers of climatologists are gulling the public so they
can . . . live the high life of a researcher, with the hot tub, the babes,
the free booze, the 4 hour optional workday, the 7 figure income.



> And,
>
> I want to know what % of the ‘consensus’ (proponents), who are
> knowledgeable about the issue, AND, AND, AND, are NOT receiving some of
> their funding for climate-related research???
>

Probably not many. How can you do climate research without being funded by
some agency that funds climate-related research? This is like asking how
many cancer researchers are not funded by medically related organizations
such as the NIH, the CDC or the drug companies. Who else is there? Nobody
else funds cancer research as far as I know.

Some of the anti-global warming experts are paid for by fossil fuel
companies. I suspect that influences their judgement. Or perhaps their
judgement came first and that influenced the fossil fuel company to pay
them. I do not think that NOAA has quite so large a financial stake in the
outcome, because I am sure that we will continue studying the climate even
if it turns out global warming is not happening. NOAA will not be disbanded
if global warming is not happening, whereas the coal and oil companies will
be disbanded if it *is* happening. The motivations are unequal.


>

> I want to know exactly where each person is getting funding . . .
>

You can always find that out. All scientific papers published in the last
several decades always list the source of funding, in any legit journal or
web site.



> , or who’s ‘soft’ research position is being funded by climate-change
> related research, so their ‘opinion’ can be weighted appropriately.
>

That does not work. You cannot magically "weigh" people's judgement. That's
a logical fallacy. You cannot read minds. You might suspect that people
funded by coal companies have an ulterior motive to reach a conclusion, but
the only way you can prove that is to find a technical error in it. If you
do not have the knowledge to find a technical error, you cannot tell
whether it is valid or not.



> The internet and social media makes it s much easier to spread
> propaganda, to ‘manage the perception’, that I need to know how one’s
> livelihood is being funded… PERIOD.  FOLLOW THE $.
>

That may be a good way to decide whether there is reason to be suspicious,
but you cannot judge something as complex as climate change on that basis
alone. You have understand the technical issue in depth.

To take an easier case --

It was recently revealed that the Coca 

[Vo]:Re: N. Y. Times article comment

[Bob Cook]

higgins gets a thumbs up from me.

Bob Cook

From: Bob Higgins 
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 9:04 AM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com 
Subject: Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

For fear of being branded a card carrying republican, I hate to comment on such 
topics.  I believe the "global warming movement" is a false flag - just another 
lie being broadcast as propaganda to achieve some government's pet objective.  
It is not that I don't believe the earth is warming - I do.  The reality is 
that the earth goes through cold and hot cycles.  Ice cores show a period of 
100k-200k years between glaciations (peak cold).  What happens in the middle 
between peak cold glaciations?  The answer is a peak hot earth.  We are only 
about 25k years from the last peak cold glaciation, and probably 25k-75k years 
from peak hot earth.  The earth is presently in a gradual heating portion of 
the cycle as we move toward the peak hot earth.  The false flag is the 
promotion that warming as being caused by man - the science is not good enough 
to say this with any reliability.  Yes, there is rise in CO2 and there is 
warming, but the earth would be warming even if there were no CO2 additions.  
The question is only whether there is a small change in rate of warming caused 
by the CO2 addition.  Cutting CO2 emissions drastically will likely have no 
significant effect on warming but may incur significant cost.  Wouldn't that 
money be better spent in elimination of world poverty?  

Having said that, I believe there is good reason to design out the use of 
fossil fuel burning: it is poisoning the air we breath.  It is particularly 
acute in the cities and worse in the industrial coal burning cities in China.  
The average person does not realize that with every 20 gallons of gas they burn 
in their car, they are adding over 300 pounds of CO2 to the air.  Another side 
benefit is elimination of the fighting that has its roots in oil supply 
favoritism.

The justification for LENR is clean air, and clearing the landscape from power 
distribution ugliness through distributed power generation without the scale, 
danger, and nuclear waste of the fission industry.  The third world will 
benefit from this readily because they don't have a grid to start with.  
Availability of small, non-polluting power generation systems (particularly 
CHP) will help their rise from poverty via access to energy without the expense 
of a grid and without need for world controls on nuclear proliferation.  And 
what about solving the world's fresh water crisis?  This is a real opportunity: 
LENR powered desalinization.

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

  Calling all cold fusion flacks!

  I added a comment to this article at 10:15 (that's how you can find it). I 
would appreciate up-votes to make it more visible:


  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/opinion/hope-from-paris.html


  - Jed

[Vo]:Is/will be LENR a shortcut to the energy of the nucleus?

[Peter Gluck]

 For me a special issue, writing it, I got many loud messages from the
disappeared dear friends
LENR times were, are and will be interesting in so many senses!

http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2015/12/dec-14-lenr-and-cop-21-info-is-lenr.html
-- 
Dr. Peter Gluck
Cluj, Romania
http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Bob Higgins]

For fear of being branded a card carrying republican, I hate to comment on
such topics.  I believe the "global warming movement" is a false flag -
just another lie being broadcast as propaganda to achieve some government's
pet objective.  It is not that I don't believe the earth is warming - I
do.  The reality is that the earth goes through cold and hot cycles.  Ice
cores show a period of 100k-200k years between glaciations (peak cold).
What happens in the middle between peak cold glaciations?  The answer is a
peak hot earth.  We are only about 25k years from the last peak cold
glaciation, and probably 25k-75k years from peak hot earth.  The earth is
presently in a gradual heating portion of the cycle as we move toward the
peak hot earth.  The false flag is the promotion that warming as being
caused by man - the science is not good enough to say this with any
reliability.  Yes, there is rise in CO2 and there is warming, but the earth
would be warming even if there were no CO2 additions.  The question is only
whether there is a small change in rate of warming caused by the CO2
addition.  Cutting CO2 emissions drastically will likely have no
significant effect on warming but may incur significant cost.  Wouldn't
that money be better spent in elimination of world poverty?

Having said that, I believe there is good reason to design out the use of
fossil fuel burning: it is poisoning the air we breath.  It is particularly
acute in the cities and worse in the industrial coal burning cities in
China.  The average person does not realize that with every 20 gallons of
gas they burn in their car, they are adding over 300 pounds of CO2 to the
air.  Another side benefit is elimination of the fighting that has its
roots in oil supply favoritism.

The justification for LENR is clean air, and clearing the landscape from
power distribution ugliness through distributed power generation without
the scale, danger, and nuclear waste of the fission industry.  The third
world will benefit from this readily because they don't have a grid to
start with.  Availability of small, non-polluting power generation systems
(particularly CHP) will help their rise from poverty via access to energy
without the expense of a grid and without need for world controls on
nuclear proliferation.  And what about solving the world's fresh water
crisis?  This is a real opportunity: LENR powered desalinization.

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> Calling all cold fusion flacks!
>
> I added a comment to this article at 10:15 (that's how you can find it). I
> would appreciate up-votes to make it more visible:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/opinion/hope-from-paris.html
>
> - Jed
>
>
>
>

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

Bob Higgins  wrote:

For fear of being branded a card carrying republican, I hate to comment on
> such topics.  I believe the "global warming movement" is a false flag -
> just another lie being broadcast as propaganda to achieve some government's
> pet objective.
>

Scientists often do rotten things. They can be political animals. Few
people have as much direct experience of their shenanigans as I do, or
greater contempt for them. But one thing they have never done, in the
history of science, is what you describe here. They have NEVER organized a
large scale conspiracy to fool the public. They are not capable of it.
Three reasons: that violates the rules of science; scientists are inept at
communicating or convincing the public of anything (look at the cold fusion
researchers for proof of that); and their social skills are so undeveloped
they could not conspire their way out of a paper bag.

Furthermore, as I said before, one of the most important lessons of cold
fusion is that experts are usually right, and you should not listen to
strange people from outside the scientific establishment. The mainstream
researchers who confirmed cold fusion are right.

If experts in climatology say there is global warming induced by humans,
you can be sure they mean it, and you can be pretty sure they are right.
People outside the field of climatology -- including you -- do not know the
details and your critiques are probably wrong. I have seen many critiques
of cold fusion written by scientists outside the field, including
distinguished experts in physics and plasma physics. These critiques had no
merit. They had glaring errors, omissions and misunderstandings in them.
Some are outrageous nonsense, such as some the DoE panel comments:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf

Critiques by scientists who have not done their homework or have no
knowledge of calorimetry are wrong. Even when they are supportive of cold
fusion, they usually miss the point. Needless to say, critiques written by
Wikipedia-style amateurs are beyond the pale. Years ago when I reviewed the
Wikipedia article I could not find a single accurate substantive assertion
about cold fusion. Not one! Everything from tritium to reproducibility was
nonsense.

I cannot judge climatology, but I can see that it is complicated science.
It seems likely to me that all of the outside critiques are as bad as the
Wikipedia-style critiques of cold fusion.

Science works. In the end it gets things right, or mostly right. No one
should disagree with this. It is self evident. No one would dispute that
engineering works. Airplanes do not fall out of the sky; bridges do not
collapse; your computer CPU does a billion operations a second without a
single failure for months on end. Science and engineering are closely
allied and closely comparable to one another. They both work, for similar
reasons.

Weather forecasting is different from long term climatology in some ways,
yet closely related in others. They both use data from satellites and earth
station observations. They use the same basic physical models. They deal
with an enormous number of variables and gigantic databases. Weather
forecasting is astoundingly accurate and reliable compared to how it was 20
or 50 years ago. It is undeniable that great progress has been made in it.
It is foolish to imagine that similar progress has not been made in long
term climatology.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

Alain Sepeda  wrote:

there are case where communities of scientist were locked in groupthink,
> often locally because until recently science was not globally judged.
>
> N-Ray was very popular in french science.
> Wegener was very Impopular
> LENR is unpopular
>


Those are bad examples:

The N-Ray was briefly popular among a small number of scientists. It was
never confirmed. Most scientists paid no attention to it. Polywater, which
was similar, was only partially confirmed by one laboratory. Many others
look for it, found nothing, and never claimed a replication.

Wegner was unpopular but most scientists paid no attention to his findings
or data. They did not know what he claimed, so they had no business
criticizing it. Most scientists who criticize cold fusion know nothing
about the subject. They are not experts in any sense.

LENR is unpopular among scientists who know nothing about it. Their
opinions count for nothing. As far as I know, every scientist with
expertise in a relevant field, such as electrochemistry or tritium
detection, who has looked at the data carefully has been convinced that
cold fusion is real. Nearly every scientist, except for Dieter Britz.

Seriously, asking a scientist who has read nothing about cold fusion to
express an opinion is an absurd thing to do. How can they know anything?!?
By ESP? You might as well ask police officers or cashiers at a grocery
store whether cold fusion is real. It is like asking a typical Georgia
politician whether global warming is real. Most of them are so ignorant
they think the world is 6000 years old!

What is so funny is that many of these politicians predicate their response
by saying, "I am not a scientist but . . ." I would tell them: "Okay, if
you are not a scientist then shut up! Since you are not a scientist you
should defer to the scientists. Would you advise doctors how to perform
brain surgery? Would you tell NASA how to fix a complex problem with the
Curiosity robot explorer on Mars?"



> What can lock people who seems honest is "Groupthink".
>

I think it is mostly just old-fashioned stupidity. Also the Dunning-Kruger
effect.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Bob Higgins]

Jed, you certainly have a right to your opinion and to express it.  In the
case of LENR, there are well respected scientists in positions of power in
the US government that claim LENR doesn't exist - "it is bad science".
They say this either from being right (I don't think so personally), from
being wrong (even though they are respected experts), or because they have
a purpose for claiming the LENR research false even though they know it to
be true.  There are politicos that are using their "Global Warming"
position to bolster their political support - whether they believe in the
science or not is irrelevant because they are getting something for having
taken the position (I.E. Gore).

In any business, all of the scenarios are equally examined.  What would the
situation be if we do nothing?  What would happen if the world truly made
its best possible effort?  What would happen if the world worked on
remediation - subtracted out all of the CO2 from the atmosphere to
pre-industrial levels (at great expense)?  How much difference will there
be between the best possible scenario and the worst scenario?  AND, how
much will it cost for the best possible scenario?  What alternative uses
could be made of that money?

I am not saying the world should continue emitting CO2 without regard to
its effects on the Earth.  Reduction of CO2 emission is important to keep
from poisoning our atmosphere.  The Chinese suffer from this so badly in
many of their major cities that they will be compelled to change (hopefully
to LENR from coal).  Reduction of CO2 in the US will do nothing to help the
Chinese problem.  I am stating that I believe CO2 elimination/remediation
is not an emergency.  I believe that with the best effort the world can
muster, the global warming rate will continue unabated.  CO2 policy
creation deserves balanced treatment over the next 100 years as does
preparation for warming; and elimination of poverty and war.

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 12:55 PM, Jed Rothwell 
wrote:

> Bob Higgins  wrote:
>
> For fear of being branded a card carrying republican, I hate to comment on
>> such topics.  I believe the "global warming movement" is a false flag -
>> just another lie being broadcast as propaganda to achieve some government's
>> pet objective.
>>
>
> Scientists often do rotten things. They can be political animals. Few
> people have as much direct experience of their shenanigans as I do, or
> greater contempt for them. But one thing they have never done, in the
> history of science, is what you describe here. They have NEVER organized a
> large scale conspiracy to fool the public. They are not capable of it.
> Three reasons: that violates the rules of science; scientists are inept at
> communicating or convincing the public of anything (look at the cold fusion
> researchers for proof of that); and their social skills are so undeveloped
> they could not conspire their way out of a paper bag.
>
> Furthermore, as I said before, one of the most important lessons of cold
> fusion is that experts are usually right, and you should not listen to
> strange people from outside the scientific establishment. The mainstream
> researchers who confirmed cold fusion are right.
>
> If experts in climatology say there is global warming induced by humans,
> you can be sure they mean it, and you can be pretty sure they are right.
> People outside the field of climatology -- including you -- do not know the
> details and your critiques are probably wrong. I have seen many critiques
> of cold fusion written by scientists outside the field, including
> distinguished experts in physics and plasma physics. These critiques had no
> merit. They had glaring errors, omissions and misunderstandings in them.
> Some are outrageous nonsense, such as some the DoE panel comments:
>
> http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf
>
> Critiques by scientists who have not done their homework or have no
> knowledge of calorimetry are wrong. Even when they are supportive of cold
> fusion, they usually miss the point. Needless to say, critiques written by
> Wikipedia-style amateurs are beyond the pale. Years ago when I reviewed the
> Wikipedia article I could not find a single accurate substantive assertion
> about cold fusion. Not one! Everything from tritium to reproducibility was
> nonsense.
>
> I cannot judge climatology, but I can see that it is complicated science.
> It seems likely to me that all of the outside critiques are as bad as the
> Wikipedia-style critiques of cold fusion.
>
> Science works. In the end it gets things right, or mostly right. No one
> should disagree with this. It is self evident. No one would dispute that
> engineering works. Airplanes do not fall out of the sky; bridges do not
> collapse; your computer CPU does a billion operations a second without a
> single failure for months on end. Science and engineering are closely
> allied and closely comparable to one another. They 

Re: [Vo]:Magnetic moment .vs motion as source of magnetic field

[mixent]

In reply to  John Berry's message of Tue, 15 Dec 2015 01:32:24 +1300:
Hi,
[snip]

IMO free electrons have no magnetic moment, because they have no "spin", which
is not an intrinsic property of the electron, but rather a direct consequence of
being bound to an atom.

>I tend not to agree with the belief of the author, but he has some good
>points
>
>http://educate-yourself.org/cn/ElectronBeamMagneticField.pdf
>
>
>Currently there are two explanations. One surely must be wrong.
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Alain Sepeda]

there are case where communities of scientist were locked in groupthink,
often locally because until recently science was not globally judged.

N-Ray was very popular in french science.
Wegener was very Impopular
LENR is unpopular

What can lock people who seems honest is "Groupthink".
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/Groupthink%20IOM%202012_07_02%20BW.pdf
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/REP_4_BW_nolinks_corrected%201.pdf

It works that way.
first you take people who analyse a situation, and given partial data,
invest asset into an hypothesis... their career, their budget, their
investments...

When new data dissent with the hypothesis there is good reason to doubt on
it.

But human mostly optimize their impression of wealth, not the wealth
itself, and they can avoid data and deform what they see.

If the people who invested in the error, can benefit alone from their
realism, they will accept the data and take benefit , harming the others
but without damage for themselves.

If the people who invested in the error, need the support and acceptance of
the others to benefit from their realism more than what they lose as dream,
if they can be harmed by believers, if there is nothing to win and all to
lose then they enter "groupthink mode".
they then have huge incentive to harass and silent the dissenters, making
them mindguard like who they are...
quickly a full community of deluded minguard is created who implement it's
own motivation.

what is funny is that like the boss of Enron, the IS bombs, the suicide
sect victims, people can finally pay a huge price to their beliefs...
anyway until then they have a very comfortable mental life, where behaving
like a monster is good, where all is simple and clear.

How can you interpret the behavior of white-knight like those who harassed
Bockris ?


never say a whole community cannot be deluded to the point of terrorizing
dissenters despite evidences.

You are the holder of the Evidence as our respected Librarian.


2015-12-14 20:55 GMT+01:00 Jed Rothwell :

> Bob Higgins  wrote:
>
> For fear of being branded a card carrying republican, I hate to comment on
>> such topics.  I believe the "global warming movement" is a false flag -
>> just another lie being broadcast as propaganda to achieve some government's
>> pet objective.
>>
>
> Scientists often do rotten things. They can be political animals. Few
> people have as much direct experience of their shenanigans as I do, or
> greater contempt for them. But one thing they have never done, in the
> history of science, is what you describe here. They have NEVER organized a
> large scale conspiracy to fool the public. They are not capable of it.
> Three reasons: that violates the rules of science; scientists are inept at
> communicating or convincing the public of anything (look at the cold fusion
> researchers for proof of that); and their social skills are so undeveloped
> they could not conspire their way out of a paper bag.
>
> Furthermore, as I said before, one of the most important lessons of cold
> fusion is that experts are usually right, and you should not listen to
> strange people from outside the scientific establishment. The mainstream
> researchers who confirmed cold fusion are right.
>
> If experts in climatology say there is global warming induced by humans,
> you can be sure they mean it, and you can be pretty sure they are right.
> People outside the field of climatology -- including you -- do not know the
> details and your critiques are probably wrong. I have seen many critiques
> of cold fusion written by scientists outside the field, including
> distinguished experts in physics and plasma physics. These critiques had no
> merit. They had glaring errors, omissions and misunderstandings in them.
> Some are outrageous nonsense, such as some the DoE panel comments:
>
> http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf
>
> Critiques by scientists who have not done their homework or have no
> knowledge of calorimetry are wrong. Even when they are supportive of cold
> fusion, they usually miss the point. Needless to say, critiques written by
> Wikipedia-style amateurs are beyond the pale. Years ago when I reviewed the
> Wikipedia article I could not find a single accurate substantive assertion
> about cold fusion. Not one! Everything from tritium to reproducibility was
> nonsense.
>
> I cannot judge climatology, but I can see that it is complicated science.
> It seems likely to me that all of the outside critiques are as bad as the
> Wikipedia-style critiques of cold fusion.
>
> Science works. In the end it gets things right, or mostly right. No one
> should disagree with this. It is self evident. No one would dispute that
> engineering works. Airplanes do not fall out of the sky; bridges do not
> collapse; your computer CPU does a billion operations a second without a
> single failure for months on end. Science and engineering are closely
> 

Re: [Vo]:Re: LENR reactors need magnetic confinement

[mixent]

In reply to  Bob Cook's message of Thu, 3 Dec 2015 17:35:08 -0800:
Hi,
[snip]
>My thought was that a strong magnetic field may disrupt the oscillating nature 
>of the light—disturbance—as it passes through the magnetic field, changing its 
>frequency and or intensity and direction of propagation.  I would assume that 
>the magnetic field intensities would add at any instant of time and space.   

If this were so, then one should see distortions of the background image when
looking at powerful magnets. There are none AFAIK.

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[John Berry]

Bob, you seem to agree there is warming...

That CO2 is increasing, by humans...

I presume you agree that increased CO2 heats things up with the greenhouse
effect.

I presume you understand that oil pays a lot of people a lot of money to
make global warming look like some kind of conspiracy...

I can agree that CO2 and greenhouse gasses may not be the only cause of
global warming/climate change/disruption...

So do you think humans continue to make the situation worse?

How sure are you we shouldn't worry?
What if you are wrong, what is the cost?  Pretty high right?
What if I and those concerned about global warming are wrong, what's the
cost? Wouldn't being greener bring other benefits anyway?

John

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Bob Higgins 
wrote:

> For fear of being branded a card carrying republican, I hate to comment on
> such topics.  I believe the "global warming movement" is a false flag -
> just another lie being broadcast as propaganda to achieve some government's
> pet objective.  It is not that I don't believe the earth is warming - I
> do.  The reality is that the earth goes through cold and hot cycles.  Ice
> cores show a period of 100k-200k years between glaciations (peak cold).
> What happens in the middle between peak cold glaciations?  The answer is a
> peak hot earth.  We are only about 25k years from the last peak cold
> glaciation, and probably 25k-75k years from peak hot earth.  The earth is
> presently in a gradual heating portion of the cycle as we move toward the
> peak hot earth.  The false flag is the promotion that warming as being
> caused by man - the science is not good enough to say this with any
> reliability.  Yes, there is rise in CO2 and there is warming, but the earth
> would be warming even if there were no CO2 additions.  The question is only
> whether there is a small change in rate of warming caused by the CO2
> addition.  Cutting CO2 emissions drastically will likely have no
> significant effect on warming but may incur significant cost.  Wouldn't
> that money be better spent in elimination of world poverty?
>
> Having said that, I believe there is good reason to design out the use of
> fossil fuel burning: it is poisoning the air we breath.  It is particularly
> acute in the cities and worse in the industrial coal burning cities in
> China.  The average person does not realize that with every 20 gallons of
> gas they burn in their car, they are adding over 300 pounds of CO2 to the
> air.  Another side benefit is elimination of the fighting that has its
> roots in oil supply favoritism.
>
> The justification for LENR is clean air, and clearing the landscape from
> power distribution ugliness through distributed power generation without
> the scale, danger, and nuclear waste of the fission industry.  The third
> world will benefit from this readily because they don't have a grid to
> start with.  Availability of small, non-polluting power generation systems
> (particularly CHP) will help their rise from poverty via access to energy
> without the expense of a grid and without need for world controls on
> nuclear proliferation.  And what about solving the world's fresh water
> crisis?  This is a real opportunity: LENR powered desalinization.
>
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Jed Rothwell 
> wrote:
>
>> Calling all cold fusion flacks!
>>
>> I added a comment to this article at 10:15 (that's how you can find it).
>> I would appreciate up-votes to make it more visible:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/opinion/hope-from-paris.html
>>
>> - Jed
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

Bob Higgins  wrote:

Jed, you certainly have a right to your opinion and to express it.  In the
> case of LENR, there are well respected scientists in positions of power in
> the US government that claim LENR doesn't exist - "it is bad science".
>

Yes. I know those people well. I have met with them, and I have read all of
their books, and all of the articles they have written in magazines and
newspapers. Those people are all -- without exception -- ignorant fools who
know nothing about cold fusion. Their opinions count for nothing. As I
said, you might as well ask the cash register lady at the grocery store
what she thinks of cold fusion.

See for yourself! Gene Mallove collected some of their choice comments here:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MalloveEclassicnas.pdf

See also the Sci. American compendium of mistakes:

http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?p=294

And the DoE panel, as I said:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf



>   They say this either from being right (I don't think so personally),
> from being wrong (even though they are respected experts), or because they
> have a purpose for claiming the LENR research false even though they know
> it to be true.
>

I doubt they have any purpose for claiming LENR is wrong. They would not
make such fools of themselves if they had a rational goal. If it ever
becomes widely known that cold fusion is real, these people will be held up
as a laughingstock for generations to come, like the scientists who claimed
that airplanes were impossible before 1908.

This is human nature. Most people despise novelty. They hate and fear new
discoveries and change. Even scientists are often like that. You can find
hundreds of quotes such as the Nobel laureates who tried to stop Townes
from discovering the laser: "You should stop the work you are doing. It
isn't going to work. You know it's not going to work. We know it's not
going to work. You're wasting money. Just stop!"

See also:

http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j38


  There are politicos that are using their "Global Warming" position to
> bolster their political support - whether they believe in the science or
> not is irrelevant because they are getting something for having taken the
> position (I.E. Gore).
>

There may be such politicians, but that has no bearing on the scientific
validity of the claims. You cannot use that fact to judge the technical
arguments.



> In any business, all of the scenarios are equally examined.
>

This is science, not business. The only opinions that count are those of
experts in climatology. Asking anyone else what is likely or what we should
do about it is like asking me how to perform heart surgery.

There is a reason why it takes many years to get a PhD and why science is
so difficult.

This is not to suggest that all experts are always right, but non-experts
are never right, and they cannot be right, even in principle. If they
happen to be right, it is a lucky guess. Like if you asked me what scalpel
to use in the operating room and I happened to point to the right one.



>   What would the situation be if we do nothing?  What would happen if the
> world truly made its best possible effort?
>

These are complex technical issues. Only people who have studied them for
many years have any clue what the answers may be. Those people may be wrong
-- as I said -- but the rest of us have no basis for even addressing the
questions, and no way to judge. We have to trust in their expertise just as
you must trust the pilot of an airplane you board, or the surgeon who is
about to operate on you.

In life you must often defer to expert opinion. That is the whole basis of
civilization. People know different things, and if you don't know what they
know, you cannot judge them. It has been that way for thousands of years.
If you are not a stone mason you cannot judge which stones will likely
cause the cathedral to collapse. You could not have judged that in the year
1400, and you could not do it today.

Of course, when someone makes a terrible mistake, you know he is not an
expert. He may thinks he is, but he is mistaken. When rock gives way and
the cathedral collapses, you are not dealing with qualified stonemasons.
When Gen. Burnside ordered an attack at Fredricksburg, Lincoln could see he
should be fired, even though Lincoln himself was no military expert. And
when DoE "experts" claim that cold fusion has never been replicated, anyone
can see they are not experts! They are nitwits.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[a.ashfield]

Bob Higgins,
I think Jed is attempting to defend the indefensible.  But you stated 
the Chinese pollution problem is due to CO2.  It isn't.  If it were just 
CO2 there would be no smog.  CO2 levels would have to get a lot higher 
than that for people to even notice it.

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[John Berry]

Correction "I presume you understand that oil companies pay a lot of people
a lot of money to make global warming look like some kind of conspiracy".

I think there is room for the experts to be mistaken But when you look at
who believes in human caused global warming, the Oil companies internally
believe (and did early on), the insurance industry, the military believes
it is real.

At least the last 2 are taking actions on the presumption rising seas.



On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 11:51 AM, John Berry  wrote:

> Bob, you seem to agree there is warming...
>
> That CO2 is increasing, by humans...
>
> I presume you agree that increased CO2 heats things up with the greenhouse
> effect.
>
> I presume you understand that oil pays a lot of people a lot of money to
> make global warming look like some kind of conspiracy...
>
> I can agree that CO2 and greenhouse gasses may not be the only cause of
> global warming/climate change/disruption...
>
> So do you think humans continue to make the situation worse?
>
> How sure are you we shouldn't worry?
> What if you are wrong, what is the cost?  Pretty high right?
> What if I and those concerned about global warming are wrong, what's the
> cost? Wouldn't being greener bring other benefits anyway?
>
> John
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Bob Higgins 
> wrote:
>
>> For fear of being branded a card carrying republican, I hate to comment
>> on such topics.  I believe the "global warming movement" is a false flag -
>> just another lie being broadcast as propaganda to achieve some government's
>> pet objective.  It is not that I don't believe the earth is warming - I
>> do.  The reality is that the earth goes through cold and hot cycles.  Ice
>> cores show a period of 100k-200k years between glaciations (peak cold).
>> What happens in the middle between peak cold glaciations?  The answer is a
>> peak hot earth.  We are only about 25k years from the last peak cold
>> glaciation, and probably 25k-75k years from peak hot earth.  The earth is
>> presently in a gradual heating portion of the cycle as we move toward the
>> peak hot earth.  The false flag is the promotion that warming as being
>> caused by man - the science is not good enough to say this with any
>> reliability.  Yes, there is rise in CO2 and there is warming, but the earth
>> would be warming even if there were no CO2 additions.  The question is only
>> whether there is a small change in rate of warming caused by the CO2
>> addition.  Cutting CO2 emissions drastically will likely have no
>> significant effect on warming but may incur significant cost.  Wouldn't
>> that money be better spent in elimination of world poverty?
>>
>> Having said that, I believe there is good reason to design out the use of
>> fossil fuel burning: it is poisoning the air we breath.  It is particularly
>> acute in the cities and worse in the industrial coal burning cities in
>> China.  The average person does not realize that with every 20 gallons of
>> gas they burn in their car, they are adding over 300 pounds of CO2 to the
>> air.  Another side benefit is elimination of the fighting that has its
>> roots in oil supply favoritism.
>>
>> The justification for LENR is clean air, and clearing the landscape from
>> power distribution ugliness through distributed power generation without
>> the scale, danger, and nuclear waste of the fission industry.  The third
>> world will benefit from this readily because they don't have a grid to
>> start with.  Availability of small, non-polluting power generation systems
>> (particularly CHP) will help their rise from poverty via access to energy
>> without the expense of a grid and without need for world controls on
>> nuclear proliferation.  And what about solving the world's fresh water
>> crisis?  This is a real opportunity: LENR powered desalinization.
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Jed Rothwell 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Calling all cold fusion flacks!
>>>
>>> I added a comment to this article at 10:15 (that's how you can find it).
>>> I would appreciate up-votes to make it more visible:
>>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/opinion/hope-from-paris.html
>>>
>>> - Jed
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Eric Walker]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

This is not to suggest that all experts are always right, but non-experts
> are never right, and they cannot be right, even in principle. If they
> happen to be right, it is a lucky guess.
>

This is complete nonsense.

Eric

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Lennart Thornros]

Jed,
I frequently say that I am not a qualified science person, particularly in
regards to nuclear science, which I have very little background in.
However, and to your disappointment:) , I will voice my opinion as I see
fit. If scientists had THE answer than the rest of us would be obsolete.
I think reality is that to take good informed decisions one need to take in
data from 'all walks of life'. The example given above about weather /
climate is a good example. There is a cost involved and there are political
issues to consider and on top of it all the problems are largest where the
economy will be most hurt by a quick enforcement of a world with no CO2
pollution. So even if the increase in global temperature is depending
mostly (which I doubt) on our CO2 pollution we need to overcome other
problems to get the issue in a better state.
US has been very late to adopt any pollution recommendations made by
institutions like UN. The reason has been that strong industrial powers did
not want this expensive regulation. Europe, which is more densely populated
, has had to take steps in this direction for a long time. Now the big
expense will hit areas where the economy cannot take the cost (same
reasoning as the  US put forward 30 years ago). In other words we need to
cough up the money if we want to see any progress in that field. LENR would
certainly be a great help. In the meantime we will see statements like the
one from Paris coming out at great cost and with zero impact. When US make
a 10% import fee on all Chinese  merchandise and then turn those money into
improvement of the pollution in China's developing cities then things will
happen. Popular - don't you think?

Best Regards ,
Lennart Thornros


lenn...@thornros.com
+1 916 436 1899

Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and
enthusiastically act upon, must inevitably come to pass. (PJM)


On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 2:23 PM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> Alain Sepeda  wrote:
>
> there are case where communities of scientist were locked in groupthink,
>> often locally because until recently science was not globally judged.
>>
>> N-Ray was very popular in french science.
>> Wegener was very Impopular
>> LENR is unpopular
>>
>
>
> Those are bad examples:
>
> The N-Ray was briefly popular among a small number of scientists. It was
> never confirmed. Most scientists paid no attention to it. Polywater, which
> was similar, was only partially confirmed by one laboratory. Many others
> look for it, found nothing, and never claimed a replication.
>
> Wegner was unpopular but most scientists paid no attention to his findings
> or data. They did not know what he claimed, so they had no business
> criticizing it. Most scientists who criticize cold fusion know nothing
> about the subject. They are not experts in any sense.
>
> LENR is unpopular among scientists who know nothing about it. Their
> opinions count for nothing. As far as I know, every scientist with
> expertise in a relevant field, such as electrochemistry or tritium
> detection, who has looked at the data carefully has been convinced that
> cold fusion is real. Nearly every scientist, except for Dieter Britz.
>
> Seriously, asking a scientist who has read nothing about cold fusion to
> express an opinion is an absurd thing to do. How can they know anything?!?
> By ESP? You might as well ask police officers or cashiers at a grocery
> store whether cold fusion is real. It is like asking a typical Georgia
> politician whether global warming is real. Most of them are so ignorant
> they think the world is 6000 years old!
>
> What is so funny is that many of these politicians predicate their
> response by saying, "I am not a scientist but . . ." I would tell them:
> "Okay, if you are not a scientist then shut up! Since you are not a
> scientist you should defer to the scientists. Would you advise doctors how
> to perform brain surgery? Would you tell NASA how to fix a complex problem
> with the Curiosity robot explorer on Mars?"
>
>
>
>> What can lock people who seems honest is "Groupthink".
>>
>
> I think it is mostly just old-fashioned stupidity. Also the Dunning-Kruger
> effect.
>
> - Jed
>
>

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

a.ashfield  wrote:

>
> I think Jed is attempting to defend the indefensible.


You should at least acknowledge that I am defending the opinions of
experts. Educated people may disagree with experts but it goes to far to
say this is "indefensible." You, for some reason, imagine you know better
than these experts. Given the complexity of modern society and the advanced
nature of our science, I think your claim is more extreme than mine.

Perhaps you are suggesting that these climate researchers are fakes engaged
in a massive conspiracy. That seems far-fetched, to say the least.



>   But you stated the Chinese pollution problem is due to CO2.  It isn't.
> If it were just CO2 there would be no smog.


I think this may have gotten confused in the discussion here. It is often
confused in the mass media. I think everyone here understands that the
pollution problem in Beijing is caused by particulates, not CO2. These
particulates could be greatly reduced by using scrubbers with coal fired
plants.

Chinese automobiles also cause particulate pollution. As far as I know the
automobile pollution controls are up to U.S. and Japanese standards so I do
not think they could easily be improved. They are already about as good as
modern technology can achieve. I think I heard on NHK that Chinese gasoline
refining standards are not up to our codes, and that is causing problems.

Other problems are being caused by CO2, according to experts. These
including rising sea levels, extreme temperatures, and damage caused by
heat to agriculture and the ecology. This is getting beyond the scope of
the discussion.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Jed Rothwell]

Eric Walker  wrote:


>
>
This is not to suggest that all experts are always right, but non-experts
>> are never right, and they cannot be right, even in principle. If they
>> happen to be right, it is a lucky guess.
>>
>
> This is complete nonsense.
>

Obviously I mean with regard to complex technical subjects, such as global
warming or brain surgery. Or controlling robot explorers on Mars.

Experts are often wrong about ordinary subjects, and subjects outside of
their own expertise. They can even be wrong about their own fields, but
logically that means they are not actually experts.

Anyone can judge an expert by looking at results. Over the last few months
I have had an itching rash. I consulted with two doctors, and followed
their advice, but it did not get better. Obviously they are not experts on
that particular problem. I went to third doctor. The treatment he
recommended seems to be working, so I guess he is an expert after all. Or
he made a lucky guess. I can't judge.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Bob Higgins]

Yes, CO2 is increasing by humans.  In many ways fossil fuels keep us alive
and fed.  It runs the furnace for my house to keep me from freeaing (20F
outside), it runs the tractors that farm the fields, the trucks and trains
that deliver the food, and most people in the US require driving a car to
get to work.

Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is likely increasing the global
temperature - probably at a miniscule rate compared to the rate of warming
due to natural cosmological and geothermal causes.

Yes, humans continue to make it worse (in a tiny way), but without the CO2
creation the polulation would die in large numbers at the present state of
technology.

I didn't say don't worry.  In fact we should be preparing for warming.  We
should reduce our use of fossil fuels as the economy and technology permit.

What if I am wrong?  No difference. Everyone is polarized one way or the
other.  The reality is that no matter what the president commits the US to,
what I am suggesting is what will happen in the end anyway - gradual
reduction of CO2 as the economy and technology permit.  But, we should not
be selling the effort on the basis of Global Warming - we should be selling
it on the basis of not poisoning our atmosphere.

If the fanatics were to get the reins and turn the "Global Warming" theory
into an emergency, it would cause a shift of lower middle class individuals
into poverty to pay for the emergency efforts.  Many would die from not
being able to heat their house, buy food, or go to work.  It would delay
contributions of the US toward elimination of world poverty.  It would
create a huge demand for a technological alternative that the world doesn't
have.  After all is said and done there would be significant economic
damage, perhaps greater war as many of the poverty stricken look for a way
out, and I believe a total failure to abate global warming in any
meaningful way.

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 3:51 PM, John Berry  wrote:

> Bob, you seem to agree there is warming...
>
> That CO2 is increasing, by humans...
>
> I presume you agree that increased CO2 heats things up with the greenhouse
> effect.
>
> I presume you understand that oil pays a lot of people a lot of money to
> make global warming look like some kind of conspiracy...
>
> I can agree that CO2 and greenhouse gasses may not be the only cause of
> global warming/climate change/disruption...
>
> So do you think humans continue to make the situation worse?
>
> How sure are you we shouldn't worry?
> What if you are wrong, what is the cost?  Pretty high right?
> What if I and those concerned about global warming are wrong, what's the
> cost? Wouldn't being greener bring other benefits anyway?
>
> John
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Bob Higgins 
> wrote:
>
>> For fear of being branded a card carrying republican, I hate to comment
>> on such topics.  I believe the "global warming movement" is a false flag -
>> just another lie being broadcast as propaganda to achieve some government's
>> pet objective.  It is not that I don't believe the earth is warming - I
>> do.  The reality is that the earth goes through cold and hot cycles.  Ice
>> cores show a period of 100k-200k years between glaciations (peak cold).
>> What happens in the middle between peak cold glaciations?  The answer is a
>> peak hot earth.  We are only about 25k years from the last peak cold
>> glaciation, and probably 25k-75k years from peak hot earth.  The earth is
>> presently in a gradual heating portion of the cycle as we move toward the
>> peak hot earth.  The false flag is the promotion that warming as being
>> caused by man - the science is not good enough to say this with any
>> reliability.  Yes, there is rise in CO2 and there is warming, but the earth
>> would be warming even if there were no CO2 additions.  The question is only
>> whether there is a small change in rate of warming caused by the CO2
>> addition.  Cutting CO2 emissions drastically will likely have no
>> significant effect on warming but may incur significant cost.  Wouldn't
>> that money be better spent in elimination of world poverty?
>>
>> Having said that, I believe there is good reason to design out the use of
>> fossil fuel burning: it is poisoning the air we breath.  It is particularly
>> acute in the cities and worse in the industrial coal burning cities in
>> China.  The average person does not realize that with every 20 gallons of
>> gas they burn in their car, they are adding over 300 pounds of CO2 to the
>> air.  Another side benefit is elimination of the fighting that has its
>> roots in oil supply favoritism.
>>
>> The justification for LENR is clean air, and clearing the landscape from
>> power distribution ugliness through distributed power generation without
>> the scale, danger, and nuclear waste of the fission industry.  The third
>> world will benefit from this readily because they don't have a grid to
>> start with.  Availability of 

Re: [Vo]:N. Y. Times article comment

[Lennart Thornros]

Yes, Jed you are right.
You go to three experts and the one who gives the correct answer is the
REAL expert. That is the problem in a nutshell - experts are often wrong
even if they say they are experts and it is hard to see which one is THE
expert.  I assume you did not go to the two first experts even as you know
they were less of an exper,t than the third one:)

Best Regards ,
Lennart Thornros


lenn...@thornros.com
+1 916 436 1899

Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and
enthusiastically act upon, must inevitably come to pass. (PJM)


On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 3:19 PM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> Eric Walker  wrote:
>
>
>>
>>
> This is not to suggest that all experts are always right, but non-experts
>>> are never right, and they cannot be right, even in principle. If they
>>> happen to be right, it is a lucky guess.
>>>
>>
>> This is complete nonsense.
>>
>
> Obviously I mean with regard to complex technical subjects, such as global
> warming or brain surgery. Or controlling robot explorers on Mars.
>
> Experts are often wrong about ordinary subjects, and subjects outside of
> their own expertise. They can even be wrong about their own fields, but
> logically that means they are not actually experts.
>
> Anyone can judge an expert by looking at results. Over the last few months
> I have had an itching rash. I consulted with two doctors, and followed
> their advice, but it did not get better. Obviously they are not experts on
> that particular problem. I went to third doctor. The treatment he
> recommended seems to be working, so I guess he is an expert after all. Or
> he made a lucky guess. I can't judge.
>
> - Jed
>
>