Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
From the references Alain posted earlier in the thread, it looks like conformity trumps everything. It must be in our genes - dissidents are probably at a Darwinian disadvantage. Violating the pecking order is a career-ender, for sure. The case of Stanley Ovshinsky, inventor of amorphous semiconductors is instructive - In 1960, he and his beloved second wife, Iris, scraped together some savings and started a business called Energy Conversion Devices. Mr. Ovshinsky soon created a stir by asserting that everything science knew about semiconductors was wrong. The scientific establishment ignored him, or wrote him off with scathing contempt. Finally, a renowned physicist at MIT tested his theory. Stunned, the physicist proclaimed that Mr. Ovshinsky was right. http://www.toledoblade.com/JackLessenberry/2012/10/26/How-Stan-Ovshinsky-left-the-world-a-better-place.html - fortunately someone actually tested his theory. It is really discouraging how many science writers quickly joined the anti-LENR/CF feeding frenzy by essentially only dutifully parroting the establishment line. BTW, regurgitating the establishment party-line seems to be the exclusive modus operandi of political journalists now, so maybe physics is not so different. -- Lou Pagnucco Eric Walker wrote: On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:27 PM, pagnu...@htdconnect.com wrote: (3) the power of conformity, and fear of ostracism, completely prevents university experimentation. I am not an academic, so I can only discuss what I observe from the outside. But I suspect the pressure on academics is intense not to do things that will pigeonhole them as eccentrics or mavericks. It is not difficult to imagine that for all but the brightest the incentives for avoiding these labels include the possibility of getting tenure at a second- or first-tier institution. Even in cases of scientists whose previous work has been acknowledged as groundbreaking, it is all too easy for them to fall from grace later on -- Brian Josephson and David Bohm come to mind. Both now probably generate smirks among other scientists. One sees from time to time the recurring theme of the formidable scientist who goes on to lose his grasp of reality. This seems to be something that is expected of a certain percentage of academics, and therefore a trap for the scientist to be especially wary of. Reputation is everything. If Peter Hagelstein was accurately quoted in saying that the mainstream scientific community is a close-minded mafia, I can see why he would think this. None of this is to say that scientists aren't doing some amazing work; only that the criteria used by many for assessing new developments seem to be off. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
interesting you quote semiconductors, because LENr and semiconductors look very similar in behavior, and in quantum nature. Mess in the lattice. unreliable components at the beginning. ignored results at the beginning, assumed experimental errors discarded My school was training us to make a MsC in microelectronics, but i choose parallel and distributed IT... this is why I found in 92-93 a big archive on pre-web internet FTP site, with abstract about cold fusion (don't remember how I fall on that). I have no prejudice of Cf since I did not heard of it before. After printing a thousand pages and reading the abstracts, It got clear : - that there was interesting results - that the critics have no substance, or have been addressed since long. - that it was respecting physics, TD laws, and probably standard QM, yet absolutely no theory was credible (there was very few) for the rest i'm very conservative about science, about QM, TD laws, abuse of modeling (guess why), abuse of theoretical arguments, abuse of consensus, abuse of politics... This is why I don't understand why CF is rejected, and not many stupidities, false consensus, false alerts, that pollute the science landscape and the media... and French SciAm even a little... 2012/10/31 pagnu...@htdconnect.com From the references Alain posted earlier in the thread, it looks like conformity trumps everything. It must be in our genes - dissidents are probably at a Darwinian disadvantage. Violating the pecking order is a career-ender, for sure. The case of Stanley Ovshinsky, inventor of amorphous semiconductors is instructive - In 1960, he and his beloved second wife, Iris, scraped together some savings and started a business called Energy Conversion Devices. Mr. Ovshinsky soon created a stir by asserting that everything science knew about semiconductors was wrong. The scientific establishment ignored him, or wrote him off with scathing contempt. Finally, a renowned physicist at MIT tested his theory. Stunned, the physicist proclaimed that Mr. Ovshinsky was right. http://www.toledoblade.com/JackLessenberry/2012/10/26/How-Stan-Ovshinsky-left-the-world-a-better-place.html - fortunately someone actually tested his theory. It is really discouraging how many science writers quickly joined the anti-LENR/CF feeding frenzy by essentially only dutifully parroting the establishment line. BTW, regurgitating the establishment party-line seems to be the exclusive modus operandi of political journalists now, so maybe physics is not so different. -- Lou Pagnucco Eric Walker wrote: On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:27 PM, pagnu...@htdconnect.com wrote: (3) the power of conformity, and fear of ostracism, completely prevents university experimentation. I am not an academic, so I can only discuss what I observe from the outside. But I suspect the pressure on academics is intense not to do things that will pigeonhole them as eccentrics or mavericks. It is not difficult to imagine that for all but the brightest the incentives for avoiding these labels include the possibility of getting tenure at a second- or first-tier institution. Even in cases of scientists whose previous work has been acknowledged as groundbreaking, it is all too easy for them to fall from grace later on -- Brian Josephson and David Bohm come to mind. Both now probably generate smirks among other scientists. One sees from time to time the recurring theme of the formidable scientist who goes on to lose his grasp of reality. This seems to be something that is expected of a certain percentage of academics, and therefore a trap for the scientist to be especially wary of. Reputation is everything. If Peter Hagelstein was accurately quoted in saying that the mainstream scientific community is a close-minded mafia, I can see why he would think this. None of this is to say that scientists aren't doing some amazing work; only that the criteria used by many for assessing new developments seem to be off. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
Almost a day, and two entries on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion are still standing. (Prelas, ICCF-18 hosting and Duncan welcome message). (Might be a Sandy side-effect, of course. Nope -- the main deleter is Irish)
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
Alan Fletcher a...@well.com wrote: Almost a day, and two entries on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion are still standing. (Prelas, ICCF-18 hosting and Duncan welcome message). Adding stuff to Wikipedia is building a house of cards, or a sandcastle when the tide is coming in. You know it will soon be washed away. What is the point? - Jed
[Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
http://www.lenr-coldfusion.com/2012/10/30/mark-prelas-neutron-mu/
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
I am glad to see this research revived, and glad they got it to work again. A number of other people observed neutrons and other nuclear effects from cryogenically cooled metals. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
I am totally perplexed by how many reports of anomalous emission of neutrons and/or high energy e-m radiation (with both Pd+D2 and Ni+H2) can go unnoticed, or disproved by university physics labs. The only possible explanations I can think of are (1) intentional fraud (2) pervasive, but honest mistakes in measurements, or interpretation (3) the power of conformity, and fear of ostracism, completely prevents university experimentation. I am not sure, but many of these experiments look reproducible by well equipped labs, so I am not sure why there is so little interest. Am I unaware of failed serious attempts to replicate these results? -- Lou Pagnucco A few other recent reports are - Surface Effect for Gas Loading Micrograin Palladium for Low Energy Nuclear Reactions LENR - Heinrich Hora, George H Miley, Mark A Prelas http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/STAFF/VISITING_FELLOWSPROFESSORS/pdf/LENR%20Korea%20ICCF-17%20Poster.pdf Nature of energetic radiation emitted from a metal exposed to H2 - Edmund Storms, Brian Scanlan http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEnatureofen.pdf Jack Cole wrote: http://www.lenr-coldfusion.com/2012/10/30/mark-prelas-neutron-mu/
RE: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
-Original Message- From: pagnu...@htdconnect.com I am totally perplexed by how many reports of anomalous emission of neutrons and/or high energy e-m radiation (with both Pd+D2 and Ni+H2) can go unnoticed, or disproved by university physics labs. Are there credible reports of significant neutrons with protium? Anything over 1000/sec would be significant. Farnsworth Fusors can get to 10k/sec. and sonofusion goes higher - but these go largely un-noticed too. Many Fusors have been built by teenagers, but the process is closer to hot fusion than to LENR. Often it is called warm. AFAIK significant neutrons simply do not happen with Ni-H. Prelas used deuterium only. The real travesty here is that Prelas was forced to stop the work when his then-supervisor cut off his funding in 1991 despite the incredible results, and he seems to have been way ahead of anyone else. They reached a million neutrons a second - wow! That is the highest number I remember ever seeing for Pd-D. There are reports of higher with sonofusion. Of course, this was a neutron burst, not steady state, and even the burst is a long way from breakeven. With a Fusor, Farnsworth said 10^10 neutrons/sec would be breakeven IIRC. Essentially 21 years of important RD was delayed. Isn't this a bit like justice delayed is justice denied? attachment: winmail.dat
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: -Original Message- From: pagnu...@htdconnect.com I am totally perplexed by how many reports of anomalous emission of neutrons and/or high energy e-m radiation (with both Pd+D2 and Ni+H2) can go unnoticed, or disproved by university physics labs. Are there credible reports of significant neutrons with protium? Anything over 1000/sec would be significant. No, most reports of gas loaded Ti are more like 57 neutrons per hour, with 40% reproducible. Such as: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KenneyFneutronemi.pdf I suspect that kind of result is fractofusion or what-have-you. A million neutrons, on the other hand, sounds like cold fusion to me. But who knows. There were some other more impressive results of cryogenic Ti anomalies from Los Alamos (Menlove), Frascati and from BARC. BARC decided to concentrate on tritium from Ti instead. See: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Srinivasanobservatio.pdf QUOTE: A novel feature introduced by Scaramuzzi's group was the adoption of thermal cycling of the deuterated titanium pieces by means of liquid nitrogen cooling followed by warm up phases to create non-equilibrium conditions in the deuterated metal lattice. It was earlier pointed out both by Jones et al. as well as Fleischmann et al. that this helps occurrence of nuclear reactions by causing rapid diffusion and migration of the deuterium ions within the host metal matrix, Both the BYU and Frascati groups have reported the measurement of significant neutron output from deuterated Ti samples. Since then Menlove et al. of Los Alamos in collaboration with Jones have achieved considerable success in carrying out a systematic study of burst neutron emission from deuterated Ti chips, during the warm up phase following cooling to liquid nitrogen temperatures. Their success is attributed not only to the deployment of improved and sophisticated neutron detection equipment but also the use of a larger quantity (up to 300 g) of Ti chips in each experimental bottle. It should not perplex Lou Pagnucco that these results have been ignored. There is nothing ominous about it. No conspiracy. It is not unusual for this field. The reason is very simple. There are dozens of interesting, promising experiments in cold fusion that have been ignored, because there is not enough money and not enough people to replicate them. Any researcher in this field can easily rattle off 20 or 30 promising experiments off the top of my head that deserve a closer look. Heck, *I could do that*, in my sleep! If someone handed me $1 billion in funding and a large staff of qualified, eager young researchers, I could allocate the money to worthwhile, interesting experiments in one month. I am not exaggerating. The problem with cold fusion is not that we have run out of ideas, clues, or new approaches. It is just the opposite. The problem is that we have far too many clues, and nowhere near enough people or money to sort them out and find out which is truly promising. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
the cause is even more interesting http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/Groupthink%20IOM%207p%20paper.pdf http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/Patterns%20of%20Denial%204l%20fin.pdf 2012/10/30 pagnu...@htdconnect.com I am totally perplexed by how many reports of anomalous emission of neutrons and/or high energy e-m radiation (with both Pd+D2 and Ni+H2) can go unnoticed, or disproved by university physics labs. The only possible explanations I can think of are (1) intentional fraud (2) pervasive, but honest mistakes in measurements, or interpretation (3) the power of conformity, and fear of ostracism, completely prevents university experimentation. I am not sure, but many of these experiments look reproducible by well equipped labs, so I am not sure why there is so little interest. Am I unaware of failed serious attempts to replicate these results? -- Lou Pagnucco A few other recent reports are - Surface Effect for Gas Loading Micrograin Palladium for Low Energy Nuclear Reactions LENR - Heinrich Hora, George H Miley, Mark A Prelas http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/STAFF/VISITING_FELLOWSPROFESSORS/pdf/LENR%20Korea%20ICCF-17%20Poster.pdf Nature of energetic radiation emitted from a metal exposed to H2 - Edmund Storms, Brian Scanlan http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEnatureofen.pdf Jack Cole wrote: http://www.lenr-coldfusion.com/2012/10/30/mark-prelas-neutron-mu/
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
It all goes to show that there is a lot we do not understand about disturbed lattice reactions. Some emit neutrons, some emit gammas, some emit alphas . . . I would think that young physicists would want to seize the day and venture into this Undiscovered Country where they stand to make a name for themselves.
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: I would think that young physicists would want to seize the day and venture into this Undiscovered Country where they stand to make a name for themselves. They might want to, but if they talk about doing this they would soon be tossed out the university on some pretext. For any graduate student, anywhere in the U.S., it is career suicide to talk about cold fusion, or to suggest doing an experiment. I have heard that from many professors and grad students. Academic politics is a rough game. The play it for keeps. You fail to toe the line -- you question the system -- they kick your butt out. All this talk you hear about academic freedom, and the tradition of questioning authority is bullshit. It is bullshit now, and it always has been. There is more freedom to question authority in professions such as programming than there ever was in mainstream physics. Read any biography of any physicist in the last hundred years and you will find quotes like the Townes biography: One day after we had been at it for about two years, Rabi and Kusch, the former and current chairmen of the department -- both of them Nobel laureates for work with atomic and molecular beams, and both with a lot of weight behind their opinions -- came into my office and sat down. They were worried. Their research depended on support from the same source as did mine. Look, they said, 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! The problem was that I was still an outsider to the field of molecular beams, as they saw it. . . . I simply told them that I thought it had a reasonable chance and that I would continue. I was then indeed thankful that I had come to Columbia with tenure. (p. 65) Read the book Hubble Wars and you will see how corrupt mainstream science is. The problem is that there is no accountability. People publish fake data and lies, and no one questions them or even cares. Most academic research is inconsequential. Peter Hagelstein and I once took a 10-hour flight. He told me story after story about corruption in academia. It is much worse than people realize. I am a cynical person. I have seen a lot of corruption in the computer business, on Wall Street and elsewhere. I have seldom met such a crowd of conniving lowlifes as your average academic professors. You can be darn sure that if Rabi and Kusch could have stopped Townes, they would have. Even if it meant firing him. Scientists do this sort of thing all the time. It isn't just unethical; in any other line of work what they do would be illegal. If they were businessmen instead of academics, what they do routinely, with things like peer-review, would violate antitrust laws, fair trade laws, and so many other laws they would lose their licenses to practice, and they would be fined and jailed. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: They might want to, but if they talk about doing this they would soon be tossed out the university on some pretext. The smart ones will learn to mask their research in the same way that Mills masked his first patent application.
Re: [Vo]:Mark Prelas Studies Neutron Production at MU
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:27 PM, pagnu...@htdconnect.com wrote: (3) the power of conformity, and fear of ostracism, completely prevents university experimentation. I am not an academic, so I can only discuss what I observe from the outside. But I suspect the pressure on academics is intense not to do things that will pigeonhole them as eccentrics or mavericks. It is not difficult to imagine that for all but the brightest the incentives for avoiding these labels include the possibility of getting tenure at a second- or first-tier institution. Even in cases of scientists whose previous work has been acknowledged as groundbreaking, it is all too easy for them to fall from grace later on -- Brian Josephson and David Bohm come to mind. Both now probably generate smirks among other scientists. One sees from time to time the recurring theme of the formidable scientist who goes on to lose his grasp of reality. This seems to be something that is expected of a certain percentage of academics, and therefore a trap for the scientist to be especially wary of. Reputation is everything. If Peter Hagelstein was accurately quoted in saying that the mainstream scientific community is a close-minded mafia, I can see why he would think this. None of this is to say that scientists aren't doing some amazing work; only that the criteria used by many for assessing new developments seem to be off. Eric
