Re: [Vo]: COP cop
Michel Jullian writes: >I am not saying such a reference lab can be set up just like that, only that >it would be possible, and useful. The US DOE . . . The US DoE is committed to destroying CF. It lies about its intentions, and performs "reviews" with the express purpose of getting rid of CF altogether. See: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf Putting the DoE in charge of this would be putting the fox in charge of the henhouse! If they found excess heat I am sure they would lie about it, and claim there was no excess heat, just as MIT and the Japanese NHE program did. > . . . or better the UN energy department, could set up one. I know little about the UN, but my impression is that it is a dysfunctional organization overrun by politics, like the DoE. I think it is grave mistake to give any one organzation or one person any special authority to decide about cold fusion, or any other scientific or political controversy. We must have open competition of ideas, or unpopular ideas will be crushed. CF has only survived so far (barely) because Washington does not yet micromanage ALL scientific research. If the DoE or some other organization, or for that matter Scott Little, is set up as a final arbitor of what is true and what is not, I am sure that arbitor will his power to aggrandize himself and attack cold fusion. That is what people always do when they are given an opportunity to attack a highly unpopular idea. You have to realize, the public and the scientific community despise cold fusion. They will do anything within their power to destroy it. It only survives because there are still a few scientists who do not depend on Federal funding for their bread and butter. - Jed
Re: [Vo]: COP cop
- Original Message - From: "Jed Rothwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 8:27 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]: COP cop ... > There is no such thing as a universally recognized lab. ... That's the point, one would be needed because none of the existing labs satisfies all the criteria yet, notably: - It should have a pure verification role: no original experiments or devices, nothing to sell, so it wouldn't be a competitor. - It would have to be publicly funded so it wouldn't depend on the claimant's or his competitors' money. Imagine we could have this perfect lab, not just one more lab in town, but a universal reference in COP measurement. Imagine now a new excess energy experiment coming out, with a promisingly high COP (but still not enough for self powering), performed by someone you don't know. Imagine you're a competitor, or an investor, with enough sense not to believe every new OU claim you read about in a paper, even a perfectly convincing well written one. Won't you be happy to let the COP cop do the verification, rather than having to try and duplicate the experiment yourself to find out if it works? Now put yourself in the place of the experimenter putting up a honest OU claim, wouldn't you be happy to have your COP validated by the COP cop? I am not saying such a reference lab can be set up just like that, only that it would be possible, and useful. The US DOE, or better the UN energy department, could set up one. Michel
Re: [Vo]: COP cop
Obviously Jed I do not mean a generic technician. The technician must be good at calorimetry, and work with electrochemical cells etc... but this is not enough. A great technician is one who views his work as more than just a job to pay off the bills. They have a passion for what they do. For them it is an art, a craft and a science. Sure the people you mention are experts in the relevant science, but that doesn't necessarily make them the best technicians around. Harry Jed Rothwell wrote: Harry Veeder wrote: To reject cold fusion you must first reject chemistry and thermodynamics going back to the mid-19th century. This is a spurious argument. There is a difference between a measure of change and the "laws" or "theory" or whatever which is purported to be the best explanation of the change. Many skeptical arguments boil down to an assertion that calorimeters do not work. To be specific, skeptics claim that calorimeters cannot be trusted to with 10% or 30%, or 60% -- or whatever percent of excess heat is reported, on what you might call a sliding scale (or moving goalpost). If the experiment lasts a month, they claim that no calorimeter can be stable that long, even though calibrations show that the instrument is stable. Then, when an experiment produces heat after a week they suddenly realize that no calorimeter is stable for a week. These people sincerely believe this kind of nonsense, and in doing so they reject the basis of a large part of chemistry and physics. They might as well claim that no mass spectrometer can reliably measure the difference between iron and gold. It is far more important to have an experienced technician who can build a good apparatus and make decent measurements. The NHE program had superb technicians and the best equipment money can buy. Their measurements were correct to more decimal places than necessary. But the program failed miserably because the people working there were not electrochemists or materials experts, they did not read the literature, and they did not know how to interpret their own results. For example, they did not realize what was coating their cathodes, or that effect the coating had. As McKubre pointed out, they kept rediscovering and reporting phenomena that were described in electrochemistry textbooks decades ago ago. I am no expert, but I knew more about the cold fusion literature, and what other researchers had been done previously, than the NHE researchers did. Experienced technicians can contribute much to a good research program, but technical ability by itself is not enough. You must also have deep knowledge of the science, and experience. - Jed
Re: [Vo]: COP cop
Harry Veeder wrote: To reject cold fusion you must first reject chemistry and thermodynamics going back to the mid-19th century. This is a spurious argument. There is a difference between a measure of change and the "laws" or "theory" or whatever which is purported to be the best explanation of the change. Many skeptical arguments boil down to an assertion that calorimeters do not work. To be specific, skeptics claim that calorimeters cannot be trusted to with 10% or 30%, or 60% -- or whatever percent of excess heat is reported, on what you might call a sliding scale (or moving goalpost). If the experiment lasts a month, they claim that no calorimeter can be stable that long, even though calibrations show that the instrument is stable. Then, when an experiment produces heat after a week they suddenly realize that no calorimeter is stable for a week. These people sincerely believe this kind of nonsense, and in doing so they reject the basis of a large part of chemistry and physics. They might as well claim that no mass spectrometer can reliably measure the difference between iron and gold. It is far more important to have an experienced technician who can build a good apparatus and make decent measurements. The NHE program had superb technicians and the best equipment money can buy. Their measurements were correct to more decimal places than necessary. But the program failed miserably because the people working there were not electrochemists or materials experts, they did not read the literature, and they did not know how to interpret their own results. For example, they did not realize what was coating their cathodes, or that effect the coating had. As McKubre pointed out, they kept rediscovering and reporting phenomena that were described in electrochemistry textbooks decades ago ago. I am no expert, but I knew more about the cold fusion literature, and what other researchers had been done previously, than the NHE researchers did. Experienced technicians can contribute much to a good research program, but technical ability by itself is not enough. You must also have deep knowledge of the science, and experience. - Jed
Re: [Vo]: COP cop
Jed Rothwell wrote: "Skeptics" have proven themselves incapable of objectivity. Anyone who has read the cold fusion literature carefully and is not convinced not objective, not a scientist, and not rational. (At least, not with regard to this subject.) That is like studying physics and doubting Newton's laws, or studying biology and not being convinced that evolution occurred. To reject cold fusion you must first reject chemistry and thermodynamics going back to the mid-19th century. This is a spurious argument. There is a difference between a measure of change and the "laws" or "theory" or whatever which is purported to be the best explanation of the change. It is far more important to have an experienced technician who can build a good apparatus and make decent measurements. Harry
Re: [Vo]: COP cop
Michel Jullian wrote: Cold fusion, bubble fusion and new energy at large would undoubtedly benefit from any measure helping the valid claims to emerge out of the erroneous ones(*). It is hard to imagine claims more valid than the ones already published. Such a useful measure IMHO would be a universally recognized reference lab . . . There is no such thing as a universally recognized lab. Researchers at many of the world's best laboratories, such as Los Alamos, China Lake and Mitsubishi, published data proving that cold fusion is real. Unfortunately this data did not persuade many people. Most people have not looked at the data, and the hard-core skeptics who reject it will not be convinced by anything less than a commercially successful cold fusion powered device. for energy efficiency measurements, manned by highly skilled people collectively competent in _all_ types of energy measurements and calculations, more so than any individual experimenter can be expected to be. As they said in ancient Rome, Quis Custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who shall guard the guards?) I do not think any researcher in the world is qualified to second-guess people such as Mike McKubre, John Bockris, Edmund Storms, Melvin Miles, Richard Oriani, Robert Huggins, or for that matter Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons. These people are the best of the best. They are world class experts who literally wrote the textbooks on modern electrochemistry. If a self-appointed group of experts is not able to produce excess heat, that only proves they are not experts. It does not cast doubt on experiments replicated by people such as McKubre or Bockris. Nothing can cast doubt on these results; they are real by definition. In science "replicated" means "real." There is no other standard. You cannot go on doubting or questioning experimental results forever. You have to draw the line somewhere. When a result has been measured 5 or 10 times at high s/n ratios, I say it is time to accept it, and move on. To argue with results that has been replicated hundreds of times is madness. When you do this, you abandon the scientific method. No fact can ever be established, and no debate ever settled. Such a "COP cop" would host the experimenters and their experiments for as long as poor reproducibility would make it necessary, and would verify the claims without any preconceived idea. The claims are already verified. The only thing this lab would verify would be the skill of the researchers trying to replicate, as I said. However, if anyone wants to open a lab to do CF experiments, I would support them. There is plenty of work to be done, especially in improving reproducibility, as noted. Unfortunately, there is no money to support such a lab. It would use appropriate and rigorous protocols, with the help and participation of the experimenters and the skeptics alike to guarantee objectivity. "Skeptics" have proven themselves incapable of objectivity. Anyone who has read the cold fusion literature carefully and is not convinced not objective, not a scientist, and not rational. (At least, not with regard to this subject.) That is like studying physics and doubting Newton's laws, or studying biology and not being convinced that evolution occurred. To reject cold fusion you must first reject chemistry and thermodynamics going back to the mid-19th century. Of course there many badly done or invalid experiments in the literature, but an expert can identify them without Official Approval or Guidance from a COP cop. Facts are facts. There is no rational basis to doubt that cold fusion exists. The only people qualified to judge the experiments, replicate them, or improve on them are people who understand how calorimeters and thermodynamics work. The skeptics do not understand these issues, so they disqualify themselves. I suggest you ignore them. - Jed
