Jed is convincing...
On Nov 2, 2017 12:40 PM, "Jed Rothwell" <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > I regret to announce that Coolescence has closed their doors. They never > were able to replicate excess heat. I think they ran out of money, and > perhaps they ran out of gumption. That would be understandable. > > Over at CMNS, Ed Storms posted a melancholy comment about this. We are not > supposed to quote CMNS but in this case I will take the liberty of quoting > a short portion: > > >> The skeptics will say, "Obviously, the better and more carefully the >> studies are done, the less likely the false claims would result." How can >> we respond to such a conclusion? >> > > > Since I can quote myself as much as I like, here is what I wrote in > response. > > > . . . That is a good question. I think the answer is as follows -- > > The most careful studies were done by people such as Mel Miles showed a > positive effect. > > Coolescence tried to replicate Miles, but they failed. Miles says this is > because they made mistakes in the replication. You can ask him for details. > > I conclude that they made mistakes in this replication, and in the other > replications they attempted. I assume the original studies were positive > and correct. Coolescence reported their results correctly, and these > results were negative. The disconnect is in the experimental materials or > procedures, not in the reporting. > > Here is why I reached this conclusion and why I think it is plausible. > > > *Many Replications Fail Because This Experiment is Difficult* > > There were many failed replications in 1989, including many done by > experienced scientists in well-equipped major laboratories. In most cases > these failures occured because the scientists were not electrochemists; > they did not consult with electrochemists, and they made elementary > mistakes. I described an example on p. 10 and 11 here: > > http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJlessonsfro.pdf > > There were some failed experiments conducted by experienced > electrochemists. In a few cases it is likely these were false negatives. > Here is a well-known example, by Lewis: > > http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJhownaturer.pdf > > This failure was not due to lack of skill or attention. Lewis did > excellent work. His paper is good. It has many useful suggestions. His > failure was in his analysis. > > Even people who succeeded from time to time in cold fusion often failed. > Mel Miles worked for months before getting positive results. As I wrote > here the other day, the research project at the University of Missouri has > not worked well: > > Many techniques have been described in the literature that worked a few > times spectacularly, but most of the time they do not work. They are > irreproducible. The SuperWave technique once produced, "Excess Power of up > to 34 watts; Average ~20 watts for 17 h." (http://www.lenr-canr.org/acro > bat/DardikIexcessheat.pdf) I have heard that despite strenuous efforts, > it has never done that at U. Missouri. > > > I do not think these earlier results could be an error. 20 W is a lot of > heat. With no input power it seems unlikely to me anyone would confuse zero > watts with 20 W. > > Richard Oriani told me that in his 50-year career in electrochemistry, the > Fleischmann Pons experiment was the most difficult one he did. > > Experiments and technologies that fail drastically are not uncommon. As > Beaudette pointed out, to clone the first sheep, biologists had to make > hundreds of attempts before one finally worked. Billions of dollars have > been invested in rocket technology. Every rocket launch costs millions of > dollars. Rockets carry satellites worth millions more. Despite these high > stakes, rockets often explode. The technology is not reliable. > > It makes no sense to say that cold may not exist because it is so > difficult to replicate. No one would claim that rockets do not exist > because they are unreliable. > > > *You Need A PhD in Electrochemistry* > > As far as I know, everyone who replicated cold fusion had a PhD in > electrochemistry, or they worked with people who did. I am not sure about > Storms at Los Alamos, but Los Alamos is chock-full of experts in every > subject. Coolescence may have had first-class instruments but they probably > did not have the kind of expertise on tap that Storms did. I do not know > whether anyone at Coolescence has a PhD in electrochemistry. I do not think > so. That is my impression talking to Mel Miles. If professionals at a place > like Kamiokande failed for lack of electrochemical expertise, it would not > surprise me if the people at Coolescence also failed for this reason. > > I do not know much about electrochemistry but I have spent a lot of time > editing papers about it and listening to people such as Mizuno, McKubre, > Miles, Bockris and Fleischman talk about it. They know a terrific amount > about the subject. Enough to write a textbook. Bockris *did* write an > authoritative textbook. Here is the point: you have to know thousands of > details about electrochemistry, if you get a single detail wrong the > experiment may not work. You will not know why. > > According to Mizuno, McKubre and others, getting a PhD in electrochemistry > is like an apprenticeship. With Bockris it was like slavery, according to > Mizuno. It is something you do hands-on in a laboratory working > side-by-side with experts. It resembles surgery. You cannot learn it on > your own from a textbook. > > McKubre and some others who replicated learned electrochemistry from > Fleischmann. That may have put them in a better position to replicate. > There may be details about electrochemistry that Fleischmann emphasized and > taught that were relevant to this experiment, including specifics that > Fleischmann and McKubre themselves may not realize were critical to > success. McKubre might be compared to an airplane pilot who had the good > fortune to be trained by the engineers at Boeing. He has inside knowledge > of the machine. > > The other day Mizuno pointed out some errors in chemistry that he thinks > the people at Industrial Heat made when they tried to replicate his > experiment. Murray, at I.H., is an impressive guy. He has world-class > skills in calorimetry and thermal engineering. He designed and built > equipment for the US military and others, some of it costing millions of > dollars. If Mizuno were to explain these errors to him, and if the two of > them were to work side-by-side for several months, I suppose Murray could > master the chemistry. Unfortunately, Mizuno spent only a few weeks in the > I.H. lab. Murray knows a lot about chemistry and materials, but he probably > does not know the specifics needed to master this particular experiment, > because this is not his area of expertise. I may be mistaken, but I do not > think I.H. had an in-house electrochemist working on this project. > > In short, people seldom master complicated science and technology without > direct, hands-on, in-person training by experts. > > This is somewhat beyond the scope of the discussion, but it raises an > interesting question: How did we ever master these technologies in the > first place? For example, to learn to fly an airplane, you must train with > an experienced pilot. So how did people learn to fly in the first place? > The answer is that only two people learned without training: the Wright > brothers. They trained the first pilots, and these pilots trained others. > There is a direct line from pilot to pilot going back to the Wrights. Each > generation of pilots learns nearly everything from other pilots, and goes > on to master only a few new techniques and new equipment. Airplanes grew > bigger, more complex and took more training to master. Sometime around 1920 > it became impossible for anyone to master an airplane without training. You > could no longer recapitulate the skills on your own, starting from scratch. > The process resembles the emergence of complexity in biological evolution. > No species emerges *de novo*. > > - Jed > >
