Alain Sepeda <[email protected]> wrote: Scientifically you are perfectly right, and i learned much about that > counter intuitive fact. > > however we are not in a lab but in an open air psychiatric hospital. > > the problem is not to convince scientists, but to convinces blinds > stubborn kids of 5 with a tenure. >
Well said. "5-year-old kids with tenure" is a good way to describe the opposition. You are right, and Peter is right that it would be better for everyone if we could produce a large, easily measured reaction. No one disputes that. All else being equal, a larger reaction is better than a smaller one until you reach the point where the reaction becomes dangerous. I think Rossi reached that point and went beyond it with 16 kW and 0.5 MW reactions. That is not necessary! Frankly, that's nuts. But it would be nice if we could get a ~20 W reaction. That is what Celani believed he had at ICCF17. Celani might have been right. Perhaps that was ~20 W. Unfortunately, the calorimetry was so crude we cannot be sure. If I have to choose between measuring 20 W with Celani's crude calorimetry, and measuring 1 W with superb calorimetry that leaves no doubt the effect is real, I would choose the latter. In some ways, a small calorimeter is more accurate and more reliable, so a short wire producing one or two watts may be better than a 1 m wire producing 20 Watts. That just happens to be how calorimeters work in the present era. You might say this a coincidence. Future calorimeters might work better with large-scale reactions. Yes, a more powerful reaction would be nice, but we must work with what we have, as Abd stresses. We will die of old age if we sit around waiting UPS to deliver a $1.5 million package of unobtainium. One of the cardinal rules of being a good military leader or a good politician is to make do with what you have, and to find a way to win by subterfuge if you do not have a material or strategic advantage. Cold fusion is very much a political fight, so we should take lessons from these disciplines. In ancient times a general marched his army through a gap between two mountains, in a place visible to the enemy army. He had the troops march through with their spears glittering in sunlight. Then they doubled back through a lower valley, out of sight, to march through the high road again, and again. The same troops went through the pass five times, making the enemy think he had five times more troops that he really had. The enemy commanders fled without giving battle. That is the easiest and best way to win. Sun Tzu describes many similar techniques. The point is, you find a way to outwit the opposition, and you use what you have, rather than wishing you had more. American military commanders prefer to have a huge material advantage, which they often waste, or fail to use. This goes back to the Civil War. Lincoln said, "sending reinforcements to McClellan is like shoveling flies across a barn." - Jed
