Stan Szpak, Pam Boss and Frank Gordon have been doing great things, and I think Frank gave me a CD-ROM, but I am distressed to report I cannot find it. I am bad that keeping track of physical objects, and apparently I did not give it to my wife for safekeeping in time. It is very difficult to get researchers to hand over data, because they are so busy and forgetful. I fear it will be another year before they give me another copy.
No wait . . . Newflash: Pam just sent me two files. I hope this was everything from the disk.
I have other CD-ROMs from Bensen & Passell, more ICCF-9 papers from Li, and many PowerPoint slides from ICCF-11. I will be uploading all of this as soon as I can, but it is chaotic, with strange filenames and papers that badly need a little touching up and editing -- such as the author and title added. The files must be entered into our EndNote files, before I can upload them. That can sometimes be challenging, especially when you have no idea whose presentation it is. I will try to upload Iwamura's slides soon before I get the other ones straightened out.
Iwamura has made outstanding progress. If this were not cold fusion he would be a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize. I am not exaggerating. Not only does he have new experimental results, but he has excellent political news. His results will soon be verified by Tokyo University and by
Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI), SPring-8 facility (http://www.spring8.or.jp/e/index.html). In Japan, an official statement or publication from Tokyo University would be regarded as more authoritative than God, and Tokyo University has been the leading opponent of the field from the beginning, much as the DOE has been in the US. I admit it sounds dramatic and implausible, but I think this may lead to total political victory. Iwamura himself is sanguine, and he expects everything to go smoothly. He dismisses previous political opposition from Tokyo university in part because he himself is a graduate from there, and I get a sense he trusts the old-boy network.
In the closing summary of the conference, Ed Storms said he regards the transmutation results as a diversion from excess heat, which is the commercial useful aspect of cold fusion. I agree with him that it is a diversion from the engineering point of view. The excess heat is probably much more valuable for the human race, although perhaps in the distant future we will have industrial scale transmutation. However, it seems to me the transmutations must be some sort of important clue for the theorists. I wouldn't know about theory, but they certainly seem baffling & dramatic, and the results are clearcut and 100% replicatable. Also, if transmutations can convince the scientific establishment that cold fusion is real, it will solve all of our problems, so bring on transmutations!
There was an excellent replication of the Ohmori Mizuno glow discharge experiment. The presentation was made by Cirillo in Italian, with Mastromatteo translating, but Cirillo talked with such such gusto, enthusiasm and clarity I felt I understood it directly. This is a difficult experiment and they have done what looks like a superb job to me. It is a little difficult to judge at first glance, because they are during difficult things such as measuring the temperature of the glow discharge and finding transmuted elements, but Mizuno is also enthusiastic about it, and he has been advising them. See:
http://www.progettomeg.it/FFredda.htm
http://www.progettomeg.it/all/Electroplasma-eng.pdf
Someone here asked about Naudin. Mizuno and I had grave reservations about his calorimetry when he first announced his Ohmori-Mizuno replication. I believe we discussed the problem here. I do not recall the details. In any case, he has consulted with Mizuno extensively, and he revised the calorimetry. I believe it is now conventional in every respect, and the instruments are improved. The excess heat is still there, so this looks like a good replication. Another group in Japan is also working on this experiment. I hope they report soon.
I doubt that Naudin has anything like official support. His web page is much too informal, and he is not published any journal papers as far as I know. He attended the conference but he did not present anything, or put up a poster session. He seems competent, and he is a nice fellow. Jones Beene described him here as perhaps, "being more copy-cat that creative genius." If so, we need a few hundred more copy-cats in this field. The problem is finding copycats who now what experiment is worth copying. Mike McKubre gave an excellent talk, which I hope to transcribe soon, in which he said there have been very few real replications. I agree completely and it is a darn shame. He said the only real, full, engineering replication was Georges Lonchampt, Biberian, et al., who replicated F&P boil-off cells. I agree with that 100%. This is important work that has been overlooked. Lonchampt et al. did a superb job. With few resources, no muss and no fuss, they accomplished what the NHE failed to do with 20 million bucks.
I would like to report more, but I am swamped with work. I expect hundreds of papers that need editing to appear in my inbox soon, and I would very much like to finish up this book, so I do not think I will have time to communicate for several weeks.
- Jed
