Putting aside the previous ridiculous thread title . . .
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
No, this thread is just a symptom. We're sitting in the waiting
room, some experimenting, most just waiting, hoping that somebody's
going to jump up and shout "The Jubilee's here! I've closed the loop!"
I agree, although I never had much faith in OU claims other than cold
fusion. Cavitation is the only one with any credibility in my opinion.
Jed's announcements of startling new papers seem to be less and less
frequent . . .
True. And I think the reasons why are clear:
1. First, the good news. Success at places like Mitsubishi and their
collaborators at Spring8 can now be taken for granted. It is ho-hum
news that every single run at these places produce a strong evidence
of transmutation. Dardik and Violante report more of the same --
excess heat, with increasing frequency and reliability:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DardikIprogressin.pdf
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DardikIprogressin.pdf
2. Possible good news #2: a few people probably have funding but it
comes with strings attached and they cannot talk about their results.
3. Bad news. Age and mortality take their toll. Many researchers who
were active a few years ago are now retired, such as Takahashi,
Ohmori and Bockris. Lawrence wrote, "Patterson's miracle cell
self-destructed." That is not a fair assessment. What happened was,
Patterson's grandson Jim Reding, who was running the business,
dropped dead one day in his early 40s. I think Patterson lost heart
after that, which is understandable. He is in his 70s or 80s by now.
Some very promising ideas and techniques for manufacturing
Patterson-style multilayer cathodes have been presented. One fellow
from the UK showed up at a conference and described equipment that
can down thousands of layers of material, was very precise geometry
and purity. CF researchers working on their own with manual
techniques can only put down four or five layers. But no one has
followed up on this because no one has the resources to do so. This
one approach could absorb millions of dollars a year, but as far as I
know there is not a single dollar is being spent on it.
4. There is only so much you can do on a shoestring, when you are
working against powerful political opposition. Opposition from the
DoE, Scientific American and other powerful establishment
institutions has not abated as far as I can tell. For a young
researcher, performing an experiment in this field would still be
career suicide. Heck, *talking about it at the water cooler* would
probably end any chance of getting tenure. Mumbling about it in your
sleep might be hazardous.
5. Researchers have not cloned themselves. Lawrence wrote, "Mizuno's
apparently given up on low temp wet cells . . ." He did not give up,
he simply does not have the time. He has teaching responsibilities
and he has to do other research beside cold fusion. What little time
and money he can devote to cold fusion goes to glow discharge.
- Jed
