To make it a little clearer that I have no beef directed specifically
against Randall Mills, I should, perhaps, point out that I've actually
applied some (reasonably) objective criteria here.
There are three things which, when they're _all_ present, raise a
"Suspicious situation!" red flag for me with regard to a new discovery
or invention.
1) Does it violate fundamental laws of physics or thermodynamics, as we
currently understand them?
2) Has there been no independent replication of the results? (I.e.,
does all the evidence come from exeriments done by the same researcher
and/or his employees?) [NB -- A working "device" which is actually on
the market would be de facto "independent replication", since every
device owner could see that it worked.]
3) Does the discoverer/inventor have a significant financial stake in
the outcome of the experiments which support the claim?
Again, it's when _all_ _three_ are present that I tend to turn away and
look for something else to spend time on.
****************************
Let's take a brief glance at a few other discoveries and see how they
stack up under these criteria.
a) Polywater -- Didn't necessarily violate any basic physical laws, and
the researcher had no financial stake in the results AFAIK. Of course
it failed on point (2), so it was 1/3, and it didn't look like f**** to
me. But it was wrong anyway; so it goes.
b) Special relativity -- When it was discovered it failed point (1) very
thoroughly. But the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Sagnac
experiment, which between them provided strong support for it, were
replicable. So it didn't fail (2). Einstein wasn't making money out of
the correctness of it, though his reputation was on the line. Call it
1.5/3, and it didn't look phony.
c) Cold fusion -- Doesn't necessarily break any laws of physics (though
it violates what we might call "engineering laws" all over the place but
so what, those are really just rules of thumb), and it certainly doesn't
break any laws of thermodynamics, so I'd say it passes (1). Though no
single experiment has been duplicated exactly by a second lab AFAIK,
none the less the general effect has been detected at many labs, so I'd
say it passes (2). Not all the researchers who've seen the effect had a
financial stake in its being "true" so it passes (3), too. So, CF is
0/3 and it's pretty clearly on the level.
d) The perpetual motion shyster who was hanging around Vortex a while
back -- His rolling-ball gadget violated 1st law of thermo and some laws
of E&M, so it failed (1). Nobody else made it work, so it failed (2).
He was selling the things, so it failed (3). So he was 3/3 and was
pretty clearly a f****.
e) Randal Mills -- Violates the laws of QM, so it fails (1). Nobody
outside his lab has replicated his results AFAIK so it fails (2). He's
got a major $$$ stake in continuing to show his theory works so it fails
(3). So, he's 3/3 and I'm not going to spend a lot of time reading his
material until something changes.
And that's it. Simplistic, perhaps, and certainly not "proof" of
anything, but we all need to do triage on what we're willing to spend
time on, and this is part of how I do it.
