Mike Carrell wrote:
In that case it is badly phrased. "[M]uch higher than allowed by . .
." sounds like the author thinks the laws of thermodynamics will not
allow this to happen.
The fundamental problem here is that Jed disapproves of Mills'
business strategy and has not adequately studied Mills' and BLP's work.
Hold on. There are three separate issues here:
1. This sentence on the web site. This is poorly phrased and it gives
the wrong impression. (Assuming Robin is correct and it does not mean
what it seems to mean). That has nothing to do with my opinion of the
business strategy.
2. I have not adequately studied Mills and BLP because most of their
work is theoretical. I do not understand it, and I could not care
less about theory. Whether atoms shrink below ground state or not is
no concern of mine. I care about that issue roughly as much as I care
about Contract Bridge (interest level = 0 to 3 significant digits).
If they do shrink, and if this is in some sense a violation of the
laws of thermodynamics, I would suggest to BLP that they refrain from
mentioning it in this section of the web page because it is bad
Public Relations.
3. I do disagree with their business strategy, as I said.
The thermal and microwave-gas research reactors have shown power
densities in the range of thermal boilers and fission reactors, but
the net energy yield -- after subtracting the energy needed for
electrolysis to get H and sustain the vacuum conditions --
with no direct means of extracting electricity from the UV energy of
the reactions -- except a lossy thermal cycle -- meant that water
could not yet be used as the ultimate fuel.
Jed, and other casual observers who have not done their homework on
BLP, miss critical statements in the new release. Quoting about the solid fuel
I did not miss these statements! I will be thrilled by this
development, as soon as it is independently replicated. I never
believe any claim until it is independently replicated several times.
I remain un-thrilled by their business strategy, which is a
completely unrelated subject.
Jed is fond of using the Wright Brothers as examples of what to do
and not to do. They did not make a real impact until a critical
demonstration before goverment officials. Even after that, and after
patents were issued, there were still eperimenters "doing their own
thing" and failing. BLP has not yet made the cooresponding
demostration before *officials*.
Exactly right. That's a huge mistake now, just as it was in 1908. Not
only did the Wrights refuse to demonstrate, they did not bother to
send photos of their flights to the U.S. Army officials. BLP, to its
credit, has published more information than the Wrights did. However,
it is mainly academically oriented, scientific information, similar
to what the Wrights published in the proceedings of the Western
Society of Engineers, 1901. This is an excellent paper:
http://www.wright-house.com/wright-brothers/Aeronautical.html
. . . but in 1901 you had to be an attentive expert to see that it
represents most of the solution to the problem of flight.
Note that this paper is similar to the seminal papers on computers by
von Neumann, Goldstein and others in 1946, such as "First Draft of a
Report on the EDVAC." These papers are easy for us to understand
because we know all about computers. But they were difficult for
people to grasp when they were written. Novelty impedes comprehension.
The Wrights wanted delay, delay and delay, and Martin
told me that in 1989 he wanted another five years of secrecy --
peace and quiet, in other words -- before revealing the process.
It might have saved everybody a lot of trouble if Martin had that quiet time.
I disagree. I think he would still be puttering away on it in
isolation, making little progress, just as most cold fusion
researchers are doing today. This kind of research will have no
impact because no one pays any attention, and whatever they discover
they will with them to the grave.
I think the reaction against cold fusion would have been as violent
and irrational 10 or 20 years later as it was in 1989. The proof that
the effect is real has not improved much since 1992, and it has not
convinced a single harsh opponent as far as I know -- and never will.
Only two things will sway these people: a commercial product, or some
organization such as the APS or Nature magazine giving its blessing.
Two hundred replications have not convinced them, and neither would
2,000 or 20,000.
By the way, one of the reasons Martin wanted to keep it secret was
for national security. He was -- and still is -- concerned that it
might have weapons applications.
If the airplane had been developed at this rate of progress, the
first public demonstration of flight would have been after 1933,
and the first practical airplane would have been scheduled for 1953.
Jed, how long did it take for Babbage & Ada's ideas get the place
where you could build a tidy business on them?
The first working Babbage machine was made in 1991, but the
technology was somewhat obsolete by then. Seriously, machine tools
were not adequate to the task in the 1820s when he began. He improved
the state of the art, but not enough, and eventually his funding was
cut off. If he had been a more diplomatic person, or if he had taken
pains to show that he was making important progress in machine tools
if not the difference engine itself -- in short if he had employed
rudimentary Public Relations, or plain common sense, perhaps he could
have secured more government funding, and built the thing by 1860.
Babbage suffered from a classic case of the Inventor's Disease.
This is lunacy. If their claims have any merit, and they can
demonstrate the effect on any scale large enough to be measured
with confidence, they could have every qualified laboratory on
earth working frantically on this discovery in 6 months. That's
what happened after the Wrights were finally forced to go public in 1908.
Very bad analogy. The airplane could be built with bicycle-shop
technology if one *knew what to do*. Nobody yet knows how build
multiple reliable and robust-performing LENR devices, or there would
be no arguments and your book would becoming history instead of anticipatory.
I think people do know how to make reliable LENR devices, albeit ones
too small for any practical purpose. The collaboration with SRI and
the Italians has achieved high reliability. Unfortunately, the
technical details of SRI collaboration are largely secret because of
business strategies. I regard these strategies as misguided, but no
one involved in the project has asked my opinion, or cares about it.
I expect that an expert who follows the procedures Storms describes
for bulk palladium will succeed. This isn't easy; it takes months of
effort, and proper funding. But I think it could be done, if someone
saw fit to do it. See:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEhowtoprodu.pdf
As I said in the book, in chapter 19, I blame the cold fusion
researchers for not doing more to convince the public, such as
making public demonstrations. Of course they are more sinned against
than sinning!
With LENR and BLP, the intellectual foundations of a century of
physical science are challenged, along with a priesthood of high
energy physics.
This is true. We need to do an end run around the priesthood,
appealing to the public and investors directly. We need a strategy
that renders the priesthood impotent, or irrelevant. Unfortunately,
most of the strategies employed heretofore, by BLP and by cold fusion
researchers, play into hands of the priesthood. For example, trying
to get papers published in Nature is a losing proposition. As I have
often said, the tactics have been similar to WWI military tactics at
the Battle of the Somme. It worked like this: you find the enemies
strong point; give him several days notice that you intend to attack
there (with a bombardment that causes little serious damage); and
then you attack with waves of men walking slowly, fully upright,
which makes it easy for the enemy to kill them with machine guns.
That's how you slaughter 30,000 men in one day, and wound 37,000
others, without achieving a single important military objective.
In the movie "Michael Collins," which was about the Irish Revolution
against the British, after the failed Easter Uprising of 1916 Collins
is furious with the strategy of attacking the enemy where he is
strongest. He says, "Why don't we just shoot ourselves, and save the
British the trouble!" That is more or less how I view most of the
business strategies of BLP and cold fusion researchers. The
opposition does not have to lift a finger to destroy you when your
own website makes you look like an idiot who denies the laws of thermodynamics.
This is not only my opinion. I recently spoke with a highly
accomplished businessman who took one look at the BLP website and was
appalled -- as appalled as I am.
- Jed
