On Mar 12, 2009, at 1:44 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Edmund Storms wrote:
On several occasions you have opined that people in the CF field have
done a poor job of PR. Please explain how this can be done better.
Remember, this is science, not selling soap.
THAT is your first mistake! This is not science. It is selling soap,
and more to the point it is politics. Do you see any science in the
Scientific American attacks, Charles Petit's article, or the annual
plasma fusion program dog and pony show on Capital Hill?
The people who try to sell science like soap always fail. Hot fusion
does not have to sell the reality of their product. They are only
selling the practical application. Charles Petit and any other such
examples are only repeating the myth, which was created before the CF
field had anything to prove the myth wrong. Now we have the evidence
but unfortunately the myth is in place. We can't counter the myth
because the gate keepers to the media believe the myth. Nevertheless,
occasionally accurate accounts are published or shown on TV, but with
modest effect.
Only certain methods are acceptable without making the claims look
like a scam, which other promoters have done, much to their discredit
The plasma fusion people have been raking in a billion dollars a
year in a scam, much to their discredit. No doubt they cry all the
way to the bank. They took out the carving knives and eviscerated
cold fusion within a few days of the 1989 announcement, in the pages
of the Boston newspapers. They demand that you use "only certain
methods," while they play by the rules of hardball politics.
Frankly, you people are good-natured patsies for going along with
them.
Hot fusion is not a scam. The process is accepted by everyone in
science and in government. The only issue is whether it can be made
into a practical source of energy. However, we do agree that such a
successful application is unlikely. This does not make it a scam. It
is supported for three reasons - 1. It has a large economic and
political inertia, 2. It promises a source of clean energy, and 3. It
provides a way to investigate plasmas that keeps physics busy.
Science requires claims be published. This has been done and
attempts are regularly made to reach a wider audience. Science
requires the work be replicated. This has been done. In addition,
contact has been made with the Media and with the general
scientific profession by giving talks at regular APS and ACS
meetings. Contact has also been made with the government.
Yes, you have done everything that scientists are supposed to do.
Yes, obviously, if this were a scientific dispute, it would have
ended 19 years ago, and every scientist on earth would accept that
cold fusion is real. Yet only a few scientists have been won over.
You have done all that is required, while the opposition has done
nothing. They have not published a single credible scientific paper
disproving any major experiment. Therefore this process has nothing
do to with science.
I agree, the myth has nothing to do with science. The challenge is to
overcome the myth. Science has always been directed by myths and
these myths are always removed by obtaining the required scientific
proof. Can you suggest any other method? Occasionally, big drug
companies, for example, create myths about their products, but these
are directed to sales not to proving that a drug works. But let's
assume a person had enough money to put an ad in the NY Times or a
similar paper claiming the reality of CF. Do you think this would have
any effect? No scientists would be convinced.
You have made no progress treating this like science with
traditional methods. Repeating the same actions for 20 years and
expecting a different outcome is Einstein's definitizing of
insanity. It is also unbecoming of experimentalists.
Success of these efforts depends on the willingness of the listener
to accept the information.
And on the speaker's ability to shape the message.
How would you shape the message and where would you have this message
published?
Until the effect can be explained in a way that is acceptable to a
normal scientist and the effect can be made so reproducible that
any competent person can demonstrate its reality, getting people to
listen will be very difficult.
Not just difficult: impossible. If that is the test we must meet, we
might as well give up. I do not think that cold fusion will ever
become easy to replicate any more than cloning, open heart surgery,
or making an integrated semiconductor will be.
I did not mean the reproducibility to be as extreme as you assumed.
All of these examples can be reproduced by competent people. That is
what I say is required of CF.
But I think that history shows this test need not be met. Plasma
fusion, top quarks, lasers, masers, cloning the transistor effect
circa 1952, airplanes circa 1908 and countless other effects have
been more difficult to replicate than cold fusion, and they have met
with as much political opposition as cold fusion, yet the
researchers were able to overcome the opposition.
Yes, in time. We also will overcome the opposition in time. You are
suggesting the time can be shortened by using different methods. I'm
asking which methods? As you suggest below, publishing every detail
will not work because such detail is not read by most people and it
will not prove that the effect is real or how it can be made
reproducible. You need to suggest a better approach.
An "explanation" is irrelevant in my opinion. Half of the
explanations for conventional phenomena are probably wrong, or
incomplete.
Nevertheless, they are accepted as being plausible by science. That
is all I suggest is required of CF.
Nevertheless, how would you suggest the field be better promoted?
The same things I have suggested many times before:
I would summarize it by saying you should learn a thing or two from
the Obama campaign.
Trust people and give them lots of information. Appeal to youth.
Reach out. Find out what other scientists are doing these days to
promote their research. Help qualified, friendly, professional
scientists replicate. Set up an experiments somewhere they can come
and look at it. Make better use of the data we have. Make far better
use of the Internet.
Publish more information. MUCH MORE, such as thousands of pages from
complete data sets. In his 2007 review paper, Table 1, J. He
estimates that roughly 14,700 experimental runs are reported in the
literature. You will not find the complete data from a single one of
these on the Internet. You will not find a detailed description of a
single one. By that I mean schematics, photographs, a list of parts,
and so on -- the sort of thing AT&T published describing transistors
as soon as they went public: the book "Transistor Technology," two
volumes, Sept. 1951, 791 pages, (a.k.a., "Mother Bell's Cookbook")
That's TWO VOLUMES of technical information! A person would have
difficulty assembling 100 pages of that kind of specific, hands-on
technical information from cold fusion papers published in the
literature.
The closest thing we have to a detailed description is your own work:
Storms, E., The Science Of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction. 2007: World
Scientific Publishing Company.
Storms, E., How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect. Fusion
Technol., 1996. 29: p. 261.
Unfortunately, the former is unavailable to many people interested
in the field because of the cost barrier. (The price has fallen to
$56, which is a big improvement, but it is still a barrier.)
Much more along these lines should have been published, with far
more detail, by many other researchers. Even if people do not use
this information to replicate it still gives the field verisimilitude.
Just about the only people in this field who have made an effort to
reach out to other scientists and teach them how to do this are you,
Ed, and D1 and D2 (Dennis Cravens and Dennis Letts).
Finally, let me point out that when I uploaded an appeal to the
Obama administration, roughly 40 researchers and friends supported
me, and unfortunately 10 skeptics voted down the idea. I told people
far and wide that I was doing this, including dozens of researchers.
I probably contacted a few hundred all told. I doubt that more than
10 bothered to support this effort. Perhaps they have some more
direct method of influencing the new administration and they feel
that this approach is not needed. I hope so. But I doubt it. I think
is more likely that they have given up, or they are apathetic, or
they feel that such an appeal is beneath their dignity. Some of them
do not want public support. Several researchers have told me they
prefer to work in obscurity and they do not want competition. This
defeats the purpose of science, which is to bring knowledge and the
benefits of knowledge to mankind as a whole. Sitting in the
laboratory, working by yourself and never publishing is not science.
I'm contacted occasionally by people who want to try to make CF work.
What can I tell them? Most of my own efforts do not work. I can only
promise to improve the probability of success. To get this uncertain
result, they have to spend significant money and invest significant
time. If they are too poor to buy my book, they will not have enough
money to succeed. On the other hand, if I could tell them if they did
X, Y, and Z, they would see a result they could believe, they would
then have a good reason to start such an effort. I cannot yet do
this. A few people, such as Brian and Matt, have taken the time to
understand the field and have the money to explore even though the
chance of success is low. Very few such people exist. Nevertheless,
these are the kind of people we need to contact. How would you
suggest we make such contact?
Ed
- Jed
