From: John Berry
> Jones, have you read my variable capacitor post, subject: On Topic in any detail? If so can I have your opinion on it? I think it was you that actually identified the patent co-invented by JLN? Cannot comment on that now due to a contractual agreement, John - but would like to clarify the comment that Jed makes about the need for, or rather the perceived inability of the "garage level" inventor to make a positive contribution to LENR. This is both true and false. It is true that meaningful incremental advances, based on understanding the minutiae of the process, demand a top-notch lab. It is also true that accurately documenting positive energy gain or the nature of transmutation products demands the best and most accurate equipment. It is also true that other high-level scientists whose opinion matters (as to funding) are most impressed when the work they are reading about comes from peer level labs, like their own - if not from peers. Having said that - my strong belief is that the real breakthrough in LENR, which will be the quantum jump so to speak - the one that serves to push LENR into commercial reality - will come not from the University or well-equipped lab, but instead from someone operating in a garage-type of setting. By real breakthrough, I am referring to the situation where "serendipity meets synergy" due to an inspired vision that is based on what has gone before, but is totally off-the-wall in terms of the normal kind of "incremental advance" that big-science likes to use as its prime motivator. It will probably not even originate from an attempt to use P&F type of LENR principles at all. It will most likely be the discovery of an energy anomaly which is later shoehorned back into LENR (or the hydrino) for explication of the source of the anomaly. If you followed the iESi story, where the reaction involved a hydraulic fluid - that is the "kind of" mash-up scenario where a breakthrough can happen that is "commercializable". Even the Arata situation could be modified into commercial breakthrough - say by combining the key feature of it (nano-particles at the Forster radius) with another "synergy not anticipated thus far" - such as the addition of RF, lasers or ultrasonics. Years ago, older vorticians may remember that Vince Cockeram almost made such an paradigm shift. He witnessed a true runaway reaction that portended the gigantic kind of breakthrough which will happen soon. Had he been better funded to continue that work (and/or had air-conditioning in his work-shed) he might have succeeded then . . but IMHO the real breakthrough, when it arrives, will most likely arrive from what can be called the "fringe-of-the-fringe" - and NOT from that million dollar lab setting which is so good at making the incremental advance or documenting the details. The big "enabler" here is the internet itself. to first disseminate info from the big labs - and then to host the focused discussion (fringe) groups that stimulate the imagination of the ""fringe-of-the-fringe" inventor genius. Long live the fringe. Jones
