At 03:39 PM 9/8/2009, you wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
. . . I suggested infrared imaging and Ed said maybe you could get
a camera to do it for $10,000 (actually the first number he gave
was higher). But what I had in mind wasn't a full blown industrial
camera, but a kludged setup using a night vision device and lenses,
fixed focus.
I have seen people do things like this. It seldom works out well.
Here is the sort of thing that happens:
It was an *idea*, Jed.
The camera turns out to be harder than you think. You get
sidetracked on this task, maybe for weeks, maybe months. Some people
forget what they intended to do in the first place and end up making
one camera, or calorimeter, or mass spectometer after another
without doing any cold fusion experiments.
Jed, you are imagining something very different from what I have in
mind. Not just one person working.
The camera never works quite right. Or it turns out to be inflexible
and not quite what you need. This is an education. You learn a lot
more about IR cameras than anyone else in the field. Most of all,
you learn why commercial IR cameras cost $10,000 (or whatever they
cost nowadays) and why they are worth it. An education yes, but
expensive and time consuming. As Franklin says experience is a dear
teacher but a fool will learn at no other.
No, we aren't going to put that kind of effort into cameras.
Probably, we buy a microscope and play with it. $70, actually.
The camera works okay after all, but other people do not believe it.
Eh? Think this one through, Jed.
Bear with me a little, I'm going to make some assumptions. They may
turn out to be completely false, because, Jed, I'm an ignorant
newcomer. That is, however, a strength, in fact, because among the
large number of crazy ideas I'll come up with there may just be one
that will work and nobody thought of it before because it was
"obvious" that it wouldn't work, because they were thinking like you.
Consider a clear piece of CR-39 on the flat bottom of a glass cell.
The CR-39 has distinctive marks on the bottom. On top of it is a
coiled-up gold wire, resting on it. Co-deposition. Underneath the
cell, looking up, is a microscope, focused, through the CR-39, on the
wire. The assembly is in a light-tight box. What will the microscope
camera see while the cell is operating? Nothing?
Maybe. Maybe not. If anything at all is seen, it's interesting. The
microscope is up to 200X-300X; however, what's important is that the
recorded camera video can be compared later with the CR-39 when its etched.
"Other people do not believe it." These kits aren't for "other
people." They are for the people who buy them and try them. They will
see that the camera records actual images, they will see the CR-39
chip markings. Now, what is this preposterous objection?
They doubt that a kludged instrument is reliable and accurate. You
will gain no credibility and they ignore you and your results.
Who is "they," Jed. The skeptics? But I'm not selling to the
skeptics! It's a bit like Krivit's conclusions about the Galileo
project. It's important for people in the field to have something to
agree upon. The development of a replicable experiment does *not*
have to be designed to prove anything; rather, it's designed to
demonstrate an effect. Finding out what the effect actually is,
that's another story. Theory, Jed.
Sure, if we come up with something that *looks like* nuclear
reactions and turns out to be some prosaic phenomenon, I can
understand the concern. But we aren't going to design a kit, contract
manufacture in China, say, and advertise them, and *then* test them.
There are many details to be attended to. If it all depends on one
person, it's impossible, I'd say. However, if one person wants to
focus on developing an infrared camera, great. It's their camera.
Actually, this will be the outcome for any experiment performed by
an amateur outside of a professional laboratory.
Who does it not convince and who does it convince? Ed's suggestion
was to make 50 kits and give them to a professional lab to test.
That's not a bad idea, but that's not, I think, where we will start.
Unfortunately, professional scientists ignore such results, and --
perhaps even more unfortunately -- they are the people we must
convince if this field is ever going to get anywhere.
That's been your thinking for almost twenty years. Has it worked?
If we try to convince newspaper editors, government officials, the
Obama administration, or any other non-scientists they will not
understand the technical issues, and they will call in professional
scientists and ask them to evaluate the results. Any result with a
kludged camera in someone's house will automatically be given a
failing grade. That's unfair but that's how things are. You need to
deal with it.
This is what you expect, Jed, but what I'm proposing has never been
tried. The closest thing to it is the Galileo project, and Kowalski
is trying to do something, but neither approached the idea I'm trying
to explain.
I don't really care if I convince anyone other than a handful of
people, because that's all that it takes. It gets easier if there are
more involved, as long as the communication structure can handle it.
A handful of people can form a company and make and market kits. They
don't need permission from any "experts." It shouldn't take big gobs of money.
We will *consult* experts, and most eagerly, those who have actual
experience with the experimental work, who know how to process CR-39,
who know what techniques work and what techniques don't. The
"experts" in the "establishment," well, if they want to help, fine.
But if they pooh-pooh it, it matters not.
I said in my book that we need to convince the public to support
this research. I stand by that. We do need to convince the public.
Yup. And I'm going for the kids. I'm convinced that the market
exists. Give the kids the tools to experience some LENR-CANR for
themselves, make them affordable, get them interested in doing more
serious work.
And these kits, while they may be almost "toys," could be used for
many different kinds of experiments, I'm guessing. Tell me, has
anyone tried correlating IR phenomena and radiation density? I don't
really care much, because if there are hot spots visible on the
camera, that tells the user that something is happening. They will
see activity. And if the basic kit is made to be idiot-proof, it's
important for them to see something! Put a light in there and they
will see bubbles forming and coming off the cathode. Maybe they will
hear them, as well. Think *cheap*, Jed. Don't think of "proof" that
will blow the skeptics out of the water. It might be too hard.
Just some little effect that can be reproduced. Is this hard? You
seem to think it is, Ed seems to think so. Well, if so, then, just as
the Fleischmann work was oversold in 1989, the ongoing work continues
to be oversold. Is it? Or is it *reasonably* easy to get a SPAWAR
co-deposition cell to do its stuff?
We also need to convince dozens or hundreds of professional
scientists. Not all of them by any means. Not a majority. But a lot
more than we have now. Public support alone is nut sufficient, and
neither is a group of friendly, convinced scientists. We need both.
Perhaps the purpose of this kit is to bring in more members of the
public, but I doubt it will succeed in doing that.
Doubt. In advance. You know what this reminds me of, right?
Most people will not know what to make of the results even if you
can persuade them to try it. Also, by the way, most cold fusion
experiments I have seen have been rather dangerous and I would not
want people to try this at home.
Do you imagine that I haven't thought of this? Cost is not the only
reason to be small. If a cell is small enough and kept in
containment, it could blow and you'd hear a faint pop. That's another
reason, by the way, to use a camera, besides the record it produces.
If a $70 camera gets ruined because the cell on top of it exploded,
it can be tolerated.
