Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Rothwell, J., CETI's 1 kilowatt cold fusion device denonstrated. Infinite > Energy, 1996. 1(5&6): p. 18. > > That wasn't his work, it was CETI's work. He's a writer. That was > 13-effing-years ago. I searched for information about what was actually in > the article. I finally found http://www.padrak.com/ine/ROTHWELLCF.html. > Now, what's the problem? Rothwell reports some measurements he made, he does > not appear to make any firm conclusions, and uses conditional language. And > where are Patterson cells now?
The materials used to make these cells ran out a few years after that test. Patterson's grandson and business partner Reding died young, and Patterson lost heart. Patterson died some years ago. Cravens, who designed this experiment, is still with us and still going strong. He has not retracted these results. I know of no reason to doubt them, but after all I saw only one test for a few hours. Hardly definitive! Plus I agreed with George Miley who was there sitting next to me during the test, that this was a sloppy, low budget calorimeter. That was a darned shame. Why not use better instruments? Ah, therein lies a tale . . . When I learned the reason they used such crappy instruments it boggled my mind. You would have trouble believing it even now and besides it is complicated and wacky tale, so I won't bother telling the story. Some other time, perhaps. Suffice it to say this was yet another nutty cold fusion folly and a lost opportunity. Not for the first or the last time did I sit there and watch people throw away a $10 million opportunity for no good reason. You would be surprised at how often that happens in business. To top off the nuttiness, when I started taking notes and brought out my thermistor to measure the water temperature, Reding went nuts and tried to throw me out of the room. You don't have permission do to that! he cried. I said no, I don't, and if you don't want me to, I'll take the next plane back to Atlanta. And I will report in Infinite Energy that you did not allow me to confirm your claims. He relented. A few months later I found he was using my report in his public relations packets! I called Chris Tinsley that night and gave him a blow by blow description of this. I started off uncharacteristically upset and fuming, but just about the time I got to the part where Reding tells me to put away thermistor we were both laughing hysterically. I laugh to think of it now. (As I said here before, I never hold a grudge or stay angry for more than an hour, and let's face it, that was hysterical thing for him to do. What was he thinking?) As I often said to Chris, and surely said again that evening, forget about a cold fusion patent! If we only had the movie rights to this circus we would make millions. > Now, if someone were to follow up on this, it might be of great interest, > but until and unless someone does, it is of no practical importance. Patterson is dead and I doubt anyone could follow up. Swartz has often commented: > Experimentally, the "kilowatts" would always disappear when >> horizontal flow was used (which avoids the Bernard instability). >> > In plain English, this means that if you turn the cell on its side the flow calorimetry will then show no excess heat, which is the correct answer. The apparent excess heat in the vertical configuration is an artifact. Cravens is, of course, familiar with Swartz's hypothesis, since Swartz is trying to disprove his results. He does not think the hypothesis is valid. Neither do I. As far as I know, Swartz has never actually attempted to turn a flow calorimeter cell sideways to see if the performance changes. Cravens and I have actually tested this hypothesis by experiment. We tried turning cells sideways. It makes no measurable difference. For various reasons unrelated to calorimetry the vertical configuration is better. > Calorimetry is important, very important, when it's done by true experts. > To me, the details are boring. I'm sure they are very important in the right > context. But here, now? So, worst case, Rothwell made some mistake 13 years > ago, a mistake outside his expertise. First of all, someone may have a mistake but it wasn't me. I doubt that Patterson and Reding would have used my report as PR if they thought it was a mistake, so evidently I correctly reported their claims. Second, this is not outside my expertise. I have constructed and calibrated several calorimeters working with Mallove, Tinsley, Mizuno and various other people. I have spend weeks watching and tweaking calorimeters and hundreds of hours back in Atlnata looking at data and programming analyses of it with spreadsheets, Pacal and other stone-age methods. I am pretty familiar with the ins and outs of flow calorimetery and bomb calorimetry, at least at this level. Not to suggest that I have 1% of the knowledge of someone like McKubre or Rob Duncan, but I do know how those things work. And how they don't work! I have seen many artifacts and problems, such as the ones I describe briefly in my book, pages 17 and 19. Based on this experience I am confident that there is no such thing as a ~1 kW artifact caused by holding the cell verticle. Frankly, that's preposterous, and anyone with a calorimeter handy can disprove it in no time. > Rothwell has repeatedly told me that calorimetry is extremely difficult. Well, there is a lot that can go wrong with it, that's for sure. I wrote two pages but I could write 20 or 30 at the drop of a hat, and I have edited a lot of papers by Storms and others describing the many things that go haywire with calorimeters. But as I said in the book, calorimetry is actually the easiest part. Way easier than, say, electrochemistry, mass spectroscopy or CR-39. As rule of thumb nothing about cold fusion is easy, and if you think it is easy, you don't understand the problem yet. Actually, I would say that about a lot of things, such as farming, programming, raising children, . . . just about everything else I have ever done has been difficult. - Jed
