At 02:29 PM 10/5/2009, Horace Heffner wrote:
On Oct 5, 2009, at 5:46 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
I've purchased some LR-115; I will cut it up, I plan to serialize
the chips, and I'll be selling them in small packages. If you want
to give some away, you could either subsidize what I'm doing, or
you could buy your own material from the supplier. There is nothing
stopping you. If I try to price gouge, which would be stupid,
anyone else could step in.
Clearly I have not communicated. I have no interest in being
intensively involved in what you are doing either positively or
negatively.
Then don't. However, when you post to a public forum, I might
comment, I hope that is acceptable to you.
I especially do not want to engage in extended detailed
discussion with you about it. I merely feel it is important to note
that I had specific aspirations long before you came on the scene
that do not match your vision, and may conflict with your vision in
the future.
My vision doesn't encompass such a conflict. It allows you to pursue
your own vision, with your own resources and whatever you can gather
from anyone else. While I suppose you could manage to arrange your
activity in such a way as to be harmful to mine, to be in conflict
with it, it's not what I expect. If there are two competing cold
fusion demonstration kits, for example, that's great! I would hope
that we'd find ways to cooperate, and I could learn from your success
and perhaps you would learn from mine.
My model of business is cooperative, and that includes cooperation
from suppliers who might easily be seen as competitors. There are
people in business, for sure, who don't operate that way, and, to my
mind, it is their loss. I'd rather walk in my shoes than theirs.
Because open communication is essential for the progress of science,
and because my motive is mixed, i.e., is partly profit and partly
social and scientific benefit, I decided early on that there will be
no trade secrets of any substance. If I score the radiation
detectors, to identify them, that's not a critical part of an
experiment, and the techniques I use to do this cheaply I *might* not
disclose. But the supplier will definitely be disclosed, and I
presume that anyone could go to the supplier and get the same deals
as I. Anything that might possibly be critical will be documented and
disclosed, and quite possibly in advance of making kits available for
sale, to gather more suggestions.
What I lacked is a *convincing* cheap experiment. If
such a protocol comes along, then I may or my not continue efforts to
develop an experiment intended for classroom use. If I feel like
commenting here on any aspect of CF that may or may not relate to
your commercial effort I will do so, and if not, not. However, I am
not part of your team and not part of the "we" to which you
continually refer, unless by "we" you mean the free energy lunatic
fringe, to which I freely admit belonging.
You might be a part of "my team" whether you think you are or not,
simply by commenting. I read and weigh all such comments and consider
them helpful. By "we" I'm being loosely inclusive; when I use the
word that way, it allows anyone who so desires to associate
themselves with me as the writer, and does not obligate anyone who
wishes to stand apart. The pronoun may vary in exact application, but
generally, here, it means those interested in cold fusion and
supporting research on it, as distinct from those who reject the idea
and consider the matter closed, since cold fusion is, they believe,
"pathological science." "We" can thus include skeptics who
nevertheless recognize the value of research to investigate open
questions, and if, given the research that exists and has been
published, someone who believes that the question of "cold fusion" is
closed, end of topic, isn't a skeptic, the person is a believer in a
negative, which I've always considered sort of ... stupid.
Operationally assuming a negative, fine. But pseudoskeptics go beyond that.
Now, Horace, am I imagining it, or are you being rather prickly?
Perhaps it's years of experience dealing with ... well, I'll maintain
some civility standards here. Incivility tends to rub off and infect
those exposed to it.
I'm not fighting the pseudoskeptics. I'm ignoring them. So, I'm not
designing kits to convince them. I don't consider it necessary to
have any more "conclusive experiments," nor need such experiments be
cheap, and there is some expert opinion that "cheap" and "conclusive"
don't go together. I don't necessarily agree, but, hey, they are the
experts, I'm not. For proof, there is quite ample work already published.
However, the kits as they are shaping up to be should be quite
adequate as a *reasonable demonstration* of effects that have no
known explanation other than a nuclear reaction, most notably
radiation. And there will be experimental variations that just may
nail it all down.
I'm not inventing a new protocol, at least not initially. I'm using
the Galileo protocol, quite closely, but as I find I can get away
with it, I'll be modifying it if I can see improvements either in
performance or cost. My initial cathode design will be a little
different, because I don't want that piece of diffusing polyethylene
in the way of seeing the cathode through the piece of CR-39. Maybe
there will be a piece of acetate there, to hold the CR-39 and the
cathode wire. And I'll be adding external detectors for neutrons.
I have no interest in spending time on this kind of thing when the
basic science to pull this off cheaply and *convincingly* in a
classroom setting is not there yet.
I haven't mentioned "classroom setting." While it's possible these
kits will be usable that way, the basic design is for home use by
amateurs and students. Likewise, it's not impossible that some
professionals will use these kits, especially some who were not
already set up with other experiments. But I'm not depending on it.
I'm not depending on any new science or truly new or radical
engineering. I'm not depending on any theories of how cold fusion
works, only on the replicated reports of radiation detector using
CR-39 plastic from palladium-deuterium codeposition.
And I'm on the lookout for cheap techniques to make the demonstration
more "dramatic" or "interesting." Showmanship, perhaps you could call
it. CR-39 is not terribly dramatic to look at. LR-115 may be better,
you should be able to see the pits with the naked eye, as points of
light, when backlit, especially with a green filter. But that is not
nearly as dramatic as something you can immediately see; hence I'm
now thinking of how a spinthariscope might be incorporated into a
cell design. If it's completely dark, eyes dark-adapted, and there is
a thinly-protected ZnS layer on the inside of the cell, next to the
cathode, would alpha scintillations from an active cell be visible?
I would prefer to focus on the
fundamentals if I spend time on CF. However, I have a lot more on my
plate than CF. If I should find a way to do this my first step would
be to publish free instructions with suppliers for all parts listed.
No kit necessary. The next step would be to form a non-profit
corporation to distribute kits for educational institutions at cost
or less.
The instructions already exist. It's the Galileo protocol.
I said *convincing*. Not only is the Galileo protocol highly
controversial, to put it mildly, even the superior work by SPAWAR is
still controversial amongst experts in the field. If you come up
with something better, great. A convincing experiment would be a
good thing to provide to students for a first hand experience, but an
unreliable non-definitive experiment, especially one disseminated for
profit making purposes, could be a very negative thing for the field.
It's distributed as an experiment, with prior reported results. There
will explicitly be no guarantee that the effects one sees are
nuclear; What I know from the Galielo project is that replicators did
see SPAWAR-like pits. If these pits are not from nuclear radiation,
it is of great scientific interest to know what they are from. Having
a simple, cheap kit to replicate the effects will make it possible to
test and explore.
It's interesting to encounter what may be a bias against "profit."
I'm trying to make a profit from my personal labor and personal
investment, but I would gain nothing by engaging in any fraud or
puffery, all I would do is to demolish my reputation and that of my
products if I did this. Profit is actually a much more reliable
motivator -- and constraint -- than fame and "publication success,"
or supposed "public benefit." In my experience, when the purpose is
ostensibly nonprofit, I've seen more lying and cheating than is
common in business, I've seen people stab their friends in the back,
all for a good cause, you know. The ends justify the means, eh?
I don't understand how this could be "a very negative thing for the
field." I'm doing what I do openly and with tons of discussion
exposed to people who know the field. I do not intend to drive off a
cliff. And I've only begun to consult.
As I noted, the plans will be available, in detail sufficient to
replicate the kits exactly, hopefully in even more detail than the
Galileo documentation. All the supplies will be separately available
as well, should someone want to independently replicate part and be
supported in part.
I'm not waiting for some new science to come along. I think it's
already here, and no more proof is needed. I'm not planning on
measuring helium, nor am I planning on doing any accurate
calorimetry, it's just too complex to start with. However, I can read
the reports, and the heat/helium correlation is quite enough as
"convincing," thank you very much. It cuts through the BS about
calorimetry error and helium leaks, and I have yet to see any
explanation for the correlation that doesn't rely on greater miracles
than cold fusion. Occam's Razor. Don't leave home without it.
On the other hand, an exploration of what was "highly controversial"
about the Galileo project would be in order. I'm quite aware of the
"ground beef" problem, which boils down to one of two things:
chemical damage or too much radiation. Both can be investigated
easily. One of the aspects of how I want to design the cathode is to
be able to remove the CR-39 in mid-experiment and replace it with a
new piece. I'd prefer not to see "ground beef," but nice distinct
tracks that can be counted. The neutron detectors will be on the
outside, and will remain there for the entire run, to accumulate as
many neutron-caused tracks as possible. That will be a sandwich, with
the outer layers of LR-115 in place to provide some level of source
analysis. What I don't know is if I will see extra neutrons from the
Boron-10 converter screen. If so, it will be clear what direction
they are coming from.
Bottom line, I intend, fully, to have fun.
I haven't suggested you stop. In fact, I might be a prospective
customer. What I am not is an employee, nor a committed
collaborator. All I am is a list member of vortex-l.
Sure. And a helpful one, generally. There are no employees, except
myself, by myself, at this point. That might change, and someone
might, for example, decide to offer an etching service. If people
want to donate services, fine, if they want to be paid, fine. Nobody
is likely to get rich from this, but for an activity to be
sustainable, it has to have some source of support. Sales (and wages
for work done) are an obvious possibility.
Otherwise we are looking at four possible sources of support:
philanthropists, investors, governmental agencies, research
institutions. Philanthropy fits right into the profit model, easily,
it simply subsidizes, in whatever manner the philanthropist chooses,
the kits or other work. Philanthropists don't expect people to work
for nothing, though they may want to see some kind of matching. I
don't think anyone expects Cambridge Isotope Labs to give away
deuterium oxide, but, hey, perhaps we should ask! I intend to be an
organized supplier of, initially, Galileo replication materials, with
some possible bells and whistles as options. None of these sources of
funding seem terribly likely to me, though philanthropy may be an
element, I have been offered, perhaps, a little support, though it
might come in the form of investment or loans, it hasn't been worked out.
I do think this could have a significant impact on the field, and I
do fail to understand how it would be negative. Especially when you
consider all the failed companies that made enthusiastic
announcements as if they had found the mother lode! Where is that
kilowatt Patterson cell? How did the "community" allow that to
disappear? (Answer: there wasn't any coherent community, able to
respond as needed with appropriate resources, everyone was doing
their own thing, with little energy for higher-level cooperation. Normal.)
I intend to sell damaged plastic! I.e., a device which damages CR-39
plastic in a particular way. Also, hopefully, cellulose acetate. If I
can consistently damage the cellulose acetate, with little 10 micron
holes, which will be outside the cell, with no contact with the
electrolyte, and unless background chips show the same damage, it's
definitely radiation, and, under those conditions, it's neutrons. The
boron-10 will give me a clue as to whether or not it is fast or slow
neutrons, probably.
I wish you success in your research.
Thanks. And I, you in yours.
