re http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/34/343inexplicableclaims.shtml
You report that Violante wrote:
For the three points in the plot, we have:
0.35E+16, very close to 0.1E+16 (not well drawn
in the plot) and 0.50 E+16 atoms respectively
He had answered your question, but you asked again, and he responded:
In terms of new atoms the result is an amount of
He[lium] ranging from 1E+15 up to 5e+15 atoms.
And you were astonished:
This writer responded to Violante, reminding him
that he had, since 2004, represented the
measurements of helium-4 atoms from this series
of experiments in the range of E+16 and that now
he was stating to this reporter that his group
had measured helium-4 atoms only in the range of E+15 atoms.
This sudden change an entire order of
magnitude smaller is inexplicable, given that
the authors have not announced any errors or
retractions about this graph in the last six years.
New Energy Times asked Violante one additional
question: "Is there any comment you would like
to make [...] about your published
representations of this experiment to the scientific community?"
As we went to press, New Energy Times had received no response from Violante.
Steve, the two sets of figures are identical
values. The low value is reported first as
0.1E+16, which is 0.1 x 10^`6, and then as 1E+15,
or 1 x 10^15. These are the same numbers.
It's not surprising that Violante did not respond!
This is, unfortunately, only one of many errors in the set of articles.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
http://lomaxdesign.com/coldfusion
----------------
Krivit published this and a response:
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/blog/?feed=rss2&p=113
By: sbkrivit
Monday, February 01, 2010 3:01 AM
Received via e-mail:
In "Inexplicable D-D "Cold Fusion" Claims From
Italy" you wrote that Violante restated his
claims "an entire order of magnitude smaller."
This is incorrect. 1E+15 is the same as 0.1E+16."
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
Northampton, Mass.
http://lomaxdesign.com/coldfusion
(Archive copy "Cold Fusion Kit")
[Ed: New Energy Times thanks Lomax for this
correction. We made three attempts to get a
clear answer from Vittorio Violante to our
question about the specific values of helium measured by his group.
In his second response, Violante gave us values
expressed in E+16. In his third response,
Violante gave us values expressed in E+15. On
receipt of this third response, we failed to
notice that he had moved the decimal point, and
we were thus led to believe there was an order
of magnitude difference in what he was stating.
However, our mathematical error has no bearing
on the significant misrepresentation by
Violante's group (see our Fig. 2 in the article.)]
And I now comment on this.
Krivit made "attempts to get a clear answer,"
sure, but got clear answers and did not recognize
them. He was also not asking the questions that
would have been asked to truly clear up problems
with the paper. For example, as a question, "How
did you obtain the '24 MeV' 'expected' positions
on the graph?" Had he asked that question, he
would have probably gotten the answer: "I divided
the energy found by calorimetry by the value of
24 MeV/He-4, and then added the known background of 0.55 x 10^16 atoms."
We don't have Krivit's actual correspondence nor
Violante's replies, except for a few exerpts from
later communications. Thus we are completely
dependent upon Krivit for his judgment of Violante's alleged evasiveness.
Krivit states "The authors intended this slide to
support their claim of reasonable experimental
agreement with the prediction of the D-D "cold
fusion" reaction." Given that the paper does not
make that claim, this is mind-reading, and one of
the problems with mind-reading is that we tend to read what we expect.
Nevertheless, the paper does show "reasonable
agreement" with what would be expected from d-d
fusion, except for the obvious fact that simple
d-d fusion is hardly considered a reasonable
hypothesis by anyone. What is more to the point
is a hypothesis that the fuel for whatever is
going on is deuterium and the principal ash is
helium, and, no matter what intermediaries exist,
or what mechanism, and unless significant other
products exist, the 24 MeV Q factor would be expected.
Krivit states in his piece:
On Jan. 25, 2010, this writer e-mailed Violante
and asked for the measured values of helium produced from experiment C2.
We received a confusing answer. On Jan. 25,
2010, this writer again e-mailed Violante,
asking, "What is the amount of helium produced
from Laser 2, 3 and 4 experiments?"
Basic problem: "helium produced" isn't measured.
It is calculated, at least in this case, where no
steps were described to exclude background helium
already present in the experimental apparatus.
What the chart showed was actual measurements,
not "helium produced." The label was slightly
misleading, but a cursory examination of the
data, and in particular, the placement of those
wonderful green dots, showed that what was
charted was total helium, not "helium produced,"
and that "increase" in the title reflected that
an increase was shown with increased energy
production, which was clearly the case, not that
the actual plots were of "helium produced."
The chart showed and demonstrated the intended
point: increased energy, increased helium. The
green dots were merely a convenient way to
present, in a simple chart with a single Y-axis,
some correlated data, using a convenient -- and
interesting -- conversion factor. The chart
certainly did not show, and did not attempt to
show, that the *actual energy per reaction* was
24 MeV. If that was their intention, it would be
singularly stupid. And they are not stupid. It was not their intention.
The data in the chart was adequate to calculate
approximate Q factor, and the only real problem
was one that Violante acknowledged in his mail,
that the data for Laser 3 was "not well drawn."
Sure, the presentation was somewhat sloppy. It
was a conference paper, after all, and the
presentation was quite adequate for the point being made.
Krivit has turned this into a big "story" of
deception and misinformation and attempt to prove
a point that he considers Wrong. In the end,
except to the choir, he's only shown the depth of
his inability to understand what he is reading.
Basic rule of interpretation of incomplete
messages: assume that they are mostly right, look
for the explanation that maximizes rightness. As
soon as you think that a message is deceptive, it
becomes very difficult to interpret it
accurately. By assuming a polemic motive in the
Violante paper, one that seems quite absent to
me, Krivit set himself up to make a series of
blunders, to the point that he gets huffy over the difference between
0.5E16 and 5E15.
And blames Violante for his own confusion. After
all, he'd asked three times! But, in fact, we
don't know what Violante said the first time, and
the second and third time, Violante answered his
question. In the third response, Violante was
quite likely getting burned out with being asked
the same question the third time, and just
quickly restated the data. Now, the decimal point
shift was obvious to me, because I'd been working
on the chart for some time before I came around
to see Violante's last comment. I knew what was
ambiguous, and I'd noticed that Violante was
using fractional multiples of 10^16 instead of
the more common normalization to use numbers in
the range of 1.0 to 9.9 with the exponent falling
where it may. However, what Violante had done was
to use those values to keep the exponent
constant, which makes it easier to compare the numbers.
Since he was now restating all the data, in
accordance with Krivit's request for "produced"
helium, and all those numbers were now less than
1.0 x 10^16, he stated the data as multiples of
10^15. Krivit did not merely become puzzled and
ask, which is what would have happened with an
ordinary oversight under ordinary conditions.
Instead, he challenged and essentially demanded
to know why Violante was now "changing" the
results, and asked Violante to comment on his
"published representations" which he now thinks were deceptive.
In other words, it appears that Krivit was
looking for a "story" of deception, and
increasingly fabricated one out of his own misunderstandings.
Hence my suggestion to Krivit that he create an
editorial board and *respect it*, and that he
also routinely allow experts to review his work.
He won't lose his journalistic freedom, not where
it counts! From what I'm hearing, he has had a
board, but did not respect it and basically
blazed his own path. That's fine, within limits.
But he's gone beyond limits, now.
The result of failure to do this is that New
Energy Times is losing credibility, certainly
with me, but, I'm quite sure, with others. Much
of it has become editorializing instead of
reporting; Krivit, in this whole piece, is
largely reporting himself and his own study and
interactions. He has lost his journalistic
perspective, and this is not the first time.
Steve, if you read this -- you have no obligation
-- there is a simple and fast way out of this:
it's to start recognizing that you've made
mistakes. And apologize for them. I sent you the
bit about the decimal point first, because it was
so blatant, and it would have been a point where
you might have actually apologized. You didn't
apologize, and the implicit accusations against
Violante stand, there is only a "correction"
mentioned at the bottom of the piece that refers to the comments.
And, as I wrote, but he did not print, this was
but one of many errors. I have now sent another
mail, referring to the Chart 2 that Krivit
mentions as showing the alleged
"misrepresentation," based, again, only a blatant
error, and Krivit will see it first. I'm not
giving up on him yet. He'll have yet another
opportunity to respond with more depth.
Two of the most powerful words in the English language are "Oops! Sorry!"
I've had to say it many times! Especially with
wives! But also with my children and in my
writing on many subjects. Fail to do this, and
errors will dog you, almost literally, people
smell it and will bite you on the leg like a
bulldog and not let go. "It's the cover-up, stupid!" Happens all the time.
On the other hand, the fastest way to learn is to
open your mouth and make mistakes. If you are
assertive, people will point them out! Usually.
It's failure to think about and listen to the
responses that can be fatal to growth and real
learning. With this understanding, even your
enemies can be turned into quite helpful people,
because they will be less shy about pointing out your errors!
