Finally read the blog comments for Buzz Skyline's rant. You said it
all, Jed, clearly and cogently, and if Riordan had been listening,
he'd have heard it. He's not willing to do any work, because he
already thinks he knows the answer. At that point, once that has been
established, it's a waste of time to dump more into the conversation,
unless you have some point to make to the future audience. Keep it simple!
There is an anonymous skeptic there who knows the literature. I
thought of Shanahan, but he seems smarter than Shanahan. Shanahan
would probably be referring to his Calibration Constant Shit. I may
review those posts later, it could be worth examining each point in a
better forum, like here.
Krivit showed up to ask who Buzz Skyline is, which I found in about
30 seconds by looking at the staff for the site. On the other hand, I
suppose asking questions is what reporters do, and, in fact, it might
be better than doing "original research," which has become most of
Krivit's work lately. (I.e., new analysis of reports that he doesn't
understand.)
Meanwhile, Buzz had a great idea:
What would really impress me is if you rent space on the show floor
at the next APS March meeting (don't worry, it's cheap), set one on
the table and turn it on. Then take orders and let us know how many you sell.
If I don't have something to sell by then, I'll be convicted of
attention-deficit disorder, I've already done major time over it.
Anyone want to share the booth? It could be difficult for me to fund
this myself, though it makes good business sense for me to go. I
assume that the travel expenses will be higher than the booth. I
presume I'll actually have something to sell, right there, packaged
and ready. Get 'em while they're hot! Er, cold! Er, whatever! Finding
out is the point.
Jed, what would be good books to sell? Let's see: Storms (2007), for
sure. The ACS Sourcebooks. Mizuno? What else would you recommend?
Damn! I think I might actually make some money at this. Thanks, Buzz,
for the idea, and I'm assuming that you won't try to keep me out. If
you do, wear those shark bite protectors that the White Knight has on
in Through the Looking Glass, it can be inconvenient to have me
fastened to your ankles. (I'm assuming that the suggestion was only a
little facetious, and that the APS would welcome a serious effort
like that, not selling "fantastic free energy" devices, but a simple
science kit for replication of experiments published in major journals.)
I won't be selling excess heat. I'll be selling neutrons. But it will
be a chemistry experiment. I'm not sure that physicists are the best
market, since they went into physics because they didn't like
chemistry, too smelly and messy, almost as bad as biology. Maybe this
will be simple enough and clean enough for them, though.
Buzz's attitude is typical of the pseudoscientists on that side. If
it doesn't generate enough heat to brew two cups of tea in a row, it
isn't real. Now, I wonder why they don't apply that standard to
muon-catalyzed fusion? In fact, when they say that cold fusion is
impossible, why do they always forget the well-known and
noncontroversial exception?
Simple; you can't brew yet cups of tea with it, and if it's "fusion,"
it must mean "limitless power." Q.E.D.
But wait, you can't brew cups of tea with hot fusion with the excess
heat, either, though you might vaporize samovars of the stuff with a
millisecond of input to the hot fusion monsters. Or, of course, you
could use the sun.
I give up. It doesn't make sense, trying to understand the thinking
of these pseudoscientists; and that is exactly what they are, they
pretend the color of science, when the positions they firmly take are
based on rigid belief instead of experimental evidence. It's not
about genuine skepticism, which remembers to be skeptical of itself
as well as the views of others.
They confuse positive experimental evidence, showing the accuracy of
quantum mechanics in the two-body case (plasma physics), with an
unproven extension of that into the realm of complex condensed
matter, based on assumptions about the nuclear distances involved,
and the only attempt to actually verify those assumptions was made by
a pair of researchers named Pons and Fleischmann. If these physicists
are so certain about their math (theory!), they should test it, and
the trail has already been blazed for them. In other words, there are
now massive signs, in the work of hundreds of researchers, that
something falls short in those assumptions. It's basic science that
I'm concerned about, not the brewing of cups of tea. Nor, in fact,
solving the world's energy problems. That might follow, it might not.
It makes no difference to me, though it might make a difference to my
children. I'm fact, I'm pretty sure it will. Science, that is. Cold
fusion? Maybe. I think we should find out, don't you?
What's a booth cost? Where and when will that conference be? I'll see
if it's available on-line. This could be really fun, Jed, and "fun"
is my basic standard for any activity, I never grew up. Thanks, God.
