Joshua Cude wrote:
I suspect it is designed to have large thermal mass (maybe in hot oil, or even water under pressure), so that after the power is turned off, the thermal mass keeps the output at the bp for some time. That way, they can claim it is self-sustaining, even though it's just cooling off. Clever.
The professors tested and calibrated this machine for 6 weeks. They would have discovered that it has a large hidden thermal mass. They observed semi-uncontrolled heat after death among other things. Others in the U.S. have tested it for many hours at a time. There is no chance Rossi has used some trick like this.
"I suspect" is not a particularly useful hypothesis, in any case. Anyone can suspect anything, including hidden wires; a specially reconstructed plug in the wall and a superconducting wire that allows much more electricity than normal while fooling the power meter; oxygen added to the tap water; or a fluid replacing the tap water that happens to be tasteless and potable, but has a lower boiling point than water. All of these have been proposed. Such hypothesis are so far-fetched they should not be taken seriously. Skeptics can come up with hundreds of them, culminating in something like the hypothesis that thousands of rats gathered every night to drink the water in Mizuno's heat after death experiments.
I think we should stick to reasonable, plausible hypotheses that have some supporting evidence rather than "I suspect" or "hypothetically someone could . . ." or "the specifications for a pump I saw on the Internet mean the professors can't read a weight scale." Even allowing the hypothesis that Rossi is a con man, I do not think we should assume that he has an astounding ability to replace wires in walls, or the drinking water in ordinary pipes, or that by standing in the room he can make a university power meter go haywire, or make Dufour think a pipe is hot when it is lukewarm.
- Jed
