At 03:28 PM 2/21/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
But Rossi is not a clear confirmation of any prior work, since we
don't know what's inside.
Sure he is. This is a confirmation of Piantelli and Focardi, and
Mills for that matter. We know approximately what is inside: finely
divided Ni and two other elements in trace amounts. Several reliable
sources have confirmed that.
Okay, to Jed, and perhaps to others, this is confirmation of prior
work. But because it's "secret protocol" it's weak in that respect. I
agree that the existence of (possibly) similar prior work is
supportive, and is reason to be less likely to dismiss Rossi out-of-hand.
I dislike the secrecy, for sure. It's Rossi's right to be secret.
He has no choice. He would lose everything if he revealed the recipe
now. He would lose years of effort and the opportunity to make
billions of dollars. No one can blame him for being secret, although
I do blame him for writing bad patents.
Jed, you have pointed out that he may be shooting himself in the foot
with his secrecy. It's just not true that if he disclosed everything
he'd "lose everything." It depends on how he discloses and to whom.
His strategy might be reasonable. But a consequence of that strategy
is that I'm not going to believe that Rossi is a demonstration of
cold fusion. I'm not going to claim that it's fraud, on the other
hand. I'm going to claim that *I don't know* and that I think I don't
have enough information to decide.
On the one hand, there are all the obvious reasons to be skeptical.
On the other hand, there is what Jed has pointed out.
Which is why I am *not* going to get into an extended argument over Rossi.
Anyway, I hope Levi, Daniele Passerini and the others who witnessed
the 18-hour test will give us more details. It says they will.
Google translate: "About what they are not branched [?] official
report, which will instead be provided on the experiments that will
soon be initiated in accordance with the Department of Physics. That
will give us more to work with. It certainly eliminates any chance
of stored chemical energy. I think the 30-minute run was beyond any
real-world chemical explanation, but it was perhaps on the edge of
some extreme techniques with rocket fuel. 18 hours completely closes
that question, and several others.
Again, depending on so many details about which we know nothing, so
far, and may not ever know. I've argued that making a huge fuss over
Rossi simply discredits the field, and I've hoped that reputable cold
fusion scientists would be very, very cautious about Rossi, as most seem to be.
Some of the damage will be done anyway. People are already using
Rossi as an example of overblown, inflated claims. That could
backfire, for them, but, then, if Rossi doesn't show up with his 1 MW
reactor, we end up looking very foolish. And there are millions of
reasons why some project like that could fail, *even if Rossi's
demonstration was real*.
Those who are using Rossi as an example of obvious bogosity don't
care about future reputation, they will simply shrug it off and say,
"Okay, I was wrong, surely you can understand how shady this
operation looked?" And they'd be right! It looks shady!
If someone trusts Rossi, thinks that his work is solid, great.
Perhaps they should send him a check. If Rossi is right, he'll become
fabulously wealthy, and might remember this with kindness. I just
don't want to see cold fusion standing up with Rossi, in the firing
line, depending on whether or not Rossi is real and useful. If Rossi
produces and starts selling 1 MW reactors, and they work, I'll be
happy for the world. And for him. If I wanted to place a bet, though,
it would be on Rossi disappearing when the 1 MW reactor doesn't
appear. Which may or may not mean that he was right.
The world is complicated, and I don't pretend to have a comprehensive
understanding of it. I'm not sure that anyone does. Just because you
are paranoid does not mean that they are not out to get you.
In Rossi's shoes, I'd be very worried, and I'd want to be connected
to and working with as many people as possible. I'd want to make sure
that my "secret" is not closely-held, that if something happened to
me, it would come out. In many places, so that it could not be
suppressed. I do *not* believe in a conspiracy to suppress cold
fusion. I'm just talking about prudence, with something that the U.S.
military has noted could be vastly destabilizing, economically. There
are people who don't like "destabilizing." Some of these people may
have no scruples, and they have a lot of money and power, which they,
big surprise, might seek to protect.
I place high odds on disappearance because two different scenarios
support it: Rossi is real and is "disappeared," and Rossi is a fraud
and disappears. As to the other major possibility, Rossi is real and
we have a 1 MW reactor this year, well, I like that one, but not
because it confirms cold fusion, because that was already confirmed.
It would mean, probably, that energy will get cheaper as I get older,
and it's cold in the winter here. And I have kids, and it could mean
a brighter future for them.
