At 05:38 PM 2/21/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <<mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.com>a...@lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
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.
That's rather short-sighted of you.
It would be, perhaps, if I needed to know. I don't.
You will soon, if we get a better report from Levi. I think you can
be 95% sure it is real now. The fraud hypothesis is awfully far
fetched, and getter farther fetched with each new test. Frankly, I
don't think it is worth worrying about.
I'm not leaning on the fraud hypothesis. I'm merely noting that it
exists, and that, given some aspects of this affair, it's not
entirely unreasonable. You are now reporting a "general
confirmation," i.e., someone else reporting high levels of power with NiH.
Hey, we might have to toss BlackLight Power in there, too.
Again, depending on so many details about which we know nothing, so
far, and may not ever know.
What do you mean "we" Kemo Sabe? (Quoting the old joke about the
Lone Ranger surrounded by hostile Indians.)
The operative word here is "may."
I've argued that making a huge fuss over Rossi simply discredits the
field . . .
I don't see why. For one thing, other researchers are not
responsible for what Rossi claims, except perhaps Focardi. Levi is
not a cold fusion research. Or he wasn't before Jan. 14.
this isn't how politics works, Jed. It's how things would work if the
world were fair.
Some of the damage will be done anyway. People are already using
Rossi as an example of overblown, inflated claims.
I don't see any damage. People will say that it is fraud or inflated
no matter who makes what claim. Heck, they say that about Energetics
Tech., even after SRI replicated them spot on with some cathodes. So
far I have not seen any evidence that Rossi has made inflated
claims. On the contrary, he said it was 12 kW and it was probably
closer to 15 kW. That will not surprise anyone familiar with
calorimetry. The method they used was very lossy, as I said.
That could backfire, for them, but, then, if Rossi doesn't show up
with his 1 MW reactor, we end up looking very foolish.
I doubt he will complete that within a year! I am hoping we can
persuade him to let the NRL and others test the smaller gadget.
That's better than a 1 MW machine. More convincing, in a way.
I'd agree.
I sure as heck would not want to be present in Florida when they
turn on the big machine! The radiation Celani detected lasted for a
fraction of a second. If something like that lasts for a few
seconds, I imagine it might kill everyone within 100 m. It seems
like a stupendously bad idea to scale up to 1 MW at this stage.
Depends on how they do it. Given that the market for a 10 KW
generator might be much greater than the market for a 1 MW generator,
I don't understand the thinking....
If someone trusts Rossi, thinks that his work is solid, great.
I wouldn't trust Rossi personally as far as I can throw him. I trust
calorimetry. I trust that no stage magician or con-man can fool a
watt-meter or thermometer. I have never heard of an incident in
which a con-man did manage to fool scientists using their own,
off-the-shelf instruments.
That's not quite complete. If you can bring in the instruments, but
the "con man" controls the environment, a fraud remains possible. The
game Rossi is laying excludes independent confirmation. His choice.
Believe me, I have seen and heard of a wide variety of con-men and
bogus over-unity energy claims. I am practically an expert on that.
None of them stood up to more than a few days of tests. None were
replicated, and none were replications of previous work (as Rossi is).
Maybe. You say so, and that means something to me.
Don't forget that Levi et al. conducted tests and calibrations for 6
weeks prior the Jan. 14 test. It there was something like a hidden
thermal mass, they would have seen that in a few hours the first
day. You do not have to know anything about what is in the machine
to see that. Calorimetry alone tells you a great deal about a black
box. As I said, so far, it is the only reliable means we have of
knowing anything about the contents or inner workings of the cathode
black boxes in Pd-D cold fusion.
If there is a con, I don't know who would be in on it. Absolutely,
I'm not making accusations against anyone here. I'm just sitting back
and saying, if he does what he says he's going to do, okay, it's
real. If he doesn't, the world is vast and possiblities endless.
Meanwhile, I'm not rushing out to get materials for NiH experiments.
I've got enough to do just keeping body and soul together. I have, as
you know, some unfinished business.
