If you are really worried about independence, you should worry about the fact that Rossi is paying for the tests at U. Bologna out of his own pocket.
He is paying either 500,000 euros or 1 million euros. Who knows how much? Details like this often get mixed up when Rossi is involved. Anyway, it is a lot of money. You know it has to be, because these experiments are not cheap, and no university does research for free nowadays. All research funding comes from interested parties. Usually the funding agency or corporation has enormous power. It can make or break a career. Corruption is inevitable. When the DoE funds energy research, or a drug company pays a university to test a new medication, the grad student doing the work has to get the "right answer" or he or she will be kicked out. He will never get tenure. That cannot happen in this case. Rossi cannot take away Levi's tenure. Actually, if Levi were to report that the experiment is fake, he would be embraced as a hero by the physics community. He would be on the front page of newspapers and magazines, and the Scientific American would commission him to write a monthly column. It is very much in his interest to find fraud, or at least to announce there was a mistake and the device does not produce excess heat. The fact that Rossi is paying does not bother me at all. As I said said before, to me this does not prove Levi et al. are corrupt. On the contrary it proves that Rossi means what he says. If it is fake they will find out soon, and tell everyone. Also, there is no other source of funding for cold fusion experiments. Either Rossi funds these tests, or the tests will not happen. It is much better for everyone to have professional mass spectroscopy at U. Bologna or CERN rather than Rossi's own claims about nickel transmuting to copper. These tests will be of enormous benefit to everyone, and I do not see how Levi will be corrupted by them. It isn't as if he personally gets any money. He will be paid by the university no matter what. - Jed
