I wrote: Rossi has a highly original, bold, and idiosyncratic world view. He also has > idiosyncratic ways of expressing himself. So does Arata. >
By the way, that would be true of Rossi even in the unlikely event he turns out to be a con man with a fake device. No con man in history has done anything like this. If his device is fake, he is both a genius at deception, and a lunatic. He would be a genius because he has fooled so many professionals, including the chairman of the Skeptics Society. There are a few scattered reports of people making fake perpetual motion machines in the 19th century that fooled some experts. As I recall, after one of the fakers died they found air hoses in the legs of the table the machine was on. I have never heard of anything like that happening after 1900. He would be a lunatic because he is paying the people at U. Bologna to open the cell. Perhaps he only says he will allow this, and he will prevent it at the last minute. But if he does let them open it, that will instantly reveal whatever trick he is using. There is no place else to hide a trick. (Except for the Tarallo Water Diversion Fake in the chimney, which can be ruled out in a few seconds by any half-awake observer, by holding a hand over the outlet tube.) Arata is a certified genius but I think he is also a faker, by the way. He claims that he discovered cold fusion in the 1940s, which I doubt. He claims that Fleischmann, Pons, McKubre and all other researchers are making elementary errors, and he alone has discovered "real" cold fusion. If he believes that he is unbalanced, and if he does not believe it, he is lying. I cannot tell what he thinks. Perhaps he is saying these things because he is old and suffering from senile dementia, but I gather he was saying similar stuff years ago when he was still making vital contributions to the field. This is distressing. It is unseemly. I describe it only to warn the reader that you must separate the claim from the person making that claim. Do not judge Arata, Rossi, or anyone else based on your impression of their personalities. Look at objective facts that have been experimentally confirmed by independent observers. Until January, there were no independently confirmed facts about Rossi, so I had no reason to believe him. - Jed
