Part 1C On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 5:35 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]>wrote:
lomax> What Cude is betraying is his own severe bias: [incoherent psychobabble] That's your own fervent wish. But really, I'm just pointing out that there is no evidence for a new energy source. I'd like nothing better than a car that doesn't need refuelling, or electricity to cheap to meter, or elimination of CO2 emissions. Who wouldn't? It's all about evidence. So far, Rossi hasn't given us any. cude>> Rossi is remarkably successful at choosing observers who do not ask any difficult questions, or request any embarrassing measurements. lomax> Rossi has been asked difficult questions by the observers, how could Cude know that he hasn't? Well, his demonstrations do not resolve any of the questions. Flow rates are not monitored, and there is no evidence presented that the steam is dry. > The physicist-observers have said that Rossi's theory doesn't make sense. They are't buying it at all. But they are also not denying the evidence, Maybe they don't bother to look at the details. What with Rossi's shady past, his unorthodox, non-scientific process, it's enough to save the bother. >and, yes, Rossi probably is not selecting people who might pull a Feynman. > (I sat with Feynman at Cal Tech, and love the late physicist, but he made a horrible mistake one day. He was witnessing a demonstration of a claimed energy device, and he surreptitiously pulled the plug, attempting to show that the claimed energy was coming from the mains. He's not afraid of someone pulling a Feynman, he's afraid of someone pulling a Wood, who, as you know, debunked N-rays with sabotage. Incidentally, Feynman's account is a little different. The inventor, Papp, pulled the plug and handed it to Feynman. Feynman just stalled before he gave it back. Feynman was suspicious that the explosion was deliberate (albeit unintentionally powerful) to avoid an imminent evaluation at SRI, to stall his scam for a little longer. In any case, Feynman was right about the energy scam: although the formulas were disclosed in patents, the machine has never worked, and has now disappeared -- just like Rossi's ecat will. > Recent news can give us a clue as to the hazards of removing power from the control mechanisms in an energy device. It's called Fukashima.) Except that the power at Fukushima provides cooling (when the power from the plant itself fails). Rossi's power provides heating. Cude>> Such questions have been repeatedly pointed out in online forums from the first January experiment: check and *monitor* input flow rate; monitor the output flow rate; check dependence of steam temperature on input flow rate (in particular, why is it always pinned at the boiling point, when if it were dry, it would likely climb well above the bp). It seems impossible that the 3 Swedes could not have been familiar with these objections, and yet they made no attempt to resolve them. Lomax> Cude thinks he's cute. Lots of variations have been proposed, but a central problem here is that Rossi really doesn't care whether he proves this thing or not. That's only what he says. And yet he's doing demos for various scientists, writing papers and reports on his blog, answering questions, albeit as obliquely as possible. He clearly wants credibility without scrutiny. > The best test approach, to my mind, was where the flow rate was increased so that the water didn't boil, thus avoiding the whole wet steam/dry steam issue. […] That was the February test, which was witnessed only by Levi. It was a stunning result, in fact, but, of course, we are depending on Levi not colluding with Rossi. Of course. That's a better test approach to everyone's mind. And that emphasizes the point that he is not responding to critics. The only time he has done this is in secret, with his trusted grantee by his side. He hasn't written it up, even informally on his blog. It's all hearsay. Why, if heating the water is so much better, does he always use the boiling water demo when slightly more arms-length people are present? And even if you accept the unverified numbers in the 18-hr test, things look suspicious: If, as you claim elsewhere, ignition happens at about 450C, corresponding presumably to the 15 kW output, how do you explain the 130 kW excursion? That would require a temperature of more than 3000C in the reactor: (450 - 30)*130/15 + 30 = 3670 In any case, a private experiment cannot be used as evidence that a public demo is legit. > >Oddly, they measure the temperature every few seconds during the boiling phase, even though temperature isn’t expected to change during a 6-fold increase in power, but they don’t measure the flow rate of the output gas, which would actually change in proportion to the output power, thereby providing some evidence of the power increase. Instead they make one or two “visual” inspections of this far more critical metric. > He's talking about one demonstration as if this were the whole banana. No, this criticism applies to all the boiling water demos. There is never evidence given of dry steam, and certainly nothing related is monitored like the temperature. They claim to make measurements, but the numbers aren't reported, and the relevance of relative humidity is not obvious anyway. And they don't make the easy measurements like the steam flow rate, or adjust the flow rate so the temperature goes well above the boiling point. >> So, the public has not seen any evidence that steam is dry, nor that the device is producing excess heat. > Except for expert testimony. Of carefully selected experts, which is no evidence at all. And even the testimony as given (except in the 18-hr test), is not inconsistent with an electrical and chemical explanation. What you mean is expert interpretation, which is even poorer evidence. >> And it is not necessary to reveal the contents of Rossi’s black box. Just allow critics any critics to measure in arbitrary detail the incoming and outgoing fluids and electrical power. > Well, that's been done, actually. No. That has not been done. First *any critics* have not been allowed to make measurements. Only Rossi-approved critics have been allowed. Don't you read what I write? And it's not clear even the chosen few have been allowed to make measurements in arbitrary detail. Surely any scientist worth his salt would like to *monitor* flow rates. It's a critical parameter, and it is never monitored. > Cude should become more familiar with the full range of evidence. Please enlighten me as to critics not chosen by Rossi who have been permitted to measure in arbitrary detail. > It will, however, always be possible to make up some fraud mechanism, Yes, as long as Rossi is permitted to dictate the conditions of experiment (beyond keeping his black box secret).
