On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote:
Cude>> To the extent they believe cold fusion is real based on existing measurements, then in the opinion of mainstream science, they are mistaken. Every last one of them. Rothwell> That is incorrect. Mainstream scientists have not published papers showing errors in these experiments. You mean, "that is correct". Scientists don't waste time publishing papers to point out errors or express doubt in a phenomenon only a fringe group takes seriously. Once they are satisfied there is nothing to see, they move on. They would have no time for anything else if they had to find errors in every latest fringe experiment, that looks pretty much like all the other fringe experiments. > Opinions unsupported by rigorous, quantitative analysis do not count. Opinions that reject cold fusion are supported every bit as much as opinions that reject perpetual motion, and those count. >> Would you say the same thing about polywater? "If even one of the scientists had been correct about viscosity or the boiling point or the freezing point, then the effect was real after all." Surely, most of their measurements were right; they were just caused by artifacts, and the effect turned out not the real, in spite of many correct measurements. > Only one group of researchers in one lab thought they saw evidence of polywater, That account differs from every other account of polywater I've seen. According to Ackermann in 2006, 450 papers were published on polywater in 12 years, with more than 250 over 2 years. That would be difficult for one group. Here's what he writes indicating prominent Soviet and American groups were involved: "The Polywater seminal papers include an initial group of four papers by Soviet scientists N.N. Fedyakin and B.V. Deryagin that experienced delayed recognition due to being published in non-English language (Russian) journals during the Cold War era of American–Soviet political rivalries. Only when the fourth paper was published by a group of American scientists (LIPPENCOTT et al., 1969) confirming the discovery of Polywater did the original Russian papers began to receive increased notice and the period of epidemic growth began (FRANKS, 1981)." Here's what Henry Bauer wrote in 2002 (with reference to Franks), indicating a great many people claimed evidence for polywater: "Unlike with N-rays, scientists all over the world reported the preparation and investigation of polywater; indeed the very name is owing to a prominent American spectroscopist, Ellis Lippincott. The renowned British physicist J.D. Bernal called anomalous water "the most important physical-chemical discovery of this century" (Franks 1981, p. 49). Polywater was discussed at several of the prestigious annual Gordon Research Conferences (Franks 1981, p. 124)." So it's not so different from cold fusion, except in degree, as I've already admitted. But then polywater was bigger than N-rays, and they used that as evidence that it was not like N-rays. But it was. And CF is like them too. > and they later retracted. Well, yes, polywater was finally debunked. But it might not have been, and then people would still be making claims. Look at homeopathy (not completely unrelated). Claims will continue forever, but mainstream medicine long ago rejected it. Whether CF will ever be decisively debunked remains to be seen. Given its potential, and the history of belief in free energy claims, it's likely to maintain a religious following similar to homeopathy, regardless of continued failure to make progress. > Their evidence appeared to be on margins of detectability. Just like cold fusion. > In cold fusion, hundreds of researchers have observed the phenomenon, The potential implications of CF are far greater than polywater, so it is not surprising that it has attracted more deluded researchers. But there were dozens involved in polywater, maybe close to 100; the number of publications is close to half that of CF. > none have retracted, Actually Paneth and Peters "originally reported the transformation of hydrogen into helium by spontaneous nuclear catalysis when hydrogen was absorbed by finely divided palladium at room temperature. However, the authors later retracted that report, acknowledging that the helium they measured was due to background from the air." P&F retracted their neutron and helium claims. Texas A&M retracted their tritium claims, Georgia tech retracted excess heat claims, Beuhler & Friedman retracted their water cluster fusion claims. > and in many cases the effect is quite easy to detect, for example with 100 W of heat output an no input, That's the problem. You call it quite easy, it should blindingly obvious, and yet it doesn't convince anyone except believers. >> World class experts do make mistakes. There were world-class experts involved with polywater and N-rays. > There was only one experts involved with each of those claims. Hundreds of other experts attempted to detect polywater, but they all failed. See the Franks book. How is that different from CF? We know they failed now, because it doesn't exist, but many claimed to find evidence for it. In the opinion of the current mainstream, hundreds of experts attempted to detect CF, but they all failed. They just think they succeeded. > This is a tautology, but people who make such mistakes are not experts. At least, not with regard to that particular type of claim. They think they are, but they are mistaken. In the case of cold fusion no errors have been found in the calorimetry, helium detection, tritium and so on, so these people are -- as claimed -- experts. Tautology indeed. It is completely circular. In the view of the mainstream, all the people who claim to observe cold fusion are making mistakes, and are therefore not experts. >> Jalbert? According to the web of science, he has published less than a dozen papers. > I am tempted to ask how many papers about tritium you have published, and what makes you think you know more than Jalbert . . . but I shall refrain. Good, because my expertise is not the point. Most experts who know as much or more than Jalbert reject cold fusion. And I'm not convinced Jalbert accepts cold fusion. >> And in any case, whether or not his particular tritium measurements are right or wrong, they do not explain the observed heat in CF experiments. > They do, however, prove there is a nuclear effect. That's the point. The claim is heat from nuclear reactions. The tritium claims are orders of magnitude too low to justify that claim. > > In 2009, you were pretty certain that Focardi had been proved wrong, and you argued at length with Krivit about it, and you had support from Storms. > That I did not do! I have pointed out that there have not been many replications, and one attempt to replicate failed: In a series of about 25 posts to this forum in July 2009 involving you, Krivit, Jones, and Storms, you said among other things: "Cerron-Zeballos did a careful, year-long attempt to replicate, as you see in the paper. As far as I can tell, they disproved the Focardi claims." "They did replicate the Focardi results, but they discovered that these results have prosaic causes." "McKubre has replicated results from several experiments and showed that they have a prosaic cause. They are errors in calorimetry." "Negative results often disprove other people's claims. As I mentioned, many claims have been disproved by showing that they are real but they have prosaic causes." "I also reviewed the Mizuno data, which shows large effects similar to what they report, all of them prosaic." "All they have to do is get the same result and show that it is not anomalous. That is what Cerron-Zeballos did with a gas calorimeter," "If you can show that Mizuno and Cerron-Zeballos got a null result that would be mistaken for excess heat by Focardi, then you have effectively disproved Focardi" To me, that sounds like arguing at length that Focardi was disproven. It's all in the archive for anyone who wants to read it. Search Rothwell Krivit Focardi.
