On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 12:28 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]>wrote:
Cude>> But as long as Rossi uses his own designates to report measurements, he will not be taken seriously. As soon as it would be visual and obvious so anyone can see it, he would be rich and famous. Lomax> It is obvious that the public demonstrations are not all that have been done. Rossi apparently showed demonstrations to possible investors or purchasers of the device, and I think it's been claimed that hundreds of these devices have been distributed to possible purchasers, investors, or other trusted persons, presumably under non-disclosure agreements. That's true. I can't say anything about what they do behind closed doors. I kind of thought that was obvious. I should have said that as long as Rossi uses his own designates to report measurements publicly, he will not be taken seriously by the scientific community. > "Not be taken seriously" has a lost performative. not *by whom*? Right. My bad. It's clear enough that many people do take him seriously. I meant by the scientific community, and the public at large. > Who does Rossi need to take him "seriously." Not the public, at this point! I don't know about "need". But he would clearly benefit from being taken seriously by scientists and the public if the device is real. That would obviously give him credibility, which helps him to get investors. And if he doesn't want to be taken seriously by the public, why is still doing demos, and participating in the comments on his blog? > Not the hordes of skeptics and pseudoskeptics. If the effect is absent, he would obviously prefer to be ignored by skeptics. His preferred audience is clearly the believers. But if it were real, attention, and more importantly, conversion of skeptics would be very beneficial to him. So, an incontrovertible demo as I've described, that convinced Park, Noonin, and Lewis, would be pretty useful. > Just possible customers or investors. Aren't all members of the public possible customers or investors? > If there are investors who have put money into this without seeing satisfactory demonstrations, without adequate protection -- and a performance guarantee by an inventor who could quicly become bankrupt is worthless, unless, say, the money is in escrow -- is a fool or is simply playing a long shot. Some can afford to do that, perhaps. I think a lot can. And the potential payoff is so huge that they are prepared to take risks. Look at all the energy promises that have made money. Both Mills and Dardik have been getting private funding based on unverified promises. It works. You yourself said you were willing to bet a significant chunk of your net worth on Rossi being real. > A promise to pay under stated conditions, as appears to be the situation with Defkalion, would not be foolish if those conditions are carefully and properly established. I have no idea if the situation is as it appears or not. The Defkalion people for all I know are getting private investor's money to pay for this. They could all come out ahead. It doesn't really matter to me. >From what Rossi's permitted me to see, there is no evidence for excess heat. > Ampenergo seems to have put in some real cash. They know Rossi, he was an original founder of the company behind Ampenergo, LTI. They've seen demonstrations, also, that's been explicitly stated, so they have more information that the current set, which almost everyone knowledgeable seems to agree are not *perfect.* Well, that may be what they want people to think to get them to become willing to bet a significant chunk of their net worth on them. And then Rossi and Ampenergo win, and a bunch of small-time investors lose. It wouldn't be the first time. > That is, more "convincing" demonstrations could be set up. However, considering the body of evidence available, these would only rule out fraud, simple artifact isn't so likely. We'd have to toss the Levi 18 hour demonstration, for example. Levi is suspected by some people because of the close association with Rossi. That suspicion would be, basically, that Levi allowed himself to be fooled, or was complicit in fraud. Otherwise Levi is just like any other report. I have no idea what your point is here. Clearly the Levi 18-hour experiment is worthless. Whether he's complicit, honest, or incompetent, we don't know. But one does not just accept revolutionary results based on hearsay. It's insane. > With all the existing public demonstrations, there are unanswered questions. > So? So. There don't need to be. If Rossi has 1 GJ/g energy density, he should be able to demonstrate it clearly without Levi's assistance. The unanswered questions suggest an unverified effect. > If Ampenergo was defrauded, if, for example, their observation of the alleged factory E-cat was accompanied with lies, was a set-up, a salted mine, they'd have grounds to sue the pants off of Rossi, and there would likely be criminal prosecution. Again, I have no idea what's going on with all those trench-coated men. But if I were to guess, the Ampenergo people are not the marks. They're the ones giving Rossi credibility, so he or they can seduce investors. Who knows? Ampenergo may well not know, and prefer not to know if the ecat is real. They just care that it can be made to look real long enough to make a buck. But again, these theories are pointless. I'm just saying that I won't believe it until I (or verifiably independent investigators) see evidence for it. Saying that rich people who put money in it musta checked it out is not good enough for me. > However, there remains a possibility, that the money paid to Rossi's company by Ampenergo was de minimus, […] We don't know. > But Cude knows. No. No. No. I have no idea about any of that. Whether Rossi believes it, whether he is deliberately cheating, who else could be in on it. I have no idea. I just know I haven't seen any evidence the thing is real. And I know that if the claims were real, it would not be hard to show clear evidence that it is real. So the absence of clear evidence of nuclear effects is strong evidence of the absence of nuclear effects. That's it.
