At 02:06 PM 6/2/2011, Joshua Cude wrote:
On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:19 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
<<mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.com>a...@lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
Cude>>Maybe, but Rossi OK'd them.
Lomax> Yes, he did. However, the point was that this was not simply
what Cude claimed, using "his own designates."
OK. I used the wrong word. I don't think my message is significantly
weakened if I make the same claim using "vetted observers" or
something like that.
Polemically, and as far as probabilities of collusion or gullibility,
it's very different, and that's why, I suggest, Joshua used the
wording he did. He didn't use the "wrong word," he used exactly the
wording he wanted to present his point.
> Now, I've corresponded with scientists at Wikipedia who were
actually skeptical but who did not want to be known as even
thinking that cold fusion might be real, or as willing to look at
evidence, they were afraid for their careers.
I agree, this is a problem.
<Abd falls over, in a faint. Recovering, ....>
Many would simply dismiss the idea and not want to waste their time.
So yes, finding credible experts is a problem. Sending ecats out
under NDAs would be easier, but also not likely to happen.
That's why you pay the experts, like Robert Duncan. There aren't many
who will risk their professional future without being paid. (This
isn't any slight against Duncan, in the least, rather it's kudos to
Kullander and Essen. Unless, I suppose, Ny Teknik paid them as
consultants -- which would be perfectly okay.
I'll note that some major cold fusion researchers were exactly that,
researchers who had no dog in the race except serving their clients.
This would be Michael McKubre, as perhaps the foremost example, but
we could also add Nate Hoffman, even if Jed Rothwell starts spitting
a mixture of wet and dry steam. It was Hoffman's skeptical
presentation that actually alerted me, the most, to the possibility
that CF was real. Hoffman was a real skeptic. Sure, he may have made
some mistakes. But everyone makes mistakes.
Kullander and Essen and Lewan might have made some mistakes too. But
their medal for bravery stands anyway. The courage to investigate
includes and covers the possibility of making mistakes. Someone like
Joshua Cude has nothing to lose, he can spout what turns out to be
complete nonsense and, he imagines, he'll suffer no consequences.
That's an illusion. He will have to live with what he's written and
said for the rest of his life. He'll know. And, I wonder, what will
he tell his children and grandchildren, if he has any?
That's why I'm fixated on a completely visual demonstration. Boiling
1000 L of water in the middle of an open field with nothing but an
ecat would attract attention. The thing about this revolutionary
claim is that a visual demonstration is possible. Why not give one.
We have explained why not many times, and that Joshua is fixated on
something else doesn't mean anything. Rossi isn't in the least
interested in pleasing Joshua. He doesn't even care about pleasing
me, nor do I have any right at all to expect that he would. He did
the work, his life and reputation and money are invested, he deserves
his reward.
Which, by the way, would include opprobrium and even possibly jail
time if he is committing a fraud, even a "pious" one. (I.e, say he
believes that this thing works, there is just this little kink, and
to get over this hump, well ... suppose that Joshua is right about
steam and mist, and Rossi knows it, but allows the deceptive
appearance to be maintained. Suppose that the story of the heated
factory for so long is a lie, "but it won't matter once we have that
Defkalion plant going."
I know of only one possible fact that would lead to a possibility of
criminal fraud, though there might be more: that would be whatever
representations might have been made to Ampenergo, which has
apparently actually made a payment. Defkalion, probably not, from
what's been said. All the mouth flapping to the media means nothing.
It's worth what was paid for it, in a sense.
And, remember, if this is real, Rossi deserves fabulous wealth.
Wrong. I have specified the experiment that would be convincing of
excess heat. I don't think there is an experiment that would
convince some CF advocates that they are wrong.
Joshua's world view divides people up into two camps. The properly
skeptical, which is the people of solid knowledge and understanding,
i.e., him and people like him, and the gullible, who believe what
they want to beleive and who cannot be moved.
In reality, almost all people are in the second camp, especially
including Joshua, at least with respect to some things. Scientists,
real ones, are trained away from this, but the training is not
perfect. The habit lingers, and it linger more with some than with others.
I cannot speak for others, but am I a "cold fusion advocate"?
Personally, I wonder what that would mean. I was a Wikipedia editor,
skeptical on cold fusion, having believed, with almost everyone else
who paid attention to the events of 1989, that it had been
scientifically shown to be an error. Then I came across an abuse of
administrative privilege, to blacklist the lenr-canr.org web site.
Eh? Why? Was it being spammed? I looked. No. Links were being used,
in modest numbers, in reasonably appropriate places. Since
lenr-canr.org is not a "reliable source," by Wikipedia standards,
occasionally an inappropriate page would be used, but this kind of
event would normally not even come close to triggering blacklisting,
which is for *massive* addition of links, by policy.
So I confronted that, and began to take an interest in the article.
And began to read the sources. Quite simply, I was -- like many
others before me -- amazed by what I found. There had, indeed, been
massive behavior of "scientists" in a way that was not quite fraud,
but that had a fraudulent effect. That is, experimental evidence was
discarded based, not on controlled experiment demonstrating artifact,
but simply by unsubstantiated allegations of error.
Does this prove that cold fusion is real? No. However, several years
of review of the evidence have convinced me that the evidence for
*some kind of low energy nuclear reaction* is very strong, i.e, a
million to one.
And when I read the statements of eminent or respectable scientists
and authors who negate this, I notice that they are holding on to,
believing blatant misconceptions about the *history* of this science.
That leads me to conclude that the situation is quite what, if we
look carefully, Joshua claims it is:
"Reputable scientists" won't even look at the evidence!
Does this mean that I "believe" in cold fusion? Well, I no longer
maintain an operating *disbelief.* Here is the challenge implicit in
Joshua's comment; I'll simply mirror what he's asking for about Rossi
-- which he won't get from Rossi, not this year, probably.
Much of the early skepticism was based on the lack of ash. What was
this nuclear reaction with no product? Few expected helium, for
reasons that I and anyone else understanding normal d-d fusion could
explain in our sleep. And if there were helium, we could also
explain, there would be -- why, there must be! -- gamma rays.
So Huizenga knew it was important when Miles confirmed helium
commensurate with heat. With no gamma rays.
Okay, the experiment that will pull the rug out from under my
acceptance of cold fusion: do the replicable experiment, it's pretty
simple, and plenty of people have done it. Do it well! Do good
calorimetry, use careful experimental technique, *to replicate the
Fleischmann-Pons Heat Effect,* which could mean using some "bad"
procedure, in some sense; i.e., whatever it takes to get the effect,
following the work of others, so that there is confidence in the
results, that you are seeing the FPHE, not some new form of
calorimetry error. In fact, if you want to be sneaky, announce the
work at this point.
But, as part of the design, collect and measure helium. Run a series
of cells, not just a couple, record the "escess heat" results from
all of them. If this is the FPHE, almost certainly, you will see much
variation in results -- or you've made a different kind of discovery!
Collect the helium. Ideally, melt the cathodes down.... or accept
that you will probably get, with solid palladium cathodes, only half
the helium. For this purpose, that's okay, it would just be better
and more accurate if you could get it all.
Code the helium samples and have an independent laboratory measure
the helium. The compare the heat and the helium, cell by cell.
Determine the correlation.
And then, using controlled experiment, show that the apparent excess
heat is artifact, whatever that takes. What it would take is not
known, but it's commonly asserted that the FPHE disappears when more
accurate measurements are made. That is obviously false, from
examining much of the most solid research, but, hey, PROVE IT!
Demonstrate the errors.
To apply this to the old example of N-rays, the required experiment
would not have been simply an anecdote, which is what Wood
demonstrated. It would have been a controlled study, using mechanisms
that would lead to double-blind tests of the observation of N-ray
effects. Use mechanical shutters to control film exposure, for
example. Show statistically that the correlation between the (now
hidden and controlled) experimental conditions and the observations
is chance. N-rays were probably an artifact of expectation, at the
edges of perception, where expectations can have a huge effect; at
least that's the standard explanation, and I think it's probably
true. So, just how does this artifact work? Show that it works! Show
that expectation affects what is perceived. Wood did not actually do
that! He merely created suspicion.
> And from what I can tell, that's exactly what Rossi wants at this time.
Fine. But I if even Rossi agrees that his demos don't give evidence
of excess heat, why exactly should I think there is excess heat?
You shouldn't. But neither should you think that there is no excess
heat, unless you have, yourself, clear evidence that there is not.
> Fraud? Maybe. It's looking really unlikely to me, but "really
unlikely" is not "impossible." What I know is that LENR is
possible, that's not in question,
Hmm. I thought you said belief like this is not a scientific
position. It's religious. A little bit of the pot calling the kettle black.
Nope. I'm not attached to it. The work I'm doing is experimental,
investigational. I'm dedicated to reporting what I find and how I
find it, as exactly as possible, and to making it easy to replicate.
Whatever it is. I do have what I'd call an *operating assumption*
that LENR is possible, which was built from years of review of the evidence.
To give an idea of what it took, take a look at page 7 of
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHcoldfusion.pdf, a graph of
results from P13/P14. I must have seen that graph dozens of times
before I realized what it implied. Does McKubre really explain it in
this slide show?
No. Nor have I seen him explain it in a way that will convey the
point I'll be making. He knows the point, he'll recognize it
immediately, I'm sure, but I don't think I've seen it explained by
anyone anywhere, except for me, in a few discussions.
These were closed cells, operated at low current for long times to
build and maintain very high loading, at 90% or more. P13 was light
water, P14 was heavy water. P13 and P14 were in series, so they both
experienced the same current. Presumably the cells were identical
except for light vs heavy water. (In fact, if you look at the details
of the original reports, the two cells do have a different full
history, but that is probably moot in this case.) After sitting for a
long time at low current, the current is ramped up as shown.
So here is what is completely obvious from that graph: there is a
drastic difference in the excess heat calculated for the hydrogen
cell -- which stays around zero, the error bars continue to include
zero, as would be expected. But the deuterium cell excess heat tracks
the current.
That alone is mysterious. If there is, for example, error in
measuring input power, say high-frequency components of this power,
perhaps caused by bubble noise, with bubbling increasing with
current, couldn't this explain the apparent heat? The answer is no,
in fact, but I can easily understand a remaining skepticism on this
point. There are physical differences between hydrogen and deuterium,
allegedly hydrogen will have smaller bubbles, perhaps, so less noise.
However, the issue is current noise, and current noise would affect both cells.
What I can tell is that this graph doesn't convince most skeptics,
because most skeptics don't study the orignal report so that they
fully understand what they are seeing. They are seeing only one
current excursion out of, as I recall, three. Basically, this current
excursion was repeated three times. The excess heat was only seen one
of these times.
The excess heat effect that McKubre reported was clear, well above
noise, *and not appearing two out of three times, under what would
otherwise appear to be identical conditions.*
I call this the "chimera." That the chimera was so clearly seen here,
under conditions where it was missing at other times, shows that the
appearance of the chimera is due to uncontrolled conditions. When it
appeared, here, it was steady enough that I don't think it's truly
chaotic, which would have been another possibility.
Which then explains the whole saga of cold fusion, why it was
considered not reproducible, why so many researchers failed. The
necessary conditions came to be much better understood, later, but
still not completely, by any means. What the *other two current
excursions* showed was that the calorimetry was working, no, it was
not bubble noise (the bubbling would be the same each time, or almost
so). You can see how the higher current produces, as expected, noiser
results from hydrogen, that's all. But I have never seen a
presentation from McKubre which actually shows the other two excursions!
(Is it in the original SRI report for EPRI?)
Skipping a whole lot of commentary that I just didn't care to read
with any care, to this sad collection.
Murray Gell-Mann at a public forum (lecture at Portland State
University in 1998):
"It's a bunch of baloney. Cold fusion is theoretically impossible,
and there are no experimental findings that indicate it exists"
There goes Murray Gell-Mann in my mind. He doesn't address the issue
of "theoretical impossiblity," he makes an off-hand comment, and
claims there are "no experimental findings that indicate that it
exists," which was, by then, ridiculous. You can question the
findings, for sure, you can question anything, but that he claims
they don't exist simply shows to me that he's not speaking from
knowledge, but from ignorant opinion, and that's possible for anyone.
Sheldon Glashow in an interview somewhere:
Devins: I guess there are stories where people don't do that too,
but those are not the ones that advance science.
Glashow: Yeah, there's cold fusion, there's the French story about
n-rays, which is a long story about something which doesn't exist.
That's not clear in meaning, and, again, indicates an off-hand
comment, spur of the moment, off-the-cuff, simply repeating the
common "wisdom." The French story about N-rays is indeed about
something that doesn't exist (well, technically, N-rays exist, but
only in the mind of certain observers; however, that's true for
everything, in a sense, complicated issue. I'll allow that according
to ordinary usage, "N-rays don't exist" is a very probable fact.") So
what did he mean about cold fusion? The quote does not actually show it.
Steven Weinberg: The evidence for all these miracles seems to me to
be considerably weaker than the evidence for cold fusion, and I
don't believe in cold fusion.
That's interesting. He doesn't "believe in cold fusion," nor would I
expect him to, but he does seem to think that there is some evidence
for it, stronger than "for all these miracles," whatever they were.
Since he was talking about "these miracles," there must be *some kind
of evidence for them.* Are you aware, Joshua, of the common-law
principle that evidence is presumed true unless controverted? Legal
systems are largely based on that, it's part of the rules of
procedure and established legal principles.
But I am prepared to admit the possibility of CF, and in fact was
hopeful for it after P&F, and have described an experiment that
would merit full blown investigation into CF.
Really? Where? Note that CF doesn't depend -- at all -- on Rossi.
Rossi is a different approach, and quite possibly a different effect,
than what P&F discovered.
You, and others, have claimed absolute certainty about CF.
Nope. I don't claim absolute certainty about anything. I've claimed a
probability that the Miles results for heat/helium were based on
common cause, with a probability of a million to one that this isn't chance.
Can you describe an experiment (in more than vague terms) that would
get you to admit it is not real?
I cannot "admit" what cannot be shown. Nor could a single experiment,
itself, reverse the impact of hundreds of them. However, a single
experiment that addresses and demonstrates the cause of what the
hundreds of experiments showed would raise questions, and if the
experiment were confirmed, there it would go. I've described the
experiment above. To repeat:
Set up the FPHE. That is, replicate it. That this can be done is
shown by the fact that hundreds have done it. Pick an approach that
isn't idiosyncratic (there are many approaches that have been used,
and many forms of calorimetry. Pick a decent one that works and has
multiple deomonstrations.)
Use the same techniques to measure heat, but, if there are
shortcomings in this technique address them. Make the measurements
more accurate, but be able to simulate the original measurements
(basically, use more accurate instrumentation; which can then
simulate less accurate instrumentation by discarding the precision in
calculation, or, say there is some source of heat: measure the source
but neglect this in the first analysis that shows the FPHE. The goal
would be that CF researchers would say, Yes, by George! He's found
it! if they see the less precise data).
And measure helium. Again, do a better job than others did, if
possible, or at least as good a job!
If your results show anomalous heat, then explain it and show with
controlled experiment, or better analysis, that the results disappear
when properly controlled.
And, of course, there is that helium. If you don't see helium, the
suspicion will be strong that you have not set up the FPHE. So to
make this complete, you have to find helium, and show the source of
it, and explain why it correlates with the heat, without the cause
being a nuclear reaction.
Good luck. Frankly, I wouldn't waste my time with this one. But some
grad student might. Of course, the problem is that, even though this
kind of research could have saved many millions of dollars in wasted
effort if it had been done in, say, 1990, any grad student who tried
to work with cold fusion found that it was not considered legitimate
research, forget about that PhD, Fred! Go do something else!
> The day of reckoning is coming.
Don't make it sound like a threat. I'd be every bit as thrilled as
you if CF turns out to be real. I shudder at the legacy of climate
change we are leaving to our descendants. And I hate paying for gas.
I'm not personally threatening Joshua, to be very clear. I'm warning
him of the consequences of his position, as they will naturally fall
on him, if he persists with high probability.
Joshua made some nice noises, a little, in what I deleted. I have no
objection if he starts to think in that way. Skepticism is healthy,
it's pseudoskepticism which is not.
