On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <a...@lomaxdesign.com>wrote:
> Rossi isn't in the least interested in pleasing Joshua. True. But he's doing demos. And I'm free to explain why they don't convince me, and what would. > 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 ... Somehow, Mills has gone 20 years promising a new energy source, without a single commercial product, and without even being formally accused of fraud. Rossi may believe his ecat works, and Mills may believe in hydrinos, and they may never succeed in getting a commercial product to the open market. And they may both be innocent of fraud or both be guilty. Who knows. But failing to deliver does not guarantee jail time. > 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. I can quibble too, since you put LENR (a misnomer) in all lower case. Nuclear reactions occur at low energy, obviously. Fission, alpha decay etc all occur naturally at low temperature. Even fusion has a tiny probability. The claim is that the nuclear reactions in otherwise non-radioactive material can be induced using essentially chemical or electrical means at rates sufficiently high to produce heat at useful (or even measurable) levels. I've looked at most of the evidence usually cited to support this, and I'd give reciprocal odds: one in a million. (That's generous.) > "Reputable scientists" won't even look at the evidence! Most looked a long time ago, and are satisfied that if the claims (as I put it above) were real, a convincing demo would be a piece of cake to design. That's the point. Twenty years later and 60 minutes uses Dardik's unbelievably opaque experiment and an expert's testimony after days of analysis to prove energy density a million times higher than gasoline. Why would anyone bother to look at such evidence, if not to enjoy the banter with believers? And then along comes Rossi, and all the advocates are saying *this* is what the field has been waiting for. *This* is finally the demo Rothwell and Mallove had been wishing for. And when you look at the demo, and see that it proves nothing at all, one is forced to conclude that the previous CF demos are even worse. > So Huizenga knew it was important when Miles confirmed helium commensurate with heat. With no gamma rays. Does Huizenga believe in cold fusion now? No. > Okay, the experiment that will pull the rug out from under my acceptance of cold fusion: [...] So, you want a demonstration that heat-helium are not correlated and that exposes the artifact that produces what people interpret as heat. The 2nd part of that was done for Focardi, and some people still kept believing, and now after Rossi, I think the doubters believe in Focardi again. So that's not enough. But OK, you've given an experiment that would cause you to doubt CF. It's highly unlikely to happen, because even the people who believe in CF don't seem to be doing quantitative heat-helium experiments. Skeptics would not waste their time until someone produces evidence that impresses them -- that at least passes peer review, but probably it would need to be more than that. >>> 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. Good. I don't. > But neither should you think that there is no excess heat, unless you have, yourself, clear evidence that there is not. Everywhere? I should think there is excess heat in every possible experimental situation? I think it's reasonable to use previous knowledge to make reasonable predictions about certain configurations, and change them when evidence justifies it. Otherwise, progress would be impossible. I think you said this yourself. > […] 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. […] Nope. I'm not attached to it. But you don't question it. > 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. [proof of CF because it is not reproducible] So, the best evidence you have for CF is from an experiment in 1994, in which the excess heat is a few per cent, in which the author is unable to explain it as convincingly as you can. It seems to be Rothwell's best evidence too since he uses it on his front page. That kind of illustrates the problem with CF. 18 years, and no one has been able to improve on that? To get the excess heat higher with similar convincing statistics. One problem I have with those results. When the current shuts off, the heat dies immediately. It seems implausible that the deuterium would diffuse out of the Pd that quickly. I would expect a more gradual decline. Especially with all the reports of heat after death. That points to artifact to me. But it doesn't matter. That's far from a smoking gun, and I'm with McKubre, that the fact that sometimes it doesn't happen does not strengthen the case. That means that the light water control is meaningless. Maybe after enough tries you'd get excess heat in the light water, and not in the heavy water. Anyway, one comparison means nothing if the result comes and goes unpredictably. [Nobel quotes and responses] I was just demonstrating that my dismissive attitude to CF is shared by people who are not graduate students. >> 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? In direct exchanges with you and others. The problem is that you only read the parts you can bear to. I have frequently asked for the Rothwell beaker. An obviously isolated device that remains warmer than its environment (or gets hotter) for a long enough period to obviously generate its own weight in chemical energy. It should be easy given that factor of a million. But isolated devices, standalone devices, devices that can make enough power to power themselves seem always, always, just out of reach. That's pathological science. >> You, and others, have claimed absolute certainty about CF. > Nope. I don't claim absolute certainty about anything. You said, above: "What I know is that LENR is possible, that's not in question," > 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. Later, yes.
