Jones Beene wrote:
Many of us are on record as seeing Rossi's breakthrough as largely serendipitous. He gives absolutely no indication of high level skills in many fields, and the entire scenario is consistent with a failed but persistent inventor having a large dose of good fortune and not much else.
I strongly disagree. He is a genius. I have know some extremely smart people in my life such as Fleischmann. I know them when I see them. Rossi is one. Nobody could possibly discover what he did by luck, or by randomly searching. As Ed Storms said of finding a good cathode, that would be like trying to find a potent semiconductor by randomly testing gravel from your driveway.
Rossi is, perhaps, and intuitive style genius, or a hands-on type, such as Edison, or such as Michelangelo or Rodin. A great sculptor without tools or stone to work with is nothing, and has nothing. Sculptors not express their genius in words or in actions. They do not give organized presentations. They do not have reasons or explanations for their work -- art critiques in books are mostly nonsense. Their work cannot be analyzed or understood in any terms other then sculpture itself. The only proper response to work of art is another work of art. Rossi is a genius level artist who works with catalysts, metal, heat, flowing liquid and gas, and thermodynamics. He understands these things at the level Fleischmann or McKubre understand electrochemistry, which is to say you or I could not rival their skill if we worked every day for 40 years.
There is such thing as genius. Some people have an extraordinary ability to do one thing or another, that puts them far above the curve of normal distribution. See Robert Cringley, "Accidental Empires." Such people may be ordinary in other aspects of their intelligence or skills. They may even be rather dull, since they spend most of their time doing the thing that sets them apart from the rest of humanity.
There is no correlation between being a genius and being a nice person, or stable, dependable, moral, conservative or liberal. Genius are often happy because they often make a lot of money. Money is not a certain source of happiness but it is more conducive to happiness than is poverty.
- Jed
