«LENR is another avenue. It's not just about Rossi. If the Rossi thing
doesn't happen, then maybe something else will. Rossi has brought a lot of
attention to the field. Any researchers who have a legitimate claim are
going to benefit from this.»
–Michael A. Nelson, Nasa
On Aug 25, 2011 8:57 PM, "Jed Rothwell" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Daniel Rocha <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Pretty much the total destruction of all confidence I have in LENR. If so
>> many competent people in the field were cheated that easily by Rossi, I
can
>> expect much worse from everyone, even in the sense of self deception.
>
>
> Some questions:
>
> How many competent people in the field are convinced by Rossi? How many
> stand to be cheated in any sense? As far as I know, you can count them on
> one hand. A lot of people are paying close attention. Many, including me,
> think that the weight of evidence is in favor of the claims, based on
> previous Ni-H claims and so on.
>
> Some people from outside the field say they are convinced, such as Levi,
and
> E&K. They have actually performed tests themselves so they can judge the
> issue better than most people, and they have more reason to be convinced.
If
> I had observed the 18-hour test in person, I would probably be 100%
> convinced. (I would also have reported it in much more detail than Levi
has
> done, but that's another story.)
>
> If Levi, E&K and a few others who have not previously had anything to do
> with cold fusion have been fooled by Rossi, why would this reflect badly
on
> people such as McKubre, Miles or Fleischmann? As far as I know, they have
> not said they believe this. They have not said they don't believe it
either.
> I have been in contact with them. They are keenly interested, of course.
Who
> wouldn't be?
>
> I myself am waiting for better test results before reaching any final
> conclusion. I lean strongly toward it being real, as I said. But as I have
> also said repeatedly, Defkalion has published nothing so I cannot judge
> their claims. The 18-hour flow test was good enough for its purpose, which
> was for Levi to decide whether to go ahead with more testing or not. It
was
> pretty convincing and I have not seen any reason to doubt it, but no one
> familiar with experimental science would bet the farm on one test of this
> nature.
>
> If Rossi turns out to be a fraud, or hugely mistaken for some reason, the
> skeptics here will deserve no credit for predicting this. They have not
> discovered a single valid reason to doubt his work that was not obvious to
> everyone, including me. None of their criticism were any more informed or
> hard hitting than Celani's, Storms', mine, or others who lean toward
> believing this.
>
> As far as I know, skeptics have not suggested any improvements to the test
> techniques that Storms, I and others have not already suggested. The memo
> quoted here recently about the steam sparge test, for example, is
something
> I wrote to Rossi himself months ago. I suggested he let me do that test
> during a visit to his lab. I planned to spend all day, repeating it 5 or
10
> times, and I also wanted to do to a flowing water test. Rossi turned me
> down, as I reported here. I circulated that memo to various other people
and
> I may have published it here. It was not a bit confidential. It is not a
bit
> original, either. I did not come up with the idea. As the original memo
text
> says, I learned this technique at Hydrodynamics.
>
> If Rossi is wrong, the skeptics will NOT have demonstrated any special
> insight or ability to predict an outcome. Most experiments fail. Most
> results are wrong. Most product R&D is scrapped before the product reaches
> the market. If you always bet that a new experimental result will be
wrong,
> you will be on the winning side most of the time. This is Robert Park's
> technique. He "predicts" an outcome that everyone knows is likely, and
then
> he takes credit when things turn out as everyone knew they probably would.
> This is like predicting that Las Vegas slot machines will win more money
> than they lose.
>
> - Jed
