In 1908, the Wright brothers ignited the first modern worldwide media frenzy by demonstrating the airplane. They were soon feted by Royalty in Europe, and by the president in the White House. They were in the headlines for months. They flew in front of a million people in New York City in 1909. Air races soon began, and aviators become international celebrities.
Meanwhile . . . in small towns across America, many people thought it was all a gigantic hoax. They thought that airplanes are impossible, and the news stories were bunk. They resembled the people today who think the moon landings were staged, and the airplanes that crashed into the buildings on 9/11 were holograms. Around 1912, an aviator came to a town in the U.S. with an airplane crated up in the express freight car. He wanted to do a demonstration, and charge admission. The sheriff soon came to him and said: "Son, you better take the next train out of town. A crowd is gathering to tar and feather you for fraud. You can't fool these honest country folk with your big-city hoax." That really happened, although I embellished the dialog . . . Anyway, let's imagine I am standing out in a field with one of those stalwart sons of the soil, and an airplane flies over. ME: Look, an airplane! It must be 1,000 feet up! What did I tell you? SKEPTIC: It is *not* 1,000 feet up! No way. I am an expert in trigonometry, and I assure you, it is no more than 635 feet. ME: Okay, but it is way up there. SKEPTIC: Look, you just made an error of more than 300 feet. A 300 foot error! That's 635 feet plus or minus 300 feet, so as far as you know, it could be only 335 feet high. Make another error like that, and it could be on the ground. ME: But, but . . . it was right up there. It can't be that far down . . . SKEPTIC: You don't know how far up or down! You can't say with any precision. If you don't know exactly how high it is, you can't prove it was up in the air at all. Look at Heffner's analysis. He shows the COP might even be negative. For all you know, that airplane might be 100 feet under the ground. Without precision measurements and the proper instruments, you have nothing. ME: But we saw it! SKEPTIC: Let's not talk about what *you* saw. Let's talk about what I know, as an expert in trigonometry. I assure you, that airplane could not have been more than 653 feet, 4 inches, and 5 sixteenths of an inch. Since I can determine that with such precision and authority, I must be an expert and I must be right, so the airplane might actually be on the ground. Estimating the height from observations, first principles and common sense is junk science! You cannot know anything unless you look at how the thermovoltage will be partially shorted. This is VERY obvious. You have to look at "fine" sources of errors, and unknown errors. You haven't even considered the issue of thermal electroosmose. Not only that, but there is a huge difference between a crude flying machine and a real means of transportation. Rossi claims he will sell his products soon, actually they are not usable yet, they are technologically immature. Yes, that sounds ridiculous. But it is no more ridiculous than the assertion that 30 L of water in a poorly insulated metal box can boil for 4 hours with no source of energy, while you add another 60 L of cold water. (Or 30 L, or 10, or 5 if you like!) If you accept the eyewitness accounts that the power was off; that the box remained hot; water at a visible flow rate emerged from it; and it was so hot it burned someone three hours later, then either you accept that it was producing kilowatt levels of heat internally, or you are a scientific illiterate. This does not rule out fraud, but fraud is about as plausible as the notion that the airplane flying by in 1912 was actually suspended on a steel cable. How would you get the cable so far up with no visible means of support? Fraud is more implausible than a real reaction would be. - Jed
