Peter Heckert <[email protected]> wrote:
> Rossis demonstrations are as if Edison had drilled a pinhole in a box, put > the bulb in and demonstrated that light came out of the pinhole. "Sorry I > cannot show you more, unless you give me a million after succesful > demonstration". > On the contrary, Edison's strategy resembled Rossi's. He did demonstrations with goal of impressing the public and causing a tremendous buzz. His demonstrations looked impressive to the public but they proved nothing. The scientific establishment did not believe him. You have to understand, Incandescent lights had been around for 20 years. Scientists knew they were possible. They did not think Edison had really solved the problem he said he would, which was "subdividing" lights in the terminology of the day. (In modern terms, putting them in parallel.) Many experts had tried to do this, and failed. His investors also wondered and worried that he had not really succeeded. Edison did not bother to try to convince the know-it-all scientists. He aimed instead to wow the public by putting on displays of lights, that might actually have been in series, for all anyone could tell. Quoting various sources I wrote: When Edison was developing the incandescent light, he hung lights outside the Menlo Park laboratory and turned them on every evening. People came from miles around to see. Extra evening trains from New York had to be scheduled to accommodate the crowds. This did not stop the inevitable attacks by the establishment. A distinguished professor called the light bulb "a conspicuous failure, trumpeted as a wonderful success. A fraud upon the public." The Scientific American published a letter saying it would be, "almost a public calamity if Mr. Edison should employ his great talent on such a puerility." Edison did not sway the establishment at first, but he enlisted broad public support. . . . http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcomparison.pdf He also did a series of demonstrations that failed spectacularly, not unlike Rossi's. The failure was even spectacular because Edison accidentally set fire to the furniture in his house. His wife hustled the investors into the next room for lunch. Inventing new technology is never easy, and it never goes according to plan. People who think Rossi and Defkalion are faking or fooling around because they are late and their devices produce only 470 kW instead of 1 MW know nothing about history, and nothing about technology. "Only 470 kW" is an incredible thing to say in the context of cold fusion. That is ~469,900 W more than the second best experiments in history. - Jed
