On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:17 AM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint < [email protected]> wrote:
> JC wrote:**** > > “Say what? That's just gibberish. I seriously doubt that Zawodny has any > idea what that sentence means, if it means anything at all. A physical > effect is allowed by a breakdown in a mathematical approximation? What that > sentence does is make people's eyes glaze over, and think it sounds > sophisticated enough that it must be true.”**** > > ** ** > > That certainly is one possibility… but it’s just as plausible that your > and MY’s eyes glaze over because you don’t have enough in-depth knowledge > of the relevant physics to fully understand what’s being proposed. > But my failure to understand something does not make it any more plausible to me. Someone could come along and claim to have a theory that explains perpetual motion machines, but I wouldn't believe it just because he could string a bunch of sophisticated buzz-words together into an incomprehensible sentence. You need 780 keV at a single atomic site to induce electron capture by a proton. This is allegedly induced by heating the lattice. So, random atomic motion representing a fraction of an eV per atom is somehow supposed to be concentrated by a factor of much more than a million by some resonant phenomenon. No amount of jargon makes that plausible. WL present all sorts of equations to justify the idea, but they don't actually calculate a reaction rate for a given hydrogen loading in Pd or Ni. People are skeptical of cold fusion because of the Coulomb barrier. The big selling point about the WLT is that it is supposed to be more plausible because it avoids the Coulomb barrier. The problem is it introduces a much bigger energy barrier. So then, the same skeptics should be more skeptical of WLT, not less skeptical. Why should telling people they are not sophisticated enough to understand the mechanism be any more effective for the WLT than for breaching the Coulomb barrier? It's another matter to pitch it at theoretical physicists, but people like Bushnell and Krivit pitch it at their lay audiences. And the last time I checked, no theoretical physicists of any stripe were citing W&L, even though it would be breakthrough physics if it were right. Even among LENR advocates, the theoretical physicists like Hagelstein don't give it much respect. > this was only an internal workshop. It was most likely background for > others who might be interested in helping. It most certainly was NOT a > full description of all the LENR work that they have done. How the hell do > you know what data they have or don’t have? What experiments they’ve done > or not done? > It's true. It's possible they have evidence that he did not present. They might have done an experiment where gamma rays that otherwise go right through a nickel powder, are blocked when it's heated in an atmosphere of hydrogen under pressure. Or other experiments that make WL more believable. But if he's trying to attract helpers, wouldn't it make more sense to present evidence like that? The presentation looks pretty similar to the one he gave in 2009. No indication of progress at all. But again, maybe he's got a reason for hiding it. Maybe, but I doubt it. Anyway, based on what's available, I remain skeptical.
