On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote:
> Cude wrote: > > > So some things are impossible? You should keep an open mind. It doesn't >> > violate any principles of physics for a mist of micrometer droplets to >> > travel through a hose, and it is far more plausible than radiationless >> > nuclear reactions producing heat. >> > > What is possible and impossible can only be determined by experiment. Our > state of mind, being open or closed, has nothing to do with it. > Of course. I was mocking all the believers who so often adjure skeptics to keep an open mind. We know that radiationless nuclear reactions are real because they have > been widely replicated at high signal-to-noise ratios. > This would only be effective for the small minority of people who accept the evidence that expert panels have rejected. It is a useless argument for those of us, including you, who before Rossi, did not accept that the evidence suggested such reactions were possible in H-Ni. You said: "As far as I can tell, they disproved the Focardi claims." > It would be easy to test whether micrometer droplets can travel through a > hose. I could set up a test to do that this afternoon, since I have an > ultrasonic humidifier. I would use a plastic bag to funnel the mist into a > short garden hose, and put a bucket at the end of the hose to collect the > water. > Even if your mist did not survive, that doesn't prove it's impossible. It just proves that it doesn't work for your hose, at your temperature, and with your flow rate, and on the particular day of the week. Rossi may use a special catalyst on the inner hose surface that promotes the formation of surface plasmon polaritons in a fluctuation of the electromagnetic field that violates the Born-Oppenheimer approximation and promotes the survival of mist. But to be serious, it would seem the temperature, flow rate, and hose diameter would be pretty important parameters. You'd need at least to add in the flow of gas from a bottle at high speed to simulate the presence of steam in Rossi's hose. > If Cude wants anyone to believe this is possible it is incumbent upon him > to do a test. > Again, you're mixing up the onus. Rossi has done a demonstration, and I'm simply explaining why it is not convincing. It's not as if it would burden Rossi in any particular way to avoid these ambiguities, as everyone has frequently pointed out. He could have sparged the output and measured the heat; he could have increased the flow rate to prevent phase change; he could have measured the speed of the output fluid. Instead he measured the temperature of boiling water to keep things sufficiently uncertain that his followers would not turn away. I'm sure it's true that believers will not accept the skeptical argument about mist without a demonstration, but to me the definition of "impossible" is trying to convince a believer. But likewise, skeptics will not accept Rossi's claims without an unequivocal demonstration.
