On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com>wrote:
> > It is a problem of logic, as I explained to Yugo. An assertion that cannot > be tested or falsified cannot be debated. I cannot dispute it. Or agree > with it, for that matter. It is meaningless. > You keep saying that but other people and I keep pointing out to you that Rossi can falsify it simply by running long enough when properly observed therefore it can be tested or falsified. Your continuing to say it can't doesn't make it so. What remains true is that Rossi has not properly falsified the proposition that he's faking his results. > I do not believe such a stage trick can exist, even in principle. I have > some knowledge of stage magic. > Perhaps not enough. If you did, you'd know some illusions are quite complex and the method is not at all what one would predict from seeing it. > As soon as the stage props are opened up and examined from the point of > view of the magician -- that is, from the angle the audience cannot see -- > the mechanism is obvious. It is always simple. See, for example: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawing_a_woman_in_half#Methods_and_exposure > > No matter how you fake an eCat, the moment the reactor is opened up > experts will see how it works. There is no way to hide wires. The cell is > much too small to produce a chemical reaction of this magnitude, when you > take into account the space needed for the equipment such as tanks and > burners. > Yes but in the case of the Ottoman E-cat, it was never properly opened up. One can argue a bit about the volume not seen in the finned case but it was considerable. Only Rossi knows what's in that sizeable box. And there is nothing to stop Rossi from relying on several different methods to falsify results. In Levi's experiment, some have guessed the T out thermocouple was in contact with a heating element, thus giving the incredible 130 kW out "transient". In the early small E-cat tests, Rossi relied on heat of vaporization of steam which has been argued here extensively and he also may have "goosed" the heater when nobody was looking. In the megawatt demo, there is nothing to discuss because nobody saw the data being taken! Good illusionists do not repeat the same illusion in the same show to the same audience because eventually people will catch on. Rossi may have several methods to deceive. > Arguments that cannot be tested, falsified or refuted are verboten in > science, > Could you explain to me how a properly performed, well instrumented, calibrated, long lasting and independent test of Rossi's device would not (for all practical and any interesting purposes) falsify that he was faking by illusion or any other mechanism? Note: the hypothesis that he would pass such an independent test but have faked at other times is a trivial case not worth considering for practical purposes... just in case you were thinking in that direction :-)
