Horace Heffner <[email protected]> wrote:
> One lasting achievement of Rossi's genius at generating free publicity may > have been to bring young people into the field. > I hope that will be the outcome. It hasn't happened yet. > The timing of all this is unfortunate. Should an ignominious failure of > Rossi' s venture occur, following the Solyndra, Inc. bankruptcy and > scandal, that will likely result in the ferreting out and dismantling, > unfunding, of any LENR work in the government or academia whatsoever. > In the U.S. LENR work in the government was dismantled and unfunded between 1992 and 1995. The field is dead as a doornail. Things can't get any worse. I am not kidding. I am not worried about the fallout from Rossi being revealed as a fake. Even if that happens he has done more good than harm. Incidentally, as far as I know, the only fake in the history of the field was from MIT in 1989. It upset Gene. I thought it was silly. It was unimportant. I doubt the original was a genuine positive, so who cares if they lied about it? I think Ed Storms concluded the original was just noise. There may be other fakes, but I have not discovered them. There may be some fake positives, but I doubt it. Why there would be? Publishing positive data gets you into a world of trouble. It is like holding up a dead skunk at a picnic. People do not flock to your side to congratulate you. I know of about a dozen compelling results such as the ones Beene and Stolper described at MIT that were never published because -- as one of the authors said to me -- "I want to keep my job." Very reasonable. People who have families and responsibilities do not wish to martyr themselves to the cause of academic freedom. Especially when you are sure to lose, and you will accomplish nothing. I wouldn't do that! I have no great moral courage. If I were an academic researcher, dependent on the good well of the establishment, there would be no LENR-CANR.org. I can do it because I am not a member of that congregation. It is odd that someone wrote to me recently saying I am a "leader" in "supporting and promoting LENR" and I have "position of authority." That's absurd. Imagine a grad student asking for a letter of recommendation from me! It would be the kiss of death. It would be applying for a job at Republican National Committee with a letter of recommendation from David Plouffe (Obama's campaign manager). - Jed
