I think the invention was real, powerful and very uncertain and unreliable, prone to failures, malfunctions and explosions, nature of the beast.
On Saturday, August 18, 2012, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: > At 10:30 AM 8/17/2012, Arnaud Kodeck wrote: > >> I think AR is smarter than this. >> >> He said Ni+p -> Cu when it knew it was not the case. With this statement, >> he >> was sure that Cu will not be taken as a potential catalyst and only a >> by-product. >> > > Note that this could be parallel with Jospeh Papp. Papp apparently planted > red herrings in his patent applications, things that he knew would not > work, to throw people trying to imitate his engine off. Too bad that this > is the opposite of the intention of a patent.... > > Rossi can say whatever he likes about the theory of his work. It's legal. > Lying is legal, under many conditions. > > The problem is that once we know someone is willing to lie "for a good > purpose," i.e., to protect his secrets, we can't trust anything he says > unless we independently verify it. If someone would lie, shamelessly, they > would also "arrange" a fraudulent demonstration. There isn't much > difference. > > People become confused when this is pointed out, they think I'm saying > that there *was* a fraudulent demonstration. No, I'm saying that we can't > trust the demonstrations. That and little more. > > That NiH reactions might produce power is not and was not a big surprise, > because there had been other reports (more sober, more scientific in > nature). The surprise with Rossi was the level of heat and the claim of > reliability. Many knowledgeable people think Rossi really did find an > approach that generates significant heat, at least sometimes. > > It was the appearance of reliability that was new and surprising. If Rossi > did not actually solve the reliability problem, which is the > trillion-dollar question in all of cold fusion, it would explain the > delays, the confident announcements followed by failures to perform as > promised, followed by more confident announcements. "Any day now," he'd > think or hope, "I'll solve this, and then nobody will worry about my > fudging this or that." > > Comparisons with Papp are a bit shaky, because Papp was not using an > approach analogous to that of anyone else. Rossi's work is an extension of > what was already known as possible, or at least that had some level of > experimental evidence of possibility. (As to theory, since we don't know > what is happening with NiH, we only have speculations. In general, theory > cannot establish the impossibility of any specific experimental outcome, > for a number of reasons. Well-established theory can give us some guidance, > that's about all. Independently confirmed experiment trumps theory, no > matter how well-established, at least provisionally.) > > However, having said that, Papp and Rossi share a paranoia about others > ripping off their invention. With Papp the paranoia was deep and quite > damaging. It's unclear how deep it is with Rossi, some think it is a > pretense with him, a game he plays to confuse competition. > > My general point is that we do not know if the Rossi devices really do > produce power, or really are reliable, without independent confirmation. > With the Papp Effect, there is also a lack of independent confirmation, > still -- as far as anything published, I hear *rumor* of independent > confirmation, which is almost useless -- and it is clear that Papp opposed > all such. Rossi, as well, has declined many friendly opportunities for > independent confirmation of his claims. > > With Papp, though, there were ample demonstrations, witnessed by many > people, that establish one of two major possibilities: the engine was real, > and powerful, or there was an extremely sophisticated fraud. Compressed air > has been mentioned as one possibility, there could be others. Any given > fraud mode might be ruled out for any given demonstration, there is nothing > that limits an inventor to one mode of pretense. This is why we want to see > *independent* confirmations, where the inventor is not present to "guide" > the experimenters. > > We have another reason for wanting independent demonstrations, entirely > independent. It forces the inventor to communicate what is necessary to > others, thus making it unlikely that some "secret" will be lost. Sometimes, > unfortunately, that's not possible. SRI, replicating the Case Effect, used > material supplied by Case. It worked. This material was a catalyst prepared > from coconut charcoal and plated with palladium, as I recall. When the > material was accidentally discarded, nobody was able to create a new batch > of material that worked. So the SRI replication was not *entirely* > independent. Yet it did show that the particular material worked, it was > independent in that way. But, unless someone figures out how to make that > catalyst again, which I consider unlikely, there isn't any gold there > commercially, and this is a dead end, useful only for certain facts > developed. The Case replication did show heat/helium correlation, as with > other FPHE approaches. > > (I've seen people doubt the "accidental discard" report. It's believable, > especially coming from SRI. A resident of a community I was leading > discarded an object of considerable value because it looked broken to him. > It wasn't broken. Yet he was just trying to be helpful. Stuff happens, > people make mistakes.) > >
