On Apr 30, 2013, at 12:01 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Edmund Storms <[email protected]> wrote:
First, most people believe Rossi is a fraud and cannot be believed,
but they will nevertheless believe him when he claims his heat
results from transmutation of Ni.
I believe those are different groups of people. Where there is
overlap, the person is saying "assume for the sake of argument that
Rossi is telling the truth . . ."
Jed, while this might be different groups, I get the impression that
many people trying to make sense from his claims do not think highly
of Rossi as a scientist, yet they will use his claims in their
explanations. A person can not have it both ways.
As Lou suggests, we need a method that produces the effect reliably.
This goal is being sought but it must be based on a useful
understanding of the process. A useful understanding must be based
on what has been observed and how we now know Nature to function.
Generally speaking yes, but there have been a few discoveries that
were novel and unprecedented, such as x-rays and high temperature
superconductors (HTSC). As I understand it, to explain x-rays,
physicists had to overturn a lot of established physics. Last I
checked, HTSC has not been explained at all.
Until we do explain cold fusion, the possibility remains that it has
almost no connection to previously established physics. That would
be something along the lines of the Mills effect or zero-point energy.
Of course, anything is possible. But progress is only made when the
huge number possibilities that a clever person can imagine are reduced
to a few that can be tested and are consistent with what is observed.
Observation is the ONLY test of reality. Theory MUST ALWAYS fit what
can be observed. Anything else is faith or imagination. That
requirement is the basic difference between science and most other
fields of study.
I think it goes too far to say that an explanation "must be based on
what has been observed." Revolutionary discoveries such as the x-ray
may be increasingly rare, but we cannot rule them out.
The discovery of X-rays was based on observation, which then generated
an explanation based on further observation.
To say "how we now know Nature to function" goes too far. It is only
how we think we know.
Of course we do not know everything and some of what we know is wrong.
But this does not give a person freedom to ignore what is well known
and imagine anything even when it conflicts with hundreds of years of
study. How far do you think this freedom to propose anything should
go? Would you make a typical high school freshman a professor at a
university to teach physics because he has a rich imagination? What
standards of knowledge do you think should apply during a useful
discussion?
It can always be wrong. This is described in many books about the
philosophy of science. Physics seldom changes these days, but I
think that is a cultural problem. There are no revolutions because
the physicists ignore anomalies.
While this is frequently true, it is not always the case. The problem
is that anomalies are frequently the result of errors and uncontrolled
variables. If an anomaly gets large enough, I can tell you from
personal experience, it is not ignored for long.
Ed Storms
- Jed
