Joshua Cude <[email protected]> wrote:
> It is not a bit random. >> > > > Storms calls it erratic, and dependent on luck and nature's mood. > Erratic is not the same as random. When computer equipment fails because of overheating the performance is erratic but the cause is well understood and not a bit random. You can predict it will happen by inserting a thermocouple and watching the temperature rise. You can fix it by improving ventilation. Random means there no clearcut cause and you cannot predict when it will happen. Cold fusion cathodes fail for reasons that are obvious after the test. You can often look at one with the naked eye and see that lines of bubbles are forming on it coming from large cracks. Or you can see the whole cathode is warped from uneven loading. There is no question why it failed, and no chance it will work. The reasons why cathodes crack or warp are complex, but they are understood by people at JM, ENEA and elsewhere. Loading is difficult to control but not random. It is like the problem of exploding rockets. Rockets do not explode randomly. There is always a reason why a particular rocket explodes. Experts can usually figure it out from telemetry. It is an expensive way to improve the technology, but it has gradually worked. Rockets explode much less often than they did in the late 1950s, during the Vanguard program. - Jed
