Date: Mon, 27 May 2013 11:58:24 +0100
To: Giuseppe Levi, Torbjörn Hartman, Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson, Lars
Tegnér, Hanno Essén
From: Alessio Guglielmi
Subject: Ethics of your recent work with Mr Rossi
Cc: Ugo Bardi, Dario Braga, Sylvie Coyaud, Camillo Franchini, Giancarlo Ruocco
Dear Doctors Levi, Foschi, Hartman, Höistad, Pettersson, Tegnér and Essén,
I have read your recent manuscript `Indication of anomalous heat energy
production in a reactor device containing hydrogen loaded nickel powder´ on
arXiv and I am very perplexed.
You are aware that several alleged technical mistakes have been pointed out,
such as omitting control on DC current input (which has been acknowledged by
Prof. Essén in a recent interview) and assuming that the output heat is
released by a perfect black body (this assumption is contested by Prof. Gianni
Comoretto, for example). The picture that emerges, and I am sorry if this
sounds offensive, is that some crucial measures have not been taken seriously
enough on a discovery that, if genuine, would alter the history of mankind.
However, I have an issue that appears to me even more important, because it
concerns the very essence of your continued activities on Rossi’s device. Our
job as researchers is to advance knowledge, and to do so whatever we
investigate must be reproducible by other researchers, so that the knowledge we
generate becomes established and we can move forward. This seems at odds with
your behaviour. You went to the workshop of a private individual who claims to
be solving half of mankind’s problems, and performed measures on a device that
you could not fully control and that is not available to other researchers.
Therefore, your manuscript does not contain any reproducible experience. So,
how does it advance knowledge? What do we learn?
This brings me to asking another natural question: who will profit from the
release of your manuscript? You do realise that Mr Rossi sells distribution
licences and that he needs to convince customers to order some of his plants.
There is no doubt that your manuscript will help that market, but is this
something that academics should do? Is our job to help a private sell his stuff
in the absence of solid, reproducible evidence?
In other words, I wonder whether you are adhering to the scientific method and
I wonder whether what you are doing is legitimate for academics. Others
questioned your technical ability, but I think that the ethical questions that
I am posing here come before, also because they are more understandable by the
layman. I trust that you appreciate my frankness, and I hope that you can prove
my concerns unjustified.
I am forwarding this letter in copy to several persons who are following this
matter: Ugo Bardi (Professor of Chemistry, Univ. Florence, blogger), Dario
Braga (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, University of Bologna), Sylvie Coyaud
(Scientific Journalist, Il Sole 24 Ore), Camillo Franchini (blogger, former
Supervisor of the CAMEN nuclear plant) and Giancarlo Ruocco
(Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, La Sapienza, Rome). Whoever wishes to
publish this letter is welcome to do so, of course, and I hope that also the
answer could be given public form.
Could you please forward this letter to Dr Foschi, whose address I could not
find?
Best regards,
Alessio Guglielmi
University of Bath
http://alessio.guglielmi.name
