On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:30 PM, Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Why do you say this, Eric? Do you have evidence I do not know about? Can > you give a reason why the statements are not correct? > I have seen what you and the others have seen. Rossi has been consistent in much, although certainly not all, of the technical claims he has made (let us set aside for the moment his business claims). What he is saying is by and large consistent with what Focardi and Piantelli and others have presented in other connections. Much of what Rossi has said has been borne out by further investigation, as in, for example, the report of the team under contract with Elforsk. With this history, I see no reason to give Rossi a blank check. But neither do I see grounds for rejecting his claims out of hand. > On the other hand, I can give reasons why I think the statements are > correct. If I were uncertain, I would say so. However, I think my reasons > are strong enough to give confidence. > It is my belief that your reasons for rejecting Rossi's claims are largely theoretical and do not go back to experimental evidence relating to NiH. What has been learned about PdD electrolysis is only somewhat applicable to an NiH gas phase system, especially if one has not obtained great amounts of excess heat with such a system (as very few have). In this regard, Rossi and Defkalion are in a league apart from even the researchers who have focused for years on NiH. We can ignore them, but if anything they claim is true, they know more about NiH than the next ten researchers combined. > What are your reasons for not agreeing? > I am arguing for approaching their claims with an open mind rather than rejecting them in the attitude of a knower. > Science is based on choices, not on accepting every claim. The choices are > based on knowledge. Sometimes they are wrong, but at least the reasons are > clear. What are your reasons for believing Rossi and DGT? > I don't necessarily believe them in everything they've claimed. I believe there's a good possibility that they've made solid observations and, with some amount of obfuscation, they've reported them largely in tact. I personally can piece together how their claims are internally consistent. It is quite remarkable how what they've said over the years can be made sense of. > As for transmutation producing energy, if the rate is great enough, > transmutation will produce detectable power. The problem is getting > sufficient rate. No measurement shows a sufficient rate can be produced. > Here we're drawing lessons from PdD, we're drawing lessons from low-gain NiH, and we're drawing lessons from our own personal theories. We are not, specifically, drawing upon a solid base of experimental research in NiH. Rossi and Defkalion, if we're to believe anything they've said, are obtaining kilowatts of power. Given this success, and given Rossi's claim to have observed transmutations that are orders of magnitude above measurement error, I may balk at his claim, but will not set it aside willy-nilly. In addition, the huge Coulomb barrier stops the reaction, which eliminates > the claim unless a method to overcome it is identified. I have suggested a > method, but the rate would nevertheless be small. > Here you're providing theoretical reasons to ignore Rossi's claims about transmutations being the primary source of heat. Note that they are very similar to the claims made to discount d+d fusion as the primary source of heat in PdD. > As for the magnetic field, this is based on a statement by DGT without any > evidence being published. This is hearsay evidence. It has no value even in > law, much less in science. > The search for truth is about as far away from the pursuit of law as any two pursuits can be in this world. It is a pity that the common law has the strict rules of evidence that it does. It's an even greater pity that scientists conceive their work in a similar vein, where there's a written record, and anything that has not successfully been entered into the record is ignored. Eric
