Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Jones, why do you accept this [Cooper patent application] as evidence? > > Ed - First off this is Vortex, not a peer review session. Cooper spent tens > of thousands of dollars (possibly much more) over 8 years of R&D ending > with > an effort to patent the CNT device which is described. That would mean > little if he had not already patented an advanced water filtration device > and brought it to market. His prior success speaks volumes. > This is a valid way to evaluate a claim. It is not as good as judging by experimental evidence, but it is better than nothing. The most reliable method is replication, but you cannot try replicating every claim that emerges in this field. You would have to have a staff of a hundred experimentalists and tons of money. As it happens we have no experimentalists and no money. There are two, opposite dangers here. One is that you will spend time chasing after rabbits. The other is that you will ignore an important breakthrough. On the whole, I would say this field has suffered more delays and more reversals from the second problem. People may not have given as much attention to Ni-H results as they should have. (People, including me.) On the other hand, Srinivasan paid a lot of attention to Mills, and made a good faith effort to replicate. The results were unclear. - Jed
