Cambridge University Professor Huw Price on the ‘Reputation Trap’ of Cold Fusion (Update: Response in Popular Mechanics)

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Yes, he has contradicted himself on a number of occasions, and he is not very measured in what he says. What conclusions do you take from this?

That he is a wannabee inventor who could easily be self-deluded, and that he is (in the normal meaning of the word, given the context that he wants people to give him money and accepts this when offered) dishonest. Perhaps he does not think he is dishonest.

The key indicator is his reaction to challenge. He never justifies what is challenged, and always distances himself from the challenger whom he calls a snake. The resulting fuss obscures the original issue that was challenged. It is a classic and well-known pattern, and one that usually indicates an overstatement of achievement.

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When a scientist makes a claim of such-and-such, I don't think it's necessary to establish a strict chain-of-custody, like one would at a crime scene. The scientist mails something to another scientist, saying, "this is the control and this is from the live run; will you please take a look at it?" This seems quite acceptable to me.

Not when the stakes are high. For example, any scientist making an extraordinary claim might have some experiment that showed this. If the only evidence came from this one experiment (and the scientists claims) and a Nobel or more rested on the result, chain of custody would be essential.

Perhaps what you observe is that scientists are generally polite. They don't accuse colleagues of fraud in this situation. They say: "we think there is probably some error, wait for the replication". If the original experiment proves unreplicable (with integrity) even by the original claimant, and there is no other merit to the results - like some interesting theory that links it to other definitely observed phenomena, they are quietly forgotten. The scientist will not be accused of fraud even if it seems pretty obvious that he concocted false results. But his results will be ignored.

There is good reason for this restraint. It is difficult enough knowing what is good science without adding issues of character and cheating to it. Far better to view all cheating as just "error". Practically this makes little difference since experimental errors are always possible and in fact usual when the claims made are exceptional. Trying to work out which claims are dishonest is an extra burden that inflames feelings but does not progress the science.

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Self delusion that he had heated an entire factory in 2007 with an LENR device? Give me a break, man! Self delusion for six years that you don't calibrate the tests with blanks, after dozens if not hundreds of people request it of him? Self delusion, my you know what! Tell you what, you stick to proving Rossi wrong, and I'll deal with his past history and motivation though Krivit and Wright have done a more thorough job of it than I could ever hope to with the time and effort I am willing to spend.

Well I'm happy not to comment with any certainty on the human aspects. The difference between us is that I see self-delusion as possibly a good deal more far reaching than you - but it does not really matter.

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Eventually I learned that a differential charge distribution has been proposed as being on the surface of the orbitsphere, which is described by the spherical harmonics. In other words, in some places the charge will be more and in others less, in a way that is mathematically described by those shapes above. But that does not deal with the problem of internal conversion or understanding sigma and pi molecular bonds. After enough times of running into difficulties like this, I asked myself, is this theory for real?

Thanks for for your thoughtful answer. I appreciate that. I would only suggest that Mills seems to be able to calculate a plethora of states such as all the excited states of hydrogen and helium as well as virtually any molecular state with his 'orbitsphere' model. It may still need some tweaking but it seems to work.

Quote from oystla

His original hypothesis of Cu transmutations was wrong

I notice that on the 'results' section of Piantelli's NicHenergy site, he claims that copper is found on the surface of his 'ash', but that this also diminishes over time.

(Deleted unconstructive reply.)

Quote from colwyn

I notice that on the 'results' section of Piantelli's NicHenergy site, he claims that copper is found on the surface of his 'ash', but that this also diminishes over time.

I can't say for sure what's going on, obviously. But this situation would be expected if copper were an intermediate step in a larger chain of reactions.

Eric,

MY turns: "guy with tech process which obviously does not work" into "fraudster". They are not quite the same. But there is a pattern here - Rossi makes extraordinary free energy claims which he is nowhere near to being able to sustain. He sets up a business claiming he has more than is the case, gets significant funding before the bottom falls out. There is never any evidence his stuff actually worked as claimed.

It is not to my taste.

You on the other hand reckon this guy might have something extraordinary, when he shows no evidence of this and a long history of incorrect claims.

The evidence for Rossi is confirmation bias. From the Swedes on he has been remarkably good at persuading people to back him. That, also, has been the case in his two historic ventures.

So - he is good at PR - in an unusual way because he appears to be a brilliant but rather eccentric inventor (I guess). That fits both a good con man and delusion where he can persuade others because he has persuaded himself.

The above is all meta-evidence. If you go by the hard evidence then things are simpler. There is none that stands up given the extraordinary nature of his claims. Worse, a history of 15 demos all which have known obvious loopholes, and a history of not closing loopholes when he is informed of them by friendly independent parties, is actually strong negative real evidence. (The independent tests are an exception. It looks like the loophole for the first one - probably bad input power measurement - was not sustainable and the alumina emissivity loophole was introduced. I guess the independent testing actually made Rossi's tests better).

Tom

Quote from Thomas Clarke

The above is all meta-evidence. If you go by the hard evidence then things are simpler. There is none that stands up given the extraordinary nature of his claims. Worse, a history of 15 demos all which have known obvious loopholes, and a history of not closing loopholes when he is informed of them by friendly independent parties, is actually strong negative real evidence.

Given this (understandable) reading of things, would you be surprised or taken aback if in five years it became established that this stuff is legit? I'm also curious about what maintains your interest, which is not intended as a criticism.

Quote from Mary Yugo

he could have patented and marketed it anywhere, for example in the US, where people were crying out for such a thing and in many ways still are. No Western government would suppress this sort of technology. Instead, they'd protect it and make billions of dollars a year from it, offering it as a service and under license to other countries. USE YOUR BRAIN, MAN.

I USED GOOGLE to discover that your conjectures are nonsense... It happens in Canada already, but I don't hear anyone in the US crying out for it, and no-ones making billions...

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=waste+to+biofuel+canada

Quote from Eric Walker

Quote from Thomas Clarke: “The above is all meta-evidence. If you go by the hard evidence then things are simpler. There is none that stands up given the extraordinary nature of his claims. Worse, a history of 15 demos all which have known obvious…

I'd be highly surprised if LENR were real. When I first came across it I read lots of stuff sort of hoping it might be, which would be great fun. I enjoy looking at the reports and working out what they really mean, usually learning stuff myself in the process - but I don't now hope for miracles. I guess I have a sort of righteous feeling that people who mislead blatently (e.g. Rossi) should get their come-uppance. But I'm a realist, it is not likely to happen.

Working out the Lugano report took me a long time and every step in my better understanding was wonderful. You cannot usually work things out so precisely, so when it is possible that is great fun.

Oh - I think ECW is an evil phenomenon. It encourages falsehood and prevents proper challenge through censorship. Of course, like any private club it is what it is - and its not for me to tell others what to do - but I still detest it. This is childish of me, I expect the people who stay there choose that illusion, and we all have illusions. The internet allows everyone to find those who share illusions.

Hopefully my question will not have been taken to be exclusionary. Thankfully you seem to be welcome here. You're not a boor at all, and even boors are not excluded.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

I'd be highly surprised if LENR were real. When I first came across it I read lots of stuff sort of hoping it might be, which would be great fun. I enjoy looking at the reports and working out what they really mean, usually learning stuff myself in the process - but I don't now hope for miracles. I guess I have a sort of righteous feeling that people who mislead blatently (e.g. Rossi) should get their come-uppance. But I'm a realist, it is not likely to happen.

It would be great if you changed your focus from Rossi to Holmlid. He is open and has produced some unbelievable results that are being ignored by science. All his work is documented. I have it all if you need it. Is Holmlid generating k-mesons and fusion from room lighting? Disproving this can't be too hard. If you can show that Holmlid is a fraud, that would go along way to disprove the concept of LENR and save us from illusion. If Holmlid has got something, just imagine how much science will change. That quest has to be interesting.

@'axil

Re Holmlid:

I was telling everyone about his orginal ToF experiments five years ago before (I bet) you had heard of him. At that time I thought they were fascinating but probably wrong (quite apart from teh inherent implausibility). Complicated interpretations often are wrong. But they were remarkable.

Since then I read his subsequent papers. They did not impress, because instead of building on the original results (which should have been easy, were they real) he produces a whole load of different weird effects with little coherence.

There is no question of fraud. It may surprise you but scientists can be wrong. In fact they spend most of their time being wrong, and that is OK.

The key things to realise is that anomalies are commonplace, and interesting. When faced with an anomaly there are many possible explanations. Some weird, some mundane. It is not usually possible to work out the right explanation - often the right one is something you just have not thought of - without a lot of persistence.

Holmlid is particularly creative in his explanations.

With the original ToF experiments he apparently had quantitative evidence filled neatly by weird impossible ultra-dense deuterium. Since then none of his other stuff adds to that extraordinary hint - and the lack of such confirmation is damning.

A shame, it would have been fun. Though the theoretical justification (Winterburg) always looked shaky. Still, by LENR standards it was pretty good.

Wow, what an interesting thread. The last time I logged on was some considerable time ago. Its comforting to know that you guys, clearly from the establishment scentific community, are 'diving in' to what may back then have been considered 'poluted waters' by all but a brave few, Axil you wil remember. This in itself legitimises the research into the 'phenomena' along with the expontential increase in world wide investment. Shame the focus seems to be on Rossi, an easy target for the nay sayers. Cant say I find the personal critisisms helpful, reminds me of the Pons and Fleischmann demise, a return to which history would not record as being particularly civilised I feel.