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

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    Rossi is first an entrepreneur/inventor; his first reaction to anyone getting close to his invention is to protect his IP. He has good reason to feel this way because he has been burned in the past by unscrupulous individuals.


    This is the weakest type of meta-argument, all assumption and unprovable. Also,in the meta-world, implausible:


    Rossi does not strike me as someone concerned to protect IP. He allowed:

    • (TWICE) detailed isotopic analysis of ash
    • detailed isotopic and experimental analysis of fuel
    • detailed time vs temperature analysis of reactor operation (OK - they goyt this wrong, but if the device actually had worked it would have been invaluable)
    • detailed waveform analysis of input to heating wires


    He spend his whole time providing little snippets of operational and design information. Were this real, and a competitor trying to reverse engineer, Rossi has quite unnecessarily provides them with copious ammunition.

    Thomas,


    I have many times and in may ways tried to Ask Rossi about the following in Lugano report


    "The heat generating process is initiated by heat from resistor coils around the reactor tube. In addition, the resistor coils are fed with some specific electromagnetic pulses"


    What are the nature and purpose of these "electromagnetic pulses", stimulation of core? Triggering initial reaction?


    his answer has allways been "no comment" or "confidential" ,and recently "sorry spammed"


    Which means there is some secrets he is planning to protect by IP, or can't protect because somebody has allready patented it, but are using it and don't want to talk about uit

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    Which means there is some secrets he is planning to protect by IP, or can't protect because somebody has allready patented it, but are using it and don't want to talk about uit


    That is only one possible reason for the silence.

    Thomas Clarke


    You said, “I agree that neither Rossi nor Krivit have stunning academic records.” You are not seriously comparing Krivit’s nonexistent science education to that of Dr. Rossi’s educational background, are you?


    By the way, my original question to you about your character assignation of Dr. Rossi was answered by Mary, how did that happen?

    BBK


    I've no idea why your original q was answered by MY - you'll have to ask him/her.


    I'm not comparing Krivit & Rossi. I'm saying (as an example of what I don't consider, but what others do) that neither has impressive academic records, and that I don't take that into account when judging their reliability.

    I said:

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    That is only one possible reason for the silence.


    oystla replied:

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    Haha, yes I know, Fraud. Just to make it a litle more mysterious and If possible more beliveable...


    Seems I need to spell things out to avoid misunderstanding.


    Rossi, I'd expect, will behave just like any politician. That is he will if possible not reply when he has not a reply to make that is good PR.


    In this case it would be surprising if he wanted to get into a discussion with anyone about the tech details of the Lugano test. He must, unless particularly resistant to facts (what was that word?) have an idea at least that others have issues with this and quite possibly that the reported measurements are seriously compromised.


    This is not fraudulent, but it is typical of people and companies for whom image is more important than substance - whether they admit that to themselves or not. It would also be the right move were Rossi fraudulent, or on a boundary line where some of his statements have been on the unprovable edge of fraudulent. Whichever of these is true it will be quite surprising if we ever get evidence, so there is no point elaborating.


    Now - I think that long and rather laboured explanation is rather well implied by my comment?

    @BBCK777


    Why did you not include Rossi's reply to my reasoned request that he a) allow independent testing --Levi is not a bit independent, and b) allow properly controlled and calibrated tests. Here it is, from June 2011(!):


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    Andrea Rossi
    June 21st, 2011 at 4:16 PM
    Dear Maryyugo,
    Yes, Levi made tests with high water flow. I will ask him to make a report. Anyway you can also find reports of many tests made heating water, not making steam, on the article Focardi-Rossi published on the Journal Of Nuclear Physics.
    Warm Regards,
    A.R.


    So, Rossi asked Levi to "make a report?" So did Krivit ask levi to "make a report." But Levi never did. Even when asked personally by email by no less than Nobel Prize winner Dr. Brian Josephson. As for the Focardi-Rossi paper published in the (ROTFWL!) JONP, it said nothing about proper calibrations. It also reported "COP" as high as 200, something which has shrunk to 3 or even 1 in newer experiments -- a hallmark of free energy scams. And Levi NEVER repeated his simple liquid cooled experiment with the simple low temp ecats. It would have taken only a couple of days and would have settled the question of whether or not the ecat is real. Levi has not done it in 4 years of opportunities. THAT tells me VOLUMES. Only a complete idiot or a crook would act that way. I guess he can tell us which it is. Same sort of question with the Swedish professors who don't answer Thomas Clarke's and Branzell's excellent technical critique of their work.


    Did I think Rossi was making steam in 2011? Of course he was making steam. But all the energy for the steam came from his electrical heater! That's why he wouldn't do a proper calibration nor would he allow, much less encourage, Kullander, Essen and Lewan to do one.


    Is maryyugo my real name? Of course not. It's a pseudonym. Most people use pseudonyms on the internet so they won't be stalked by nut cases and fruitloops who frequent free energy type web sites, psychic medium web sites, and similar scam web sites. What difference does it make who I am? My assertions stand on their own. All that is required is a little scientific education -- maybe BASIC/ELEMENTARY university courses in philosophy of science, theory of knowledge, logic, and the introductions to physics, chemistry, and biology. That's all. And it is pretty clear that either you did not have those classes or if you did, they made no impression on you.


    You say I want to discredit Rossi for some unknown reason. But the reason is not unknown. I did not start out in 2011 to discredit Rossi. I started out to work with Jed Rothwell and combine talents to do a proper test of Rossi, possibly in his facility in Italy. Jed had a team ready to go and Rossi refused all protocols for proper testing and calibration. That made me suspicious so I checked into his background. I found out he was a serious criminal with a credible felony record. I followed Krivit's detective work. I looked up the Thermoelectric project Rossi did and determined it was also a scam and the prototype Rossi sold the project with was probably a sham and never existed or at least, never was shown to work. So the reason I want to discredit Rossi is because he is a scammer and a crook and seems to be making millions of dollars at it. Are you surprised I don't like that much?


    I don't really expect you to grasp any of this. If you don't have the background in at least a little bit of science, you are perfect prey for Rossi's scams. That's why people like Darden fall for it. How Rossi managed to bamboozle the Swedes is a bit more of a puzzlement. I guess we could ask them how it happened but they are unlikely to respond.


    Bernie, do you know why it is essential to perform accurate and appropriate calibration of an experiment/demo like Rossi's?


    You also failed to answer my question: if Rossi had a factory heater in 2007, what happened to it? Why aren't ALL factories heated that way world wide by now, almost ten years later? And where is this high power, highly successful prototype? I know where it is. The same place Rossi's highly successful, highly efficient thermoelectric converter prototype is. Entirely inside Rossi's crooked imagination.

    maryyugo


    Hi mary: I simply answered your question, do I believe Rossi heated his lab with his E-Cat. The answer is yes.


    Interesting you mentioned Jed Rothwell as a work mate; this history of Rossi on Rothwell’s site is very interesting. You and Rothwell apparently disagree radically about Rossi?


    http://coldfusioninformation.com/personalities/andrea-rossi/


    I simply do not understand how you and Clarke have the time to keep harassing Rossi. It is hard for me to find the time, but I will continue to answer your questions as time permits. Maybe the money will stop flowing and you and Clarke will stop harassing so I can also stop wasting my time.

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    Hi mary: I simply answered your question, do I believe Rossi heated his lab with his E-Cat. The answer is yes.


    I agree with you. I expect rossi had an e-cat running in a factory space providing heat. e-cats have significant electrical power in and will provide precisely that heat out. Rossi's ability, in such an informal setup, to measure the excess heat is highly questionable given he cannot even do this under precise experimental conditions (as in the Lugano test).


    I also agree with you that interpreting his statements literally, and allowing for variations in meaning, almost nothing that Rossi has said need be strictly untrue. It is entirely possible that some branch of the US military received for evaluation some kind of e-cat. Also entirely possible that they paid Rossi money. None of which implies that said e-cat works.


    The wonder of the e-cat has always been that whether it "works" or not becomes a complex scientific measurement which even 6 scientists given 3 months and a lot of nice kit can get 100% wrong.


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    I simply do not understand how you and Clarke have the time to keep harassing Rossi. It is hard for me to find the time, but I will continue to answer your questions as time permits. Maybe the money will stop flowing and you and Clarke will stop harassing so I can also stop wasting my time.


    I hardly think anything anyone writes here will affect Rossi. Were he so interested in what others say he would have paid attention to the Lugano test issues. More, your comment here is unhelpful. The implication that MY and I are posting things that (presumably) we do not believe for money shows both a great misunderstanding of the importance of internet forums like this (very small) and of character. It is an ad hom of the silliest sort, and does your case no good.

    Thomas and Mary

    Quote from Thomas Clarke

    The implication that MY and I are posting things that (presumably) we do not believe for money shows both a great misunderstanding of the importance of internet forums like this (very small) and of character. It is an ad hom of the silliest sort, and does your case no good.


    I think you are right, it is an assumption quite unworthy of this forum. I does however conjure up images in my mind of greenhouses and stones, not quite sure why that should be!

    Thomas

    You note the "importance of internet forums like this (very small)" Why do you spend so much time here?


    Mary

    You say you do not want to be "stalked by nut cases and fruitloops who frequent free energy type web sites". Do you know that people of this description visit these sites from your own personal experience or is this another assumption of yours?

    Mary


    Quote from BBCK777

    Interesting you mentioned Jed Rothwell as a work mate; this history of Rossi on Rothwell’s site is very interesting. You and Rothwell apparently disagree radically about Rossi?


    This from the said website:
    "While those who have followed Rossi’s progress with LENR are afraid that governments and special interest groups will, once again, stop a brilliant technology, Rossi himself remains optimistic. He has said repeatedly that the market will decide whether or not his E-CAT is a worthy technology. His basis is that, once this disruptive technology is available, no one can stop it".

    • Official Post

    The question is not if it will reach then flood the market, it will.
    if it will be engineered... it will be, and maybe it is already enough to start, with E-cat, Brillouin and who knows.


    the problems is WHEN, WHO WILL BENEFIT and WHO WILL BE DAMAGED.


    What academic are doing is delaying the inevitable.
    It is good for Rossi, and bad for all others who cannot yet compete because they are not funded as required. To be nasty, a conspiracy theory could be that Mary is a puppet of Rossi (LOL - don't take that seriously - no money can buy her passion, nor mine ).


    I've learned much discussing with LENR-Cities guys.
    The way Rossi is working will allow him to gain a very little amount of the value , and he will launch a huge creation of stranded assets, of lost companies, or bankruptcy, which will damage the global economy and slow the adoption.
    Darden make it better, because he seems better able to flood the market, but stay in the usual disruption , the destructive creation of Schumpeter, where trillion of assets will be lost, some of which are valuable, like corporate competence.
    The most probable is that they will launch a gold-rush, lose it because they are not big enough, and be overtaken by a Microsoft of LENR


    This can be avoided if you integrate the "losers" in the "winning team", and exploit their "valuable assets" to leverage the technology. However the big corps cannot do innovation their way, and there should be some organization to make those big guys helps the young boys of LENR, and vice-versa without smashing them like an elephant smash a mouse.
    There is also a need to be very quick, and this requires a parallel development of industrial capacity to flood the market to the top.
    If you cannot flood the market, another bigger group will take your position.
    Winner take all, and first to cover the majority is the winner.

    Alain


    I am not a scientist, I just have a passing interest. However, reviewing this forum is depressing not least due to the aggressive and very disrespectful critiques of the type I am sure concerned Huw Price, typically in the style of TC and MY. but even with TC & MY there is merit however that is hard to appreciate when the impression they project is so negative. But I can see a trend; this appears to agree with what the defence establishment appeared to predict http://fas.org/irp/dia/lenr.pdf and you are saying in the above post. I know Rossi claims he is close to commercialisation, I understand he has said this or something similar for many years now, but what I would like to see (as a potential buyer of a clean domestic or motive power source) is a 'self contained' demonstration device. That is a device which uses the power it generates itself as a catalyst. This would circumnavigate the complexities of calorimetric error and provide to the man in the street with a perpetual motion machine of sorts. I don't think I would need to understand how it worked so long as it was safe.


    Is this an unrealistic wish? Is anyone working on this?

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    reviewing this forum is depressing not least due to the aggressive and very disrespectful critiques


    Perhaps you could be specific in precisely where I am aggressive, or who it is I do not respect? I will apologise if I believe I've overstepped the bounds of politeness.

    Quote

    Rossi claims he is close to commercialisation, I understand he has said this or something similar for many years now, but what I would like to see (as a potential buyer of a clean domestic or motive power source) is a 'self contained' demonstration device. That is a device which uses the power it generates itself as a catalyst. This would circumnavigate the complexities of calorimetric error and provide to the man in the street with a perpetual motion machine of sorts. I don't think I would need to understand how it worked so long as it was safe. Is this an unrealistic wish? Is anyone working on this?


    It is an entirely realistic wish if Rossi has what he claims, many (skeptics) have suggested this. Rossi has never provided it. Equally, many skeptics have suggested Rossi should give up a device for black box testing (you can't see inside it, so no question of IP loss) by truly independent third parties.


    Something the length of the Lugano test conducted in this way with normal calorimetry would easily nail down long-term COP to within 10% (+/- 0.1) and produce a bulletproof positive result that would convince MY and me and the rest of the world.


    Rossi would be on the cover of Time magazine and get a Nobel.

    Those who are counting on Rossi may soon be disappointed... or not. Anyway, Rossi now says his chance of a positive result for his totally unnecessary 400 day test is about 50%!



    Such an optimist, Rossi is. And of course, after having heated a factory with an ecat in 2007, almost 10 years later, he still doesn't know if the ecat really works. Uhhun. Right. Shoore.

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