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

    @BBCK777


    Bernie, I'll ask you again because you ignored the question. Do you know why a calibration and blank control run are essential in any of Rossi's experiments? Any idea why he never allowed one until the last hot cat experiment and then, he only permitted a deficient one that did not go up to the full operating temperature?


    Simple enough to answer. Won't take much of your precious time.


    I really wish someone would pay me to nip at Rossi's heels but unfortunately, large oil companies, car companies, and venture capitalists simply don't give a damn. Most never heard of Rossi or if they did, they know he's a joke.


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    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?


    True, Krivit doesn't have Rossi's PhD from Kensington college -- the degree he purchased from that diploma mill which was finally closed by the State of California regulators. Most of the evidence Krivit presents about Rossi's criminality is from news accounts of the time in Italian newspapers which Krivit, fluent in Italian, can read in the original. Can you?


    The other evidence is from hilarious videos like this one, which show Rossi cheating with the heater in the ecat to make more steam... and even that didn't work.


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    All of you who have not seen this video really need to.


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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.


    Fine. Then the next question, Bernie, is how it is that NOBODY has seen this eighth wonder of the world? It has never resurfaced. Surely, such a powerful device, one that could heat an entire factory and replace the heater element in the boiler, would have been tested further, shown in public, used to obtain a patent, developed further. If Rossi had that in 2007, would we not all be awash in factory heater that run for months a thimble-full of nickel and a whisper of hydrogen?


    A hallmark of these scams is that the believers never take the claims literally and never realize their implications -- implications which never materialize.

    Quote

    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.


    While I suppose the extremely long shot you propose is theoretically possible, it is exquisitely improbable compared to the reality that Rossi almost certainly fabricated the entire story from imagination and now regrets it because he doesn't mention the wondrous heater in any of his highly distorted historical pages, of which there are several. It is so unlikely that Rossi involved himself with the US military that it isn't worth considering. They would have certainly exposed his fraud and his con. For example, it was the US military (a Navy ordinance depot) and Sandia Labs, a US Government facility, which finally tested Sniffex's explosive detector and declared very publicly it didn't work. In fact, they turned over their data to the FBI and the SEC and fraud investigations resulted. No. I am quite sure Rossi gave nothing to and received nothing from the US Military. It was just his typical idiotic name dropping just as he never worked with National Instruments, and never allowed testing by the University of Bologna or the University of Uppsala despite many claims in his blog that he did. All these organizations clearly said they did no tests whatever with Rossi.

    Thomas


    I am happy to give you an example of 'aggressive and disrespectful' which I am sure you will be able to justify, but for me, as a 'critique style' it is not the language a 'gentleman' would use in the pursuit of discovery, more of a bully in defence of his intellectual territory. It seems to me to devalue some of the more considered statements and observations you make, and there are many in my opinion, of value that promote the 'science'. However, and this is critical, in my mind these lose credibility because of the 'style' you adopt. This I believe (as a general observation) was central to the proposition offered by Huw Price.


    Quote from Thomas Clarke

    Rossi is clearly incompetent, also clearly dishonest.

    @frankwtu


    Quote

    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?


    Indeed. During a chat in the course of a silly Defkalion on line video demo, I participated and James Bowery wrote that he knew where I lived and he was going to send "some of his friends". And in a psychic medium discussion group, many years ago, someone offered to issue a contract on my life. And the individual doing this was sufficiently mentally unbalanced and had the resources to make the threat very concerning. Since then, I use a pseudonym (several, actually) and also a VPN proxy server (a good, paid-for one).


    I don't consider Rossi much of a threat -- he is too identifiable. But some of his believers are quite loony tunes.


    BTW, I deal in facts, not assumptions. For example, I was called out above on some assertions I made about what Rossi said about working with the military and his million unit robotic factories and I provided exact quotes from Rossi's own blog which prove he said those things.

    @frankwtu


    The assessment of Rossi as dishonest and unreliable is not character assassination. It is based entirely on years of following his impossible and conflicting claims on his idiotic and misnamed blog, the pompously titled, Journal of Nuclear Physics, which is of course, no such a thing -- one fat lie right there. Rossi's comical qualities are highlighted by the video I posted above in which he is clearly trying to falsify results for Lewan who falls for it because he is endlessly gullible (also an evidence based conclusion).


    As for Rossi being a convicted felon and therefore a criminal, that is a proven fact from the newspaper records. He is also a serial liar as evidenced by all the claims he made of working with large companies and universities, each of which clearly published that they were not doing so. And of course, many other incredible claims.


    That he is a con man is evident from his behavior including his cheating the CERL/DOD out of millions of dollars for claims of high efficiency thermoelectric converters which never existed. I am in the process of getting a FOIA report to support this conclusion.


    Maybe you believe Rossi's newest fairy tale-- that he has worked with the ecats now going on four years (almost ten if you believe the nonsense about heating a factory in 2007) and there is still a 50% chance of a "negative result" for his current totally unnecessary and un-refereed test, squatting in some silly ship container with a collection of useless junk for more than a year, while getting millions of dollars from gullible people at [lexicon]Industrial Heat[/lexicon] and the Woodford Fund. Or maybe you didn't know all that? Please tell us your interpretation of Mr. Rossi or for that matter, Defkalion.


    Finally, credibility has little to do with style and much to do with content and facts. And in Rossi's case, the facts are damning-- absolutely and totally damning.

    Quote

    Rossi is clearly incompetent, also clearly dishonest.


    OK, you are right that my language here is not quite right. I was in a hurry and not wanting to replicate, but nevertheless I apologise. I'll correct it.


    Quote

    Rossi, from evidence of his statements over the years and demos, is at best not competent at measuring excess power, and consistently makes false and self-contradictory technical statements. His repeated claims of having a high power new energy source have never been found true when tested. Rossi has been given many suggestions (by supporters) for how he could easily tighten up specific experiments or demos so as to prove his claims. It shows a notable pattern of behaviour that he has never done this, or anything equivalent.


    I'll change the original if you give me a link.

    Quote

    It is so unlikely that Rossi involved himself with the US military that it isn't worth considering.


    I diagree, this is not binary. Of course there would be no serious involvement - that would entail responsibility, results, reports, etc. But could some military research guy have given some preliminary, informal, expression of interest? Could some informal demos have been made? Could there even be some sort of letter of interest, that might be called a contract by Rossi (I'm less sure about that but when compared with staring goats to death this is not so off the wall).

    Mary


    I am truly sorry that you experienced the threats that you did. That is unacceptable in a civilised society and to be condemned unconditionally.


    I remain of the view that the quality of communication here by some is poor, it devalues and in some cases frustrates the pursuit of discovery, a point made by Huw Price. It appears you have personal experience of quite appalling communications to you, belaying motives which border on conspiracy and I hope you will agree with me that the principle of civilised respectful dialogue applies across the full range of debate and relationships in the pursuit of discovery.

    Mary


    Quote from Mary Yugo

    credibility has little to do with style and much to do with content and facts


    I disagree, a very useful 'impression' can be gained from the 'style' of presentation in any discourse, particularly when that discourse appears unnecessarily uncivilised, as you know from your own experience, that impression can then become very influential' in your case many pseudonyms' and a VPN proxy server. Just because others have used questionable influence over you, I cant imagine why you would want to justify being 'rude' to anyone else to make your point, or would you? This is the point Price is making, I would say he is highlighting verbal bullying as a tool to discredit the art of discovery and on that point I would agree.

    • Official Post

    First Rossi have made demo.
    The first one were disproven by hypothetic ideas... misplaced thermocouple that nobody have seen, wet steam that nobody have seen...
    Only people in the room could contradict , but skeptic refused.


    Ferrara test cannot be seriously attacked, so it was conspiracy theory that was preferred.
    Lugano answers many critics to conspiracy theorist but failed in basic science, letting uncertainty to the public.


    beside that, Rossi sometime simply scewup some demon, not as fraud, but as pathetic inventor failure... a reason to trust E-cat reality, and to question his rigor.


    Now today Rossi have no interest in proving anything, and is probably even under NDA not to prove anything.
    Ferrara and Darden's test, were there to allow [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] investment.
    Lugano was there to support his patent.


    Now Mary and Thomas work for [lexicon]Industrial Heat[/lexicon], against Brillouin, LENR-Cities and other who try to compete and need support.


    Anyway , yes, LENR and even E-cat is very hard to make industrial, and even reliable at high COP.
    As Edmund Storms, Dennis Letts, ENEA have proved, you can with reasonable effort and material selection make excess heat with PdD in electrolytic cell.
    But you will just convince chemists, not physicists.


    Physicists don't trust calorimetry the same way communist don't trust free market, because it is not their domain of competence.

    Alain, I admire your running this web forum free of censorship and I appreciate it. But I have to tell you that I can not make any sense at all of your response above. Sorry!

    Quote from Thomas Clarke

    Because its fun. Ad homs like this do your case no good...


    That was an interesting response, I'm sorry you felt it was an attack on your character, not my intention, more to discover your motivation. Now I know it is for 'fun' thank you for that.


    For me it is to discover insights into aspects of the physical world and our relationship with it as a dynamic.

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    I deal in facts, not assumptions. For example, I was called out above on some assertions I made about what Rossi said about working with the military and his million unit robotic factories and I provided exact quotes from Rossi's own blog which prove he said those things.


    One swallow does not make a summer...



    Quote from Mary Yugo

    That he is a con man is evident from his behavior including his cheating the CERL/DOD out of millions of dollars for claims of high efficiency thermoelectric converters which never existed. I am in the process of getting a FOIA report to support this conclusion.


    I thought you "deal in facts", not suppositions based on incomplete evidence...

    colwyn. TWO swallows and there are very many more. As far as the FOIA report is concerned, that's just to nail it down. In every other report including the 150+ page CERL report, there is no mention of anyone who actually tested the prototype, the test methods, and the details of results. It is very doubtful that anything will be in the one I ordered but I did it to be complete. Look, if you want to believe Rossi, feel free. It won't seem very bright in a year or so. I would have told you the exact same thing three years ago. Four years ago, I was still sorting it out.

    Thomas Clarke


    You said, “shows both a great misunderstanding of the importance of internet forums like this (very small) and of character”


    Hi Tom: Are you talking about me or you and Mary. Just about every one of your posts about Dr. Rossi, assassinates his character by calling him a liar and dishonest along with all kinds of derogatory remarks about his character. You both should be ashamed, just state what you think are your facts and evidence without the name calling. It doesn’t feel very good to have your character questioned, does it?

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    You don't understand what is the difference between uncertainty, ignorance and the certainty of the negative.


    Well, the aspects of epistomology that relate to induction are are rather a hobby of mine, specifically with respect to how hypotheses in science can be compared and the utility and scope of objective Bayesian methods. So if the "you' here referred to me perhaps you'd like to be more explicit about specifically what I don't understand?


    Quote

    Hi Tom: Are you talking about me or you and Mary. Just about every one of your posts about Dr. Rossi, assassinates his character by calling him a liar and dishonest along with all kinds of derogatory remarks about his character. You both should be ashamed, just state what you think are your facts and evidence without the name calling. It doesn’t feel very good to have your character questioned, does it?


    (1) I'm quite comfortable with anyone who wishes questioning my character as it is evidenced here, however it shows little respect for the topic at hand.


    (2) If anyone here points out where what I have said is false then I'll happily justify the comment, qualify it, or retract it as needed. I don't see such requests for clarification as unhelpful. We all make mistakes and my own style is one where challenge and response, with possible correction, are seen as positive.


    (3) I was quite properly above taken to task for conflating "liar" and "often makes false statements, which are not corrected on challenge". The two are not quite the same. MY would say Rossi is a liar. I'd not want to comment on that, but when judging whether his devices work or not it is helpful to have some appreciation of how accurate are his technical statements. The fact that they are highly inaccurate informs what confidence should be put in them unsupported by other data and this is relevant to the debate.


    I've said elsewhere: "It is remarkably hard to prove that Rossi has ever lied, even though much of what he says is transparently false". That about sums up my position - and differentiates it slightly from MY who would say it is proven that Rossi is a liar. And I don't feel able to comment sensibly on whether Rossi knows that he is making false statements - self-knowledge is one of those things that is very internal and people often don't realise things that are transparently obvious to outsiders. Nor do I feel that such comment adds to the debate.


    Evaluating whether what someone says is reliable in a specific context is something we all do, and while it relates to character it is not the same as character assasination. Generalising from one context to another - e.g. from business statements to technical statements or vice versa - would be a character assasination since we all know that everyone has different skill sets and is more or less reliable in different domains.

    PS - Alain here has called me a liar on a number of occasions, and I've vigorously defended myself. Both from being a liar, and from the specific statements I make being false (less strong than being a liar).


    Alain and I have very different ways of evaluating evidence on LENR. On the other hand, I like Alain (even though I view his comments on LENR as highly unreliable, and often false), because on the evidence of this site he has at heart the idea that free speech and civilised exchange of ideas, however difficult that may be, is a good and he does a fair bit of work in allowing it to happen. We'd possibly have more fun debating matters here were my written French better.


    I contrast that with Frank Acland who at ECW does something akin to the worst type of advertising. It is not illegal, and he has every right to do it, but personally I detest such censorship and the necessarily distorted view of the world that it promotes.

    Quote

    That was an interesting response, I'm sorry you felt it was an attack on your character, not my intention, more to discover your motivation. Now I know it is for 'fun' thank you for that.For me it is to discover insights into aspects of the physical world and our relationship with it as a dynamic.


    LOL. Not so different from me then, since for me that is fun!

    Thomas


    Quote from Thomas Clarke

    LOL. Not so different from me then, since for me that is fun!


    Whilst I did think that at the time of writing too, even worse I thought we might have something in common. However, our approach is so different. Whereas my quest is essentially 'one of impartial discovery' you appear to be engaged in a 'battle' and of course with battles, history is written by the victor. I think Price acknowledged this and was suggesting this is not an ideal environment for 'honest and impartial' science.


    However, I have read many of your other recent posts though and they appear to be uncharacteristically civil, now I am listening!

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