The Playground

Quote from Alan Smith

I think it has so far, and we have only released a small amount and not the best bits either.

Of course that is your prerogative, but you cannot expect anyone to believe you in that case. I do sense you are being "shirty" when you write: "I don't regard suggestions that we know nothing about control experiments or radiation measurement as a critique, btw, it's just throwing peanuts . . ." For all anyone can tell, you don't know anything about control experiments or radiation measurements, because you have not described these things. Perhaps it is unfair for critics to say "you don't know" but you cannot make the case that you do know.

You get shirty. Russ George gets downright obnoxious. Neither of you has any right to be upset. If you don't want to reveal details, do not expect anyone to believe your claims. Frankly, if I were you, I wouldn't even discuss them. I would not publish the kinds of lyrical, content-free hints you have published here, or graphs without numbers on an axis. That is unprofessional. It is a little annoying.

I have not commented on your reports much because I cannot tell what you are doing, or what you claim. As I mentioned before, your presentation also needs a lot of work. It is seemingly contradictory. One day you claim there are gamma rays; the next day you say there are not. One day there is heat; the next day you are not even measuring it. It turns out you are talking about different experiments, or different modes of gamma rays. I think that's what you mean. But without an organized report, when the reader has only snippets and passing comments to go by, it is very confusing. As a tech writer and copy editor I advise you to write a single, organized report and upload it. I also advise you to use conventional scientific vocabulary rather than vague terms such as "dancing" gamma rays and "mice."

In the world of big-boy science, when you are working on promising new stuff that you want to keep proprietary for whatever reason, you don’t send out little teasers to your fans that are both tantalizing and devoid of content. You shut-the-**** up. Perhaps if the professionals in the nascent field of LENR would consider behaving like scientists in pretty much every other field, the field would gain some respect. Just my opinion.

I don’t care if they stay silent or not. They just shouldn’t be surprised if their little tweets are met with scorn by anyone apart from their fans. And LENR researchers are different from those in other fields anyway because they have fans. A very strange phenomenon to say the least.

Gosh Shane. If you are not an LENR fan, what are you? An expert? A researcher? A lobbyist?

Also: jealous??? Of what or whom for what? I’m keen to know.

Shane, what anti-LENR sentiments did I show tonight? I don’t actually have any so I did not show them. As you say, it is science. I am not anti-science in any way. My criticism was of the behavior of some LENR researchers, not of the subject itself. Apparently you cannot distinguish the difference between the work and the people who perform it. I am surprised. You are generally pretty sensible about all of this stuff but clearly I hit a sore point. If this is about science and not hero worship, then don’t have a fit if someone criticizes the behavior of the scientists. As for LENR Itself, I am not against it. I don’t even know what that would mean. If it is the real deal, then wonderful. If it isn’t, it’s a pity. Either way, it isn’t my battle and I have no interest in fighting about it. As for Rossi, yeah he is a jerk.

" Perhaps if the professionals in the nascent field of LENR would consider behaving like scientists in pretty much every other field"

Seems to be a broadsided slur against LENR scientists in general

Can you the biased interested observer be more specific?

Do you mean McKubre? Mizuno?

Name a few.

I don't often comment here. I'm more of a lurker. I had to respond to this though. This response by Alan is, at best, disingenuous. Russ HAS been downright obnoxious. And not because anybody inferred *anything*. He attacks the person who asks a reasonable question based on the crime of not including their life and work history and real identity along with the question.

Quote from Alan Smith

Can you count to three (how many in the team), plus a fair gaggle of people who would sooner die than post in here who are pretty sure we have something significant . And you had your chance to see for yourself, but turned it down. So maybe I don't think much of your judgement either. But that isn't personal of course.

Well that is encouraging, I agree, and you are entitled to whatever view you want of my judgement - just as I am of yours. It will be fascinating to see who is correct on this one. As you point out being a naysayer on LENR is normally a low-risk position. Perhaps you would consider my negative judgement in this case high risk? In which case if I end up being correct it is more to my credit, than if it were a normal low risk prediction?

THH

Quote from Alan Smith

but I think your claim of not understanding the nature and behaviour of the gammas we see - which I have very clearly explained to you several times at your request is positively Shanahanesque.

You misunderstand, and I think it is important you try to grasp what I am saying here. I do not know enough about gamma rays to understand the nature and behaviour of your rays. I am not trying to understand that. That discussion would be over my head. On the other hand, I would understand your calorimetry if you would take the trouble to explain it. I do not think you have explained either of these. If you have, your explanation has been garbled or lost, because of the structure of this discussion group.

What I am saying is that your explanations fail because they are fragmentary. I assume they are scattered through the messages here in this discussion group. The message system here is very poorly designed. It is difficult to find messages. You may have explained the calorimetry in more detail than I realize, but I have no way of finding your explanations. Therefore, if you wish to make a case, or if you wish to explain things, you must write a paper and post it where it can be found easily, at a fixed URL.

Although I do not understand gamma rays, I know the sort of thing you should report. You should have graphs showing background, calibration with a gamma source, and the anomalous results. You should list the type of detectors you use, and include a schematic showing the layout of the cells and detectors. You should clearly explain there are two modes: diurnal (which have apparently gone away, but I gather they might be back), and gamma rays that correlate with anomalous heat. Include graphs of both. As said, perhaps you have presented all of this here, but finding it is difficult, so you should put it all in one document where it can all be found.

It is also important to couch the explanation in conventional scientific terminology, and to include things like calibration data. "Dancing" gamma rays and graphs without numbers on an axis are not acceptable. Even in an informal chat, I find that supercilious. If you presented that kind of thing at a conference, I would walk out of your lecture. It insults the audience.

Also, you said you have held back some of your best results. That is inadvisable. I think you should put your best foot forward. Present your most convincing results. Try to explain things as clearly as you can. Remember that the audience is under no obligation to listen to you. Those are some of the lessons I learned decades ago writing technical manuals at large corporations.

If you wish to communicate your results effectively you should take these steps. If you do not with to communicate effectively, you do not need to do anything. In that case, don't blame your audience for being confused. Or for not taking you seriously.

Quote from Alan Smith

As for 'the right to get upset' of course we do have the right. When somebody infers you are stupid, negligent or deceitful, and you are none of those things, a sharp response is both fair and to be expected.

I disagree. When you publish graphs without numbers on the axis; when you describe gamma rays as "dancing"; and when you do not provide things like calibration data from a gamma source, that makes you look unprofessional. It looks stupid, and negligent -- as a presentation, anyway. If you have not calibrated with a gamma source, then your experiment is also stupid and negligent. I have no idea whether you did this or not.

It does not look deceitful because you would not deceive anyone with such poor presentations.

As I said, you may have given much better presentations which are now scattered throughout these messages, in a chaotic fashion. I cannot find them, and neither can other readers. So you cannot blame readers for having fragmented or incorrect notions, or for thinking your work might be stupid or negligent.

I say again, if you will not present a clear, well organized, methodical description of your work, you have no right to be upset when people misunderstand. Science is difficult enough to understand when it is presented to the best of your ability. When you don't go to the trouble to make yourself clear, you have no one to blame but yourself when the audience makes mistakes.