Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

Quote from cam

Professionals rely only on EXFOR, the IAEA and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) experimental nuclear reaction data. You can find anything related to nuclear reactions in that huge data bank. For example you can find the excitation function for any nuclear reaction.

Benvenuto Dott. Cam,

I think I have read these words somewhere already.
You don't expect your views to be too welcome in a Forum devoted to proving cold fusion do you?
I hope theorists and experimentalists here will appreciate some fact-checking. We've had a lot of "excess heat" lately.

Un saluto

Andrea S.

Quote from Mary Yugo

You call it a scam, fraud and deception on the part of the perpetrator (Rossi)

As you well know, my position about the F-issues (and scam is an F-subspecies) is totally different from yours (see for example: http://ecatnews.com/?p=2686&cpage=6#comment-143913). IMO, it is unfair, and probably not legit, calling someone a fraudster in public, unless there is a sentence of a judge. Secondly, in the specific case of the Ecat affair, I don't see how it is possible that someone has been defrauded, but even if it was, the above point prevails. Anyway, we can still talk about a lot of details of this story, without alleging any crime hypothesis.

As for the rest of your comment, we already had some confrontations on those issues on ecn. So, if you don't mind, and in consideration that that site has been abandoned to its fate, I'd transcript here below one of the latest comment I addressed you and that answers most of your points:

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http://ecatnews.com/?p=2686&cpage=5#comment-143535

Ascoli65

May 10, 2016 at 4:49 pm

@ Mary Yugo,

– I am not sure of what you are referring to or it’s importance. Maybe a quote would help.

As I tried to explain, in my broken English, in the above linked comment, I am referring to the need to understand who is really involved in this affair. I think it’s a matter of the utmost importance, I would say it’s the first question to be answered. Almost all commentators on ecn take for granted this implication: “not working Ecat” ==> “Rossi’s scam”. I don’t agree. The scam hypothesis does not fit with a lot of details, the main of which is the possible origin of the JoNP domain, as alluded by Krivit six years ago. IMO, this prejudice prevents from seeing the real big picture.

Since the Ecat was presented to the general public as a device capable of producing kW and MW of excess heat, in order to guess who could be behind this affair you should analyze how and when they were built the altered data used to claim this fake excess heat.

The most sensational case of data manipulation is, and will always remain, the demo of January 14, 2011, because this test was conducted in an academic context, in the presence of a dozen professors, including the two deans of the leading physics institutes in Bologna. In this context, you cannot justify any data manipulation, for whatever reason.

The data on which the incredible excess heat was stated were based on two highly manipulated values: the flow of the coolant and its status at the outlet. The time sequence that led to the wrong first datum, the flow rate, has been summed up in the comment that I had linked above. You can find all the necessary original quotes at the end of my comments. In other words, if you go back with the links, you’ll find all the original quotes you need.

As you can see, at least four people were apparently involved in the process of finalizing the data appearing in UniBo report: Levi, Rossi, Rothwell and Melich. For sure, Levi knew that the flow rate written in his report was strongly oversized, because he calibrated the pump for 2 weeks before the test. Moreover, the maximum capacity of the pump appeared on a label on it, as witnessed by Lewan in his following April reports. Therefore, Rossi, as well as all the other people present in the test room, had the possibility to easily know the maximum allowed cooling flow. But the exact value and the weird way in with which the flow rate was written in the Levi’s report has been initially reported by the other two people. Therefore, it would seem that the determination of such fundamental datum is the result of a consultation that took place across the Atlantic.

– Jed was pretty darn bamboozled by Rossi and whoever Jed’s private contacts were who were feeding him Rossi-says stories.

I think that you’re too focused on Rossi. The data documenting the excess heat claimed after the many Ecat tests held during 2011 are not Rossi-says. They appear in reports written by university professors, or by journalists who documented the results of tests carried out in the presence of university professors.

But, as you well know, Rothwell wrote thousands of comments to defend the soundness of those data, and has been the most staunch opponent of all those people, like you, who advanced doubts about the correctness of the measures. You’ve just reported a case in point.

This behavior can only be explained in two ways: either he is extremely gullible, or he is extremely cunning. Taking into account his analytical skills, demonstrated in thousands of long and brillant pieces, I would tend to exclude the first hypothesis.

– Jed even believed that Rossi really had an ecat reactor which heated an entire building around 2008. […] Jed still believes it.

How do you distinguish between what a person says and what a person believes?

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I hope this also gives JR an opportunity to provide us some more clues in order to better understand the real genesis of the calorimetric data reported for the January 14, 2011, demo.

Quote from Ascoli65

This behavior can only be explained in two ways: either he is extremely gullible, or he is extremely cunning. Taking into account his analytical skills, demonstrated in thousands of long and brillant pieces, I would tend to exclude the first hypothesis.

I was there on Vortex when Jed defended the conclusions of people he was in contact with who thought that at least one E-Cat test had merit. He will staunchly defend a possibility if there is someone he trusts providing him his data. To suggest that he has been operating from a place of cunning (i.e., deceit) stretches credibility.

Quote from Eric Walker

I was there on Vortex when Jed defended the conclusions of people he was in contact with who thought that at least one E-Cat test had merit.

Eric, I didn't mean "at least one E-Cat test", but I wrote "the demo of January 14, 2011", a WELL SPECIFIC test, on a well specific device.

That demo was not a generic Ecat test, it was THE launch of the Ecat in the world. If you was on Vortex on that time it was due probably for THAT test. If you look back at the archived mails, you will see that JR not only did vehemently defend the conclusions of that test, but he was among the firsts to report publicly the extraordinary energetic results, many days in advance with respect to the UniBo official reports.

Those results were based on large flaws, the biggest of which was the missing of the most important instrument, an absence that everyone could have been able to detect by simply observing for a few minutes any of the dozens of photo and video frames available for that test.

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He will staunchly defend a possibility if there is someone he trusts providing him his data.

I know, he is very determined to defend his position, but in the case of the January 2011 demo there was no need to trust anyone. He could have checked in short time the compliance of all the data that he was gathering. In a couple of weeks he could have had at his disposition, from the open web, 3 videos, dozens of pictures, some preliminary technical descriptions and calculations, 3 reports issued by a University Department of Physics, uncountable declarations and interviews of the witnesses, journal articles, TV reports, hundreds of comments on tens of blogs, and so on.

For any physics professor or for anyone who has a minimum of experience with calorimetry, it should have been quite easy to realize that the most important instrument was not used. And this should have been even easier, for anyone privy of firsthand information, as JR was.

Quote

To suggest that he has been operating from a place of cunning (i.e., deceit) stretches credibility.

I didn't mean "deceit". The first Italian translation of "cunning" on a web dictionary (http://it.bab.la/dizionario/inglese-italiano/cunning) is "astuzia" and the first example cites Machiavelli, of which JR is an esteemer.

And finally, sorry, I don't understand what do you mean with the last two words, which credibility would be stretched?

The phrase is "stretches credulity," not "stretches credibility" (I wrote it incorrectly). It refers to something that is very hard to believe.

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You don't expect your views to be too welcome in a Forum devoted to proving cold fusion

I don't think so. In this Forum people are sincerely devoted to science. I think that everybody is aware that nuclear science is collected in some important nuclear data base; the most important among them are surely BNL and IAEA I have recently quoted, but there are many others:

Japan Charged Particle Nuclear Reaction Data Group, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
Center of Nuclear Physics Data, Russian Federal Nuclear Center (VNIIEF), Sarov, Russia
China Nuclear Data Center, Beijing, China
OECD/NEA Nuclear Data Bank, Issy Les-Moulineaux, France
Nuclear Data Centre, Obninsk, Russia
KAERI Nuclear Data Evaluation Group, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Indian Compilation Group: BARC and others, India

All these data bases are accurately kept updated. In fact it is needless looking elsewhere for getting information on a particular nuclear reaction.
Queries are easy for those who belong a normal competence in nuclear field. They can be deceiving for amateur scientists.
In most cases getting the excitation function for a reaction is all we need.
Saluti

Ascoli65, addressing to MaryYugo:

it is unfair, and probably not legit, calling someone a fraudster in public, unless there is a sentence of a judge.

I understand your position: Rossi is so much used to suing anybody crosses his road, that you are afraid of using direct words.
Instead of "scam" you can use a lighter expression such as "as nobody has never seen one of his reactors, one could doubt they exist". Same meaning, other words.

Quote from Mary Yugo

IMHO, Jed is very optimistic, overly so, and therefore gullible.

I don't like at all name calling the people. I find it absolutely useless and irritating. And anyway, no, I don't think he is gullible, not for sure on the matter we are talking to.

He catalogued thousands of documents on CF/LENR, most of which deals with the calorimetric techniques or excess heat measurements. For his words, he has some personal experience with calorimetry, owns his personal instruments, and spent weeks in labs with world-class scientists, as Fleischman and Nobel laureates. It is absolutely not possible that it didn't look for the position of the few instruments used for measuring the input and output powers during the demo of January 14, 2011. It was the first public demo in the CF/LENR history in which the production of an industrial amount of excess heat was claimed. I find absolutely impossible to believe that someone with his experience did not realize that the probe with the yellow cable, shown on top of the Ecat in dozens of pictures and video-frames, was completely different with respect to the "HP474AC" probe, cited in the calorimetric report and shown to be on top of the Ecat in Fig.2 of the same report.

Even a kid could do it. It is not rocket science. It is as simple as to distinguish a banana from a potato.

Quote from Eric Walker

The phrase is "stretches credulity," not "stretches credibility" (I wrote it incorrectly). It refers to something that is very hard to believe.

So, your previous statement, leaving apart the "deceit", would sound as:
it is very hard to believe, that he has been operating from a place of cunning.
Wouldn't it?

I don't know from which standpoint he operated in the Ecat affair, but look for instance at this phrase of him (1):
"One of the cardinal rules of being a good military leader or a good politician is to make do with what you have, and to find a way to win by subterfuge if you do not have a material or strategic advantage. Cold fusion is very much a political fight, so we should take lessons from these disciplines."

or at this other one (2):
"Also you cannot make something a crime after the fact. In the U.S. that violates the Constitution. There is no law against lying about cold fusion, or any other physics or chemistry. People do it all the time, in every major newspaper! Also any such law would violate freedom of the press."

If I have correctly understood the sense of these phrases (he can correct me), it seems to me that, in order to support the LENR field, he would have welcomed the adoption of some, how to say, machiavellisms?

Now, the big question is, how many machiavellisms have been adopted since F&P?

And again. This thread deals with an E-cat test for which no public information is available. Does it also belong to the above set of tests?

(1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg73665.html"
(2) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg64649.html"

@Ascoli65,

You seem smart. But even Jed's opponents here will perhaps agree with me that you're on the wrong track in thinking Jed Rothwell is operating from a place of Machiavellian cunning. You're surely overanalyzing the situation. Jed does not give me the impression of being one to lie about anything. As one example, he has made embarrassing admissions after the fact, as was seen with the mistaken Mizuno results.

If Jed is worked up, he can debate just about anything into the ground, sometimes drawing upon arguments that are tenuous or that go back to personal opinion, and he doesn't seem to like to back down from a position he's committed to. These are different matters.

Quote from Ascoli65

If I have correctly understood the sense of these phrases (he can correct me), it seems to me that, in order to support the LENR field, he would have welcomed the adoption of some, how to say, machiavellisms?

My suggestion, one that you are free to disagree with, is that Jed Rothwell is not making use of Machiavelian tactics now, and hasn't in the past.

And anyway, no, I don't think he [Jed Rothwell] is gullible, not for sure on the matter we are talking to.
JR has been overthinking for five years before admitting:
2011, when Rossi came on the scene, he has caused more harm to cold fusion than the DoE, Nature magazine, and the other mainstream opponents combined.
He trashed the reputation of cold fusion.
Steve "snake" Krivit has been the smartest among the science jounalists involved in the Focardi/Levi/Rossi affair. Most of them have only been able to wait for good news.

Quote from Mary Yugo

And remember that like Jed Rothwell, Krivit is/was an LENR enthusiast who *wanted* LENR to work! Any form of LENR.

While you are remembering, you might remember that Rossi invited me first. I told him I would measure the temperatures and flow rate myself, with my own instruments. He immediately uninvited me, and called Krivit instead. Krivit did not make any effort to measure temperatures or the flow rate. He did not even write down the make and model of the instruments Rossi used. When I asked him about this, he could not recall any technical details. If he had done a modicum of checking he could have learned more about this test. So I do not think he did a good job. Just finding out about Rossi's checkered past is not enough. You need to tell the reader what instruments were used. (Probably, the wrong ones.)

Quote from Eric Walker

But even Jed's opponents here will perhaps agree with me that you're on the wrong track in thinking Jed Rothwell is operating from a place of Machiavellian cunning.

I'm not an opponent of anybody. I'm only interested in clarifying the facts we are talking about, and absolutely not with the intent to raise any accusation, but just because it is the only way to fully understand what exactly is the CF/LENR phenomenon (I mean the socio-mediatic one). This is overwhelmingly important. In the "What is LENR?" page of this site you read: "This can be one of the most important steps in the history of mankind", ... if it were real. But if it is false, how denounced by the mainstream science since the 1989, this is the most absurd case of self-deceiving of the humankind. This is the real risk. When a caravan is in the middle of a desert with a half of the initial resources remaining, there is nothing worse and less wise than running after a mirage.

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Jed does not give me the impression of being one to lie about anything. As one example, he has made embarrassing admissions after the fact, as was seen with the mistaken Mizuno results.

In a your previous comment you cited two words: "credibility" and "credulity". These words should be extraneous to any proper scientific initiative, but they are at the core of any propagandistic scheme. Science is based on "demonstrations by experts", propaganda is based on "public perception". Speaking in general, the admission of errors on a few marginal cases, increases the perception of reliability on all the others more important issues. That's a sort of trade-off. But, anyway, I won't say that this applies to JR. I'm only interested to the facts, and, since he is one of the main protagonist of the CF/LENR field, he is inevitably involved in this effort to understand the facts.

I had many occasions of speaking about his role in some blogs. However I had a sole opportunity to have a short exchange with him (1), but it remained incomplete due to some difficulties in visualizing the pictures I addressed to him (2). Here on L-F, the site allows a comfortable managing of the attachments, and he can intervene at his will for correcting, commenting or confuting my assertions and hypotheses.

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My suggestion, one that you are free to disagree with, is that Jed Rothwell is not making use of Machiavelian tactics now, and hasn't in the past.

I too have a suggestion for you: look with your eyes, at least up to the point they can see. Set aside your credulity and the credibility of the others.

I already invited you to look carefully at the first of the flaws, the ghost probe, of the 2011 demo (3). You answered: "I have no issue with your characterization of them". That's not exactly what I expected. You should have had some issues. Anyone looking at that flaw should ask himself:
- Who decided to cite an absent instrument in the calorimetric report?
- Why has been chosen that specific probe?
- When has been decided?

If you ask yourself the right questions and try to rebuild step by step the story of this minimum detail, you will probably get a much better idea of the whole picture.

(1) http://cassandralegacy.blogspo…3012#c3444273872031988150
(2) http://cassandralegacy.blogspo…2028#c4374687688654994971
(3) Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

Krivit has posted an email exchange with the former director of DARPA, who witnessed an early e-Cat test in 2009. This could be the beginning of a mea culpa, or perhaps a nice fallback position for Krivit to say "Hey, not everything I posted about Rossi was hostile." The email exchange extends to spring of 2016.

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/s…Tether-Krivit-E-mails.pdf

Perhaps Jed's unpublished E-Cat test report that “looks like it worked” refers to this early test?

Quote from IH Fanboy

Perhaps Jed's unpublished E-Cat test report that “looks like it worked” refers to this early test?

Same year, different month, Rossi was not in attendance. There were several tests. I don't recall hearing about this one.

"If it was a hoax, it was a damn good one," is not what I could call a ringing endorsement. A lot of people reacted this way. They thought it was interesting but more tests were needed to confirm it. That is a sensible conclusion, in my opinion.

Quote from Mary Yugo

It was a lame hoax and a rather obvious one, once Rossi started to refuse proper testing in a consistent manner.

That is incorrect. These tests were done using other people's equipment, set up by those people, at locations owned by the other people. Rossi was apparently present in the test observed by Tether, but in other tests Rossi was in Italy. So it was not a "lame hoax." If it was a hoax, it was inexplicable.

Quote from Mary Yugo

@Jed: Sorry, I was not aware that you offered testing to Rossi before Krivit went to Italy.

How would you know? It is ancient history.

Quote from Ascoli65

I already invited you to look carefully at the first of the flaws, the ghost probe, of the 2011 demo (3). You answered: "I have no issue with your characterization of them". That's not exactly what I expected. You should have had some issues. Anyone looking at that flaw should ask himself:

My not having issues with your characterization means there was nothing in your presentation of previous details that I objected to, although there are gaps in my understanding that prevent me from agreeing with all of your conclusions. There is nothing in my response for you to object to, although others with positions different than yours may take issue with it.

Quote from Ascoli65

If you ask yourself the right questions and try to rebuild step by step the story of this minimum detail, you will probably get a much better idea of the whole picture.

Right. And I'm trying to get you to appreciate that in your attempts at reconstructing and understanding the past five years, you're pursuing an unpromising lead in attributing something malicious or cunning to Rothwell. But by all means give it a try. He can defend himself on the specifics of his statements pertaining to the 2011 demo.