The huge elephant in the room when it comes to Toyota is that if indeed they had a COP as large as 250 and a power level in dozens of Watts in 1996, what the f*k happened since? It's been TWENTY YEARS and no replication, right? How does THAT happen with such a spectacular result?
Martin told me it was lost to greed and politics. It is a long story.
I'll refine it to: Nobody can *effectively* dismiss important technology.
Oh yes they can. History is full of examples of that, as well. I mentioned the electric car being eclipsed for decades until Tesla.
It makes no sense to say that no valuable technology was ever ignored or suppressed. You wouldn't know if it had been. There would be no trace of it. This is like saying: "everyone absent from class should raise their hands." I know many technologies and machines that failed, and many cold fusion experiments. Probably only I and a few other people remember them. There must be thousands of lost technologies just in the last 30 years. Most were unimportant, but I am sure some would have been valuable.
Actually many early micro-computers were easier to use, more reliable and cheaper than their more expensice competitors - minicomputers
I don't recall they were more reliable, but for some applications they were indeed easier and far cheaper. I was using both in the late 1970s.
I have to say, though, the Data General operating systems were far better than the microcomputer and IBM PC ones. I read that IBM asked Data General if they would like to sell their MicroNova operating system to IBM for use in the PC. It is a terrible shame Data General said no. PCs would have worked much better, with reliable multitasking early on, if they had said yes. Data General would still be in business. Microsoft might have been forgotten. That's counterfactual history . . . what might have been.
The MicroNova operating system is an example of lost technology.
For instance on Jed's remark (I hope I worked the quote function properly), it is true that individuals or smaller groups do indeed oppress advancement, such as tanks and PC'S. However I also have to note that ALL the examples he gave WERE in wide spread use in a few short years.
If tanks and PCs had not come into widespread use, you would never have heard of them. They would be lost to history. The examples I chose were technologies that everyone now understands were valuable, but they were opposed at first. If a valuable technology was opposed and never deployed, you would not know about it. I am sure that many valuable technologies have been lost. This is not always someone's fault, and it not always because of oppression. Many technologies come along too late to have an impact. For example, the last commercial sailing ships built circa 1900 included things like steel cables instead of ropes, and they did not require that sailors climb the masts to set sails. They were much better than the older sailing ships, but they could not compete with steamships. Only a handful of people (such as me) know about them.
I'm with you on the last sailing ships Jed. My Grandfather was cook on the Archibald Russel (4 Masted Barque on the grain run Aus/UK) for a couple of years before transferring to the SS. Nebraska and then to SS. Rangitani. He spent almost 50 years at sea, and almost ali of it on that circular route from the UK to Oz/NZ via Suez. He got into big trouble on the Russel for making and distilling moonshine from dried fruit in the galley. Was ok while he drank alone, but when he got most of the crew legless the game was up.
QuoteI mentioned the electric car being eclipsed for decades until Tesla.
Yikes, that's for a very OBVIOUS and COMPELLING reason. Battery technology. As soon as range and cost became acceptable, the Tesla happened (and the hydrids, and the Leaf, the Volt, etc.) Lead acid tech doesn't cut it. Never did.
Yikes, that's for a very OBVIOUS and COMPELLING reason. Battery technology.
Not so obvious. Batteries might have been improved earlier. GM might have continued developing the EV1 in the 1990s, going on to dominate the luxury segment, instead of Tesla. Or the hybrid engine might have been improved long before the Prius. The first hybrid engine automobile was patented around 1910 as I recall. The technology was ignored for 80 years.
If hybrid cars had been successful in the 1970s, that might have spurred the development of better batteries sooner than it happened. Technology does not always appear when a demand arises, but it often does. People invest more in R&D and work harder when a large, profitable new market appears. That is why microcomputer peripherals such as hard disks and printers appeared in the 1980s. The microprocessor opened up a market for them, and spurred development.
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Perhaps we can eliminate some theories without any further testing! This suggests that the field needs some kind of scientific committee to coordinate research.
I would not trust such a committee to avoid some ingrained assumptions that are common among LENR researchers unless it was comprised of a majority of sympathetic but skeptical scientists. Think about how readily such a committee, if made up purely of LENR people, would adopt such conclusions as (1) LENR requires a solid substrate; (2) PdD LENR entails the fusion of deuterons; (3) the energy per 4He that is produced de novo is consistent with a reaction Q value of 24 MeV, etc. There is too much dogma within LENR circles right now, and not enough independent thought. Such conclusions might be couched in phrases like "it is likely to be" and "it is probably," "on the basis of what we know," etc., but that would not make much of a difference.
I find it unlikely that such a committee would NOT be formed primarily of LENR insiders at the present time, making it perhaps a counterproductive influence all else being equal.
Bizarre arguments, Jed. So are you telling me that if Rossi or someone really had a tabletop device that could produce 10kW (at boiling water temperature, 100 degrees C) for six months on a thimble-full of inexpensive fuel with no radiation, that nobody would market it and nobody would buy it? In the internet age where he could sell it on line? Are you telling me that such a technology would be ignored because somehow cold fusion isn't fashionable? That's quite an interesting tall tale!
QuoteMary Yugo wrote:The huge elephant in the room when it comes to Toyota is that if indeed they had a COP as large as 250 and a power level in dozens of Watts in 1996, what the f*k happened since? It's been TWENTY YEARS and no replication, right? How does THAT happen with such a spectacular result?
Jed wrote: Martin told me it was lost to greed and politics. It is a long story.
That's OK. We have time. COP 250, power level say 25W, all on the desktop with no radiation and a fusion origin and no further confirmation, replication, interest or investigation in 20 years. Sell me that one!
Bizarre arguments, Jed. So are you telling me that if Rossi or someone really had a tabletop device that could produce 10kW (at boiling water temperature, 100 degrees C) for six months on a thimble-full of inexpensive fuel with no radiation, that nobody would market it and nobody would buy it?
I.H. would buy it and market it. But years ago, Toyota and others developed much smaller devices that could not be controlled, and therefore could not be marketed. In the end Toyota largely abandoned the effort. That was because of politics, as I said. They did not abandon it completely; they are still quietly working on it.
Other companies did not look at these small cold fusion devices for the same reason you will not look at them. They do not practice the scientific method. They do not believe that replicated experiments are the standard of truth in science. They replace it with some other outlandish arbitrary standard, and they make up irrational excuses to deny reality. You do this, so you should not be surprised that other people also do it. We are living in an unscientific era. You epitomize this.
History is full of discoveries that were ignored or abandoned or that lay fallow for decades, and were later made useful. If you are not aware of this I suggest you read books about the history of technology. A well known example is the incandescent vacuum lightbulb. It was invented and demonstrated by Moses Farmer and others in the 1850s, long before Edison made it into a practical device. People do not think or invent or solve problems today any faster than they did in 1850. I think it is a myth the progress has sped up.
Yeah right... a myth... how long did u think about this sentence before you wrote it down?
It clearly depends on how you define progress but what makes you say that you have the feeling that progress didnt speed up (since the 1850)?
Yeah right... a myth... how long did u think about this sentence before you wrote it down?
It clearly depends on how you define progress but what makes you say that you have the feeling that progress didnt speed up (since the 1850)?
I don't necessarily agree with Jed's last sentence, but the gist of his post is spot on. The late 1800s and early 1900s encompassed an age of rapid advances the likes of which the world has not seen since. Minds were open, curious, and there existed little fear to apply the scientific processes and principals of discovery to all kinds of unknown or little-understood phenomena. Consequently, the remarkable advances were made possible, and were made. Reputation traps were much more muted or non-existent. Engineering was elevated to such a status that life-changing devices could be harnessed to alleviate sheer drudgery endured by the huddled masses. We could use more of this mentality today.
J
I have to say, though, the Data General operating systems were far better than the microcomputer and IBM PC ones. I read that IBM asked Data General if they would like to sell their MicroNova operating system to IBM for use in the PC. It is a terrible shame Data General said no. PCs would have worked much better, with reliable multitasking early on, if they had said yes. Data General would still be in business. Microsoft might have been forgotten. That's counterfactual history . . . what might have been.
If one sees that Unix / DG/UX is the direct precursor of Next (and hence OSX) and of Linux and all Android "open" operating systems .... then in some real sense the MicroNova system lives on (at least as a tag library) and now triumphs over the Kildahl-inspired and Gates marketed PC-Dos which still hobbles on within the whole Microsoft series of operating systems.
There is too much dogma within LENR circles right now, and not enough independent thought.
Eric I agree 100%! Why don't you write a paper, "A critical review of LENR dogma"? It might encourage people to reassess the evidence, assumptions and logic.
/* So are you telling me that if Rossi or someone really had a tabletop device that could produce 10kW (at boiling water temperature, 100 degrees C) for six months on a thimble-full of inexpensive fuel with no radiation, that nobody would market it and nobody would buy it? */
It would, but as you can see, even the inventors of this technology don't hurry very much with its commercialization from various reasons (primarily because it's still too easy to embrace & extend this technology in its primitive state of development). And I don't even talk about legal and political threats connected with potential risks and abuse of cold fusion technology. My problem therefore rather is with ignorant attitude of mainstream science, which isn't expected to commercialize anything.
QuoteOther companies did not look at these small cold fusion devices for the same reason you will not look at them. They do not practice the scientific method. They do not believe that replicated experiments are the standard of truth in science. They replace it with some other outlandish arbitrary standard, and they make up irrational excuses to deny reality. You do this, so you should not be surprised that other people also do it. We are living in an unscientific era. You epitomize this.
Complete nonsense. All I ask is for high power (in the 25 to >100W range), high COP (>6 arbitrarily) and *proper* replication by *credible* entities. Without those, I don't say it doesn't exist, I say you and I don't KNOW it exists because it could be (easily) measurement artifact and you would not know the difference. I also object to point temperature measurements (isoperibolic calorimetry) because this is not "real" calorimetry-- it is highly prone to errors, for example from changes in local heat transfer with changing experimental conditions. Real calorimetry is mass flow (for example Giancarlo's devices which Rossi could/should have used for the hot cats) or envelope type, for example the Seebeck Effect devices. Also the special case of sparging steam if steam is the output.
So once more: want to be believed? All you have to do is provide relatively high power and proper replication by a credible entity. That is hardly irrational, matches your claims but not your ability to deliver-- you can not provide it. No wonder you're sore about it and call me names like irrational and unscientific. I am neither but I suspect most believers in LENR are. For example, you, McKubre, Swartz, Miley, Storms, etc. etc.
Back off a bit Mary.
Complete nonsense. All I ask is for high power (in the 25 to >100W range), high COP (>6 arbitrarily) and *proper* replication by *credible* entities. Without those, I don't say it doesn't exist,
You have no rational reason to say it does not exist. You have set an arbitrary power level. The first detection of fission in radium was a small fraction of a watt, and the first fission reactor in Chicago was 0.5 W. As long as the power can be measured with confidence there is no reason to reject the measurement based on a number you pull out of a hat.
As for credible entities, 180 laboratories such as Los Alamos, China Lake and Toyota are as credible as any laboratory can be. You are the one who is not credible when you reject them.
@Mary Yugo. I believe in LENR. But I share some of your sceptiscm. If I disagree I do appreciate your sincerity. We all need critics. So keep it up please!
We are all too aware of the field's unscientific and irrational self appointed protagonists. Some of them were once respected scientists, now retired. It's sad to see these heroes suffer from "a hardening of the arteries" (as one professor put it). I would like to see a new generation of scientists grow up to take their place.but I see little sign for optimism. 
What I would say is simply this. Rates of reactions whether chemical or nuclear vary by hundreds of orders of magnitude. If CF were real why is it that the excess heat is almost ALWAYS within an order of magnitude of the input energy? How do we explain that in every embodiment of an over unity device we have this strange coincidence? This correlation is good evidence for artifact.
I agree with Jed that the fission of radium produced a fraction of a watt and that was and is convincing. But convincing only because there was no input energy. Infinite COP. This is what needs to be demonstrated with CF too. For a demo we would not need any calorimetry or other distracting instrumentation. Fraud or error would be rather difficult even in the hands of someone without scientific training.
Of course the self sustaining device needs to last for a reasonable time - months rather than minutes to ensure there was no energy storage. And yes, proper independent validation following a written recipe by credible entities.
Of course, proper calorimetry might prove useful to correlate with fuel / ashes for scientific purposes. The requirements of science are quite different from the requirements for demonstration.
The sporadic reports of self sustaining devices indicates there might be hope. But if after 27 years of effort nobody has a reproducible recipe, I begin to doubt. I think many are beginning to doubt.
