Gold From Mats Lewan’s Impossible Invention Book (Engineer48)

Alan Smith

Did you ever ask Levi why he didn't simply repeat (and properly calibrate and blank) his test with liquid flow calorimetry and a small ecat? The test Krivit questioned, the test Josephson asked him to repeat and the test which showed the most spectacular ecat results ever except of course, it was not done correctly.

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I am not sure that the Upsalla crew ever stopped running hot-cat tests.

We are not sure about anything about this crew since they won't reply to polite and relevant questions such as those by Clarke and others about their methods and calibrations. They have also failed to publish in refereed journals. They are undistinguished people. They received no perceptible support from their universities on the ecat issue even though this would be Nobel material. I have no idea why anyone believes them.

Quote from Mary Yugo

If Darden had done his homework, he could have tested Rossi's honesty and competence in less than a month at a cost of less than $100K. Instead, he let the debacle continue until he had lost $11.5M of the fund's money, was being sued, and would require legal talent in the millions more. Nice job. And yeah, he found out. Costly lesson... for his shareholders. His CEO salary and executive perks won't change.

This is making assumptions about Darden that likely have no factual basis. What salary? What "executive perks?"

The $11.5 million was spent immediately, and it was raised for the specific purpose (there are documents which show the timing). The shareholders knew what they were getting into, and, by the way, Darden was a major shareholder, probably the largest at that time, so he was risking -- and spending -- his own money. Darden likely makes money hand over fist with Cherokee. IH et seq is part of how he spends it.

There was no way to test Rossi's technology "at a cost of less than $100K." How would he get his hands on it to test? He did not actually have any access to the technology until he spent $11.5 million, in 2013. What Mary Yugo is ignoring is the actual situation on the ground, and she is second-guessing experts, people who obviously know very well what they are doing, and that are able to inspire confidence in others to support them.

Quote from THHuxley

Abd here has advanced the idea (you might consider excuse) that IH had to do what they did to knock the destructive planet Rossi Ni-H meme on the head - it was distorting research priorities. I may have got that summary wrong - in which case Abd will reply for himself.

I wouldn't put it that way.

It was to find out what was behind the rather obvious appearances. It can happen that an eccentric inventor is paranoid or has other personality issues that will make him look, .... well, crazy or a fraud. And maybe he actually is one or both. IH wanted to know, needed to know, if his technology was real, so ... they bought it. It was the only way, probably. Rossi would have continued to reject any independent testing, yet he was able to set up sufficient appearances of "independent" -- such as the Lugano test -- that he continued to fill the LENR space with noise. Or with what will blow all of it out of the water by making all the serious and careful work a waste of time and money.

They are not against NiH. I think they are supporting some NiH work, though I'm not certain of that. They needed to make the Rossi affair completely clear, and they needed to be absolutely sure. That took time, they needed to give Rossi maximum rope, every opportunity to demonstrate technology transfer. While facts are still coming out, and we haven't heard Rossi's answers to what has been brought out, it's looking quite clear for now: Rossi was a fraud. Whether or not he ever had anything real is not a part of that conclusion. He might have, but he was willing to use deception to create what has been called, here, "dramatic effect." He was not willing to engage honestly and openly with Industrial Heat. Given that they were entirely serious about the $89 million -- if Rossi had fulfilled on the contract, I'm quite sure they were ready to raise and deliver that payment, they would be crazy not to -- we are left with little but the conclusion that Rossi is insane or a phenomenally clever fraud, in certain ways, but more likely some of both.

Before Rossi v. Darden, there were critics claiming that IH was idiotic for trusting Rossi. Of course, they assumed that Rossi was being trusted (I don't think "trust and verify" is simple trust). These are people who look at the world in black and white terms: good/evil, even true/false can be a problem, when they refer to judgments and interpretations rather than objective fact. Steve Krivit, for example, who has developed a whole conspiracy theory about mainstream LENR researchers, that they are out to prove that cold fusion is "d-d fusion," his bete noir. So then he alleges data falsification, etc., and has attempted to create employer sanctions against at least one target.

It is all useless garbage. Yes, I was able to use Krvit's critique of M4 and the Italian work as a leverage into the study of SRI M4 and the ENEA/Violante report. His conclusions, however, were atrocious, often based on gross errors, and when we have a story about Bad Things, we make those kinds of errors easily. Confirmation bias.

Rossi has claimed that every single reactor he has ever built is capable of extended periods of self sustain. He usually claims that they are capable of one to two hours of heat output with zero or near zero input on the very conservative side.

If I were to do business with Rossi, I'd ask for a very simple test: a one hour period of self sustain with zero input power (or very minimal to power "radio frequency generators" if required. I'd tell him that if the reactor melted down one minute after the hour long period was over, I'd be perfectly happy. Any reactor design would be permitted as long as a third party observed the quantity of fuel being placed into the reactor.

One hour of self sustain producing an anomalous heat output of at least one kilowatt continuously for any reasonable amount of fuel would rule out any chemical source of heat.

If Rossi would not agree to the test, I wouldn't do business with him, period.

I don't know why IH didn't ask for such a test.

@Abd: nonsense. All Darden had to do was ask for a proper short and comparatively cheap test by competent people of his own choosing. It's what Dick Smith did to Defkalion. Rossi, like Defkalion, could not allow such a test and would have refused it. That would have told Darden everything he needed to know because any honest inventor wanting a big investor would have allowed a black box test. This sort of thinking is exactly how those who think like you and Darden get bamboozled by crooks like Rossi. They depend on that sort of thinking and as I said many times, their main talent is in finding people who think that way -- like a conman's mark. You are a textbook hallmark example, Abd.

@MrSelfSustain

And you would get pawned by Rossi, big time, Sure a self sustain test should be easy with a reactor that makes 6X the power required to drive it! This has always been true and Rossi's failure to properly show it in 5+ years is evidence he was lying about it. But a one hour test says nothing. The source of energy is supposed to be transmutation from a heavier element to a lighter one with loss of mass, converted to energy. This is thousands of times more potent than dynamite or gasoline. A proper test would not involve Rossi, would treat the device as a black box, would provide many orders of magnitude more energy than can be accounted for by the devices's mass, energy storage, thermal inertia, etc. etc. And to avoid fraud, input power, output power, and calibration instruments and methods must ALL be provided and specified by someone OTHER than Rossi. But yes, IH should have demanded way more tests.

Alan Smith

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Because UniBo didn't want there to be any more Rossi stuff with their name on it or their staff involved. They took fright.

They didn't take fright. Academics don't do that. Most universities will do virtually any reasonable project if it is externally funded. Of course, they require the freedom to do it their way and to publish the results. The truth is that when told it would be done that way, Rossi refused to pay the contract amount. I wouldn't expect UniBo to work free on what everyone there except Levi knew to be a boondoggle.

BTW, where did you get the idea they chickened out? From Rossi perhaps?

And if you know Stremmenos, what is he thinking about his buddy Rossi now? Has the flowery orator learned anything from Defkalion?

Sorry, Alan, but in another life, I was on a major university faculty and I do know how they operate. Most cherish academic freedom and would have been delighted to examine Rossi's assertions using Rossi's money, if nothing else, for the possibility of finding him wrong.

If you are curious about my personal details and agree to keep them confidential, contact me at maryyugo [at] yahoo [dot] com.

@Alan Smith

Of course Rossi had no money then. He lied about that also. Just like he lied about essentially everything else. It's fine that you're not interested in my real life credentials but then please try to refrain from telling me what I don't know about!

I am sure Focardi was a peachy guy. Too bad he wasn't a bit meaner with Rossi and Levi. They rode right over him big time. The only good thing is, he never had to face that fact.