“The E-Cat is neither CHEMICAL, FISSION nor FUSION. It is a MACHINE!” (Chapman)

Quote from Alan Smith

It's an entertaining read for sure. But I'm far from certain what it adds to the debate.

What do you mean? A blender with ball bearings teetering on the lip, that shatters the container (usually glass) when they fall in, is a perfect analogy for the E-Cat. How can you miss that?

There should be a youtube video. Videos of stuff breaking are very popular. If there are lots of sparks flying, even better. Don't you love those "cold fusion" videos that show plasma electrolysis? Way cool! I wanna do that!!!

And in this Rossi analogy, how about putting some "fast-thermite" in the blender? Do remember to wear safety glasses and a bulletproof shield would be a good idea, too. That cold fusion stuff is *dangerous*, nuclear reactions and all. Have a fire extinguisher ready.

When I'd looked last, there were no comments. It went downhill from there.

Quote

Mats Lewan • 2 hours ago
Well described Chapman. I tried to sort out this hypothesis based on Bob Greenyer's analysis of Piantelli's and Rossi's work here (with some of Bob's videos too): https://animpossibleinvention.…ibly-how-the-e-cat-works/ ....

Lewan's "crash course" in physics that introduces the theory is standard, but very incomplete. It overlooks the known exceptions, such as muon-catalyzed fusion. It completely misses a whole class of cold fusion theories.

Nobel prize winners, before enough was known about the reaction characteristics, developed theories that nobody takes seriously any more.

The theory described by Lewan is a Rube Goldberg machine that depends on a series of unknown phenomena occurring, and appears to be contrary, at least to my casual reading, to known physics and to known experimental data.

Had Rossi left the fuel in the "one year test" reactors -- that belonged to Industrial Heat -- there would have been a possibility of independent testing of the fuel from many reactors, thoroughly. That opportunity was lost when Rossi refueled on the last day of the test.

These theories, when read by mainstream scientists, create an impression of "cold fusion believers" as pseudoscientists, naive. There are people with high knowledge of quantum field theory working on cold fusion theory. So far, there basically is not enough data to vet any theory comprehensively. My stand is that cold fusion is a mystery, for now, and that it will remain that way until there is far better experimental evidence.

Notice that even though the ash from PdD, FPHE cold fusion, is known and has been confirmed independently and extensively, this, by itself, has not been enough to crash the gates of the rejection cascade. And it isn't enough to do more than create a rough vetting of theories. PdD theories must explain how the energy from deuterium conversion to helium is converted to heat, apparently entirely, without significant high-energy radiation.

Electron catalysis of NiH fusion, i.e., the fusion of nickel and hydrogen, would almost certainly produce the same result as the same hot fusion, by analogy with MCF. No, something else is involved. Maybe BECs, because we do not know how fusion within a BEC would operate. We don't know the ash from NiH, beyond one possibly fraudulent sample (compared with far, far more samples in the case of PdD cold fusion), and then another sample of confused and even denied origin, but apparently also handled by Rossi. We are not even close to being ready for NiH theory.

The most likely ash would be deuterium. In a one-year reactor operation, enough deuterium would be produced, I'd expect, to stand above the background. But who has checked for that? Rossi is an enemy of science; that is, when science and his personal goals are in conflict, he consistently chooses personal goals, not collective welfare and science. If not for his approach, and if his effect were real as claimed in his early demos, there would already be devices available for test. His obsessive secrecy has prevented that. More likely, though, the secrecy is a smokescreen for fraud.

The basics of science are being skipped. I find this unfortunate. Lewan very properly suspended judgment, learning and writing about Rossi. But it looks like he didn't just suspend it, he kicked it out the window. He also refuses to discuss the matter. Is this a Swedish thing?

He had an excuse for shutting down comment on his blog. However, .... what's his excuse now?