Santilli is a mad rogue. Try this for ANOTHER OPINION.
Santilli is a lunatic who made life miserable for Eugene Mallove for a while, and cost Mallove a lot of money in outrageous lawsuits.
Santilli is a lunatic who made life miserable for Eugene Mallove for a while, and cost Mallove a lot of money in outrageous lawsuits.
Well, this is believable. See this recent blog post by a blogger claiming to be recently sued by Santilli.
Wikipedia article on Santilli.
This newspaper article about Santilli from 2007 mentions the suit against Infinite Energy.
The page about being sued. It includes a link to a copy of the summons.
However, this is better than that copy: the court Register of Actions with copies of all the documents.
The court is "the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in and for Pinellas County, Florida." that is a Florida State court. This is Pinellas' local court. How does he assert jurisdiction over the Dutch blogger, Pepijn van Erp? Wel;l, he says so. From the Complaint: "the Defendants have availed themselves to Pinellas County.
There is a defendant's motion for extension of time to Answer, filed as a special appearance by a Florida attorney, on behalf of van Erp, asking for more than a year. It appears that the Hague Convention may require at least six months, not the 20 days of the summons. This case has received a lot of attention from Skeptic organizations (no wonder!), so some support may have been provided. Filing that motion would not be expensive.
So what happens if someone sues me, in a remote court, alleging defamation on the internet, in a blog? Santilli is also suing the blog domain host, apparently a Dutch company. They have not responded.
When internet libel lands you in an out of state court.
I don't see that Santelli's Complaint alleges actions that would create local jurisdiction in Florida. As well, the case described in the legal advice page I cite was filed as a diverisity jurisdiction case in federal court, not state court (but it was still a Texas case, based on Texas law.)
Personal jurisdiction and defamation in the internet age goes into more detail.
There are many things I don't know about legal process. That Dutch hosting company may be doing the simplest thing by not responding. Even if the plaintiff obtains a default judgment, it may be completely unenforceable except against property within the jurisdiction of the court. But within the United States, I would not count on that (and I'd certainly suggest obtaining Dutch legal advice.)
van Erp has filed a motion for time, without formally "appearing," I think. He has not accepted jurisdiction.
The issue can be really complicated. It looks to me like this suit could easily be despatched with local attorney action, but that could be expensive. More pages:
Dealing with foreign legal threats.
Serving an international defamation subpoena
Maybe those who defame others, on-line, should be careful; in particular that it's necessary. What is the value of saying that, say, Santilli is a "mad professor" or a 'conning scam artist"? -- even if he is either or both. The internet created a profusion of contexts where defamation became routine. Sure, if it's important, if one is willing to take the risk, etc., but ... one wonders why this was all so important to van Erp.
If you shoot at someone, don't be surprised if they shoot back.
He has some interesting ideas, in some way related to Mills hydrino. Santilli might be lunatic now but once he was not, and he developed what I consider now to be an early approach to LENR with "4X" overunity claimed results. Now Santilli, of advanced age, seems to have fallen prey of his own "grandeur", but it does not diminish what he might have got right when he was still sane.
His book "Hadronic Mechanics" was published by Springer, not a triviality in term of books publishing.
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781402000874#reviews
I once asked a plasma physics doctor what he thought of Santilli, and he told me that he thinks very few people can even understand Santilli, he is probably way ahead of our time, and will eventually be rediscovered.
It can be found for download in several places, I have it, and I see his theory is broadly translatable to say that when you submit hydrogen molecules to a highly magnetic plasma, it releases energy and the orbitals of the electrons shift shape to a toroidal area instead of a spherical one, releasing energy in excess. He has obtained very interesting experimental results regarding the density of this altered hydrogen.
When Santelli treats hydrogen with spark discharge, be is creating ultra dense hydrogen, the same stuff that Holmlid is producing. If this processed gas was filtered in a subnanometer filter, the H(0) would be captured and removed from the gas flow. The excess energy content of his gas carried by the H(0) would be removed and only ordinary hydrogen would remain. This Santilli treatment process is essentially a HHO generation mechanism.
He has some interesting ideas, in some way related to Mills hydrino. Santilli might be lunatic now but once he was not, and he developed what I consider now to be an early approach to LENR with "4X" overunity claimed results.
He sure as hell was a lunatic when he attacked Gene Mallove. It cost Gene thousands of dollars. Maybe tens of thousands. The whole thing was finally dismissed "with prejudice" meaning he cannot refile. Santilli once sent me a legal document threatening a lawsuit, or maybe filing one, and demanding I show in a court in Florida. I don't recall the details because I tossed out the letter. I had never heard of the guy. Apparently he sent it to me because Infinite Energy published articles by me. I do not know if he sent letters to other authors. I am sure I never mentioned him in any article I wrote.
There are a few other people in this field who use litigation to bully people. Mitchell Swartz also goes around threatening lawsuits against people who disagree with his claims. He sent letters to me, Krivit, and various others I heard from years ago. He even sues people who say they admire his work! He once threatened to sue me for copyright violations after I quoted one of his papers and praised his work. I told him to stick his threats up his ass. He has been attacking me ever since. In public he demands I upload his papers and accuses me of censoring him, while in private he threatens to sue me if I upload anything. He is nowhere near as bad as Santilli, but he is still a danger to himself and to anyone who crosses him. I advise people not to have anything to do with him, and not to say anything about his research, good or bad. As they say in the U.K., the guy is a piece of work.
As a public service, let me add that Hadjichristos from Defkalion also threatened me with "disclosing" my "links" to some unnamed underhanded organization. The Mafia, perhaps? He didn't say. Also, he publicly claimed that he sent me a wire transfer to pay some money he owed me, and he accused me of trying to shake him down for more. I told him he must have wired it to the wrong account. He is no longer a threat but if he or anyone else from Defkalion surfaces, I advise people to have nothing to do with them.
There are only a few of these bad apples in this field, but they poison the reputation of the whole field and cause harm far beyond their own shenanigans. Needless to say, Rossi is the worst by far.
His book "Hadronic Mechanics" was published by Springer, not a triviality in term of books publishing.
Indeed. The review is suspicious, though. Two glowing reviews from "professors."
Professor Jeremy Dunning Davies, University of Hull, UK
not a professor, a lecturer, a lesser distinction. https://drmyronevans.wordpress…es-self-styled-professor/
Santelli likes him, though. http://www2.hull.ac.uk/news-an…bruary/physics-prize.aspx
Apparently self-supplied bio at the Natural Philosophy web site ... notes that "He is a senior lecturer in physics at the University of Hull and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. Dunning-Davies is also the chairman of two organisations, devoted to fringe science, connected with the physicist Ruggero Santilli." (This is his apparently his self-supplied bio.) (Fellow of the RAS apparently means "you joined, and your application was accepted," it is not a recognition of accomplishments).
Wikipedia article deletion discussion, started by Mathsci (a disruptive pseudoskeptic, but, like all such, Not Always Wrong. In fact pseudoskeptics are typically promoting a mainstream point of view, which is, of course, also NAW!)
Professor Erik Trell, Linköping University, Sweden
Apparently a professor emeritis. Of what? Medicine.
Litigous, even more so than Santilli. Science turns down your math paper? Don't take that lying down, sue!
His IMIBC bio. Interesting guy. Has quite a few published math papers, apparently. Suspicious people would look at the journals, there are lots of vanity journals. I have not done this.
So, his review:
QuoteThat Professor Santilli, repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize, is extremely well equipped and capable to both ends is amply documented, first and foremost by his work, but also by the biographic and bibliographic sections of the monograph which deserve to be briefly summarised as well. He proposed Hadronic Mechanics already in 1978 jointly with its basic Lie-admissible structure when he was at Harvard University under US Department of Energy support. Its study was continued by mathematicians, theoreticians and experimentalists too numerous to quote here (but included in the book's references). However, Santilli remains to this day the most active contributor, eventually bringing the venture to full mathematical maturity in 1996, physical maturity in 1997 and geometric maturity in 1998.
"Professor Santilli"? Where? His organization?
He is definitely having fun!
A field is not "mature" until widely accepted. It may be fringe or emerging, but not mature. None of this examination shows that Santilli is wrong, but there is something imbalanced here, something ingrown and narrow in perspective, laced with "most everyone else is wrong," which, of course, once established, poisons wider participation unless some major success overcomes the normal social reactions.
The address for his organization, 35246 US 19 North # 215, Palm Harbor, FL 34684 U.S.A., does not currently resemble the photo shown.
I find it all sad. But, as a consolation prize, Santilli, at 81, has that beach to enjoy, I hope. And he has some cool toys to play with.
Santilli is CEO and Chief Scientist of Thunder Energies Corporation. (Called Thunder Fusion in the Wikipedia article). Their products. That telescope could literally change the way we look at everything.
One might also look at Magnegas Corporation. If you realize that it's all inverted because of antiphotons, the web site looks very well-developed.
'Nuff said.
As to the question in this thread, "Santilli, a more serious Ross?" No. A scientist, all right, at least with scientific training and some recognition, but there are similarities. His telescope takes him to the outer fringes, with something totally revolutionary, that should be very easy to test, I'd think. To "believe in" Santilli more or less requires accepting something much more sinister than mere ordinary rejection of fringe and alleged pseudoscience. Pretty much like Rossi has become.
The detailed TEC page on the telescope.
A (vanity journal?) 2014 article on the telescope.
So what is going on? What occured to me immediately is the digital and camera equivalent of N-rays. It is quite possible to proceed in the presence of high noise, but I don't see any of the necessary sophistication being applied. Rather, the paper is heavy on "explanations" presented as fact, and short on detailed and neutral analysis. There is no consideration that I can see of possible artifact. This is not science, though it could be exploration (i.e., possible protoscience) .
The TEC page defines antimatter using an idiosyncratic definition (possibly similar to naive popular understanding, i.e., and with my emphasis):
QuoteSince matter and antimatter annihilate at contact into light, as a condition for its existence at the classical macroscopic level, antimatter must have all characteristics opposite to those of matter. For instance, matter-light has a positive index of refraction while, as a condition for its existence, antimatter-light must have a negative index of refraction (Figure 1).
No, there is no anti-mass. That is, both particles and antiparticles, of the same kind, (i.e., an electron and an anti-electron, or positron) have the same mass. They have opposite charge, and, yes, annihilate if they get close enough. However, there is no evidence for antiphotons being anything different from photons. What kinds of photons are generated from antiparticle annihilation? (Ordinary photons!) Santilli is claiming that antiphotons are rare here, making study of them difficult. But then he is showing effects, where these antiphotons, allegedly, are exposing film in his special telescope. Then he has the same kind of photons exposing film (the opposite, creating a streak of darkness) in his Galilean telescope. But wouldn't they be out of focus there?
Enough. I think the idea of exploring what might be noise for some underlying signal, but ... I also know that this can be a formula for insanity, and I saw this happening when I was in my twenties. Long story. It's easy to forget the context! Messages from an alien dimension! More likely, messages from the vast realms of the unconscious, like those of a Ouija board. They are not "meaningless," necessarily, but ... where are they coming from? There is an obvious possible source.
I am watching the link Abd supplied (and from an other thread ICCF-18 on HTSC) instead of working naturally. Somehow Santilli is new to me. From the video he is not ranting just animated. I have missed the part where he describes anti-matter as anti-mass. So far to me he just is more information, I have no conclusions. No tie-in to the recently reported anti-matter galaxies. It's probably the only nice thing of having a mind open like a sieve.
I am watching the link Abd supplied (and from an other thread ICCF-18 on HTSC) instead of working naturally. Somehow Santilli is new to me. From the video he is not ranting just animated. I have missed the part where he describes anti-matter as anti-mass. So far to me he just is more information, I have no conclusions. No tie-in to the recently reported anti-matter galaxies. It's probably the only nice thing of having a mind open like a sieve.
I don't think I linked to a video. There might be a video linked from some page I linked to. I don't think I mentioned "ranting," though others do. I quoted exactly where the antimatter description was. He did not say it was anti-mass, but he does say that antimatter will be repelled by a gravitational field, and he made a general statement about all characteristics being opposite, and if you have a background in physics, his writing reads like word salad, where the definitions of words have been rearranged -- and given Great Meaning. Someone might well think, someone expressed it, that he had some real results with, say, HHO. But then look at the telescope information. It is relatively simple and not all that difficult to follow. And it is also the stuff of madness.
But, hey, maybe the universe is mad. I just don't find the ideas inspiring, and I don't wonder that it set off some debunkers, who go ballistic if someone is crazy. It becomes a moral offense.
Adb,
I was not quoting you but I am obviously not being careful enough. I was watching the *link below. You did not link it-- my memory seems to be going, my writing sloppy.
I also misquoted the attribution, but since I try to read everything I have a habit of going down the rabbit hole. I will be more careful. I was just acknowledging where I got the info. I do it often with Axil, Zephir and others , but it is a complement as it is meant to direct people to info and you (among others) are a fountain of it. But I see how it could be a concern. So I will just state my opinion from now on. I also have a habit of mixing responses of ideas. I will single thread (if I can) in the future.
So, I see your point. Anyway the Youtube was interesting I think he (Santilli) went off the rails around the 1 hour mark (for anyone else that watches the vid with the IST) but it's like "his opinion man" and he has other valid points. NASA does cut the feed everytime anytime anything strange appears.
Adb,
Abd
Quote
By ten minutes in, he has given a completely wiggy explanation of antimatter. Now, if one is going to "explain" things by something totally outside the way pnysicists understand the concept, and then derive "necessary conclusions" from this explanation, to not at least point out that this is very much different from normal understanding, I smell something very off. Already, in a few minutes he has pointed out that his corporation, selling the telescope, is publically traded. Hey, you can buy stock!
I did continue to listen, and he does go into the idea that anyone with an elementary knowledge of physics might believe differently from him, but if an advanced professor of physics promoted the contrary ideas, it was immoral, irresponsible. If anyone is tempted to accept his explanation, we could explore it.
I don't wonder that the debunkers went berserk. He is being interviewed by someone who is totally clueless -- and effusive. Naturally.
This guy sued Mallove. He has apparently sued anyone who calls him a crackpot. "Crackpot" is a rude term.
I have, however, met people who have developed a "world-view" that was quite detailed and they became totally certain and convinced of its reality and truth. This is, in fact, a hazard that can afflict very smart people, people who can think "outside the box." The "world view" consists of a mountain of developed ideas, and the person has found evidence for them. Great. What evidence? What can be verified?
On the face of it, the Santilli telescope should be verifiable. However, if we look at details, the telescope is used with long-exposure, possibly digital cameras pushing the noise limits. Then some "shapes" are observed. What happens when one takes a digital image and amplifies it, and searches through the noise for a signal?
When I was young, I remember a friend who used to go to sleep listening to an AM radio tuned to noise. He was listening for messages in the noise. Fun guy. Are there messages in noise?
Of course there are! But where do they come from? Are they something we can share, that can be verified? If so .... why, that's really interesting? I can say what Santilli's claims sound like, but what's the reality?
It does no good to call him a crackpot. What is actually happening? How would we know?
And what does this have to do with LENR? That's a topic I'm seeing requires some attention.
In a video I just watched -- starting out with world-conspiracy theory -- it is claimed that Santilli's work has been "thoroughly vetted." This is a place where we can, for ourselves, verify some level of truth. Has his work been "thoroughly vetted"? Where? How? The paper I linked was full of what could be called unwarranted assumptions and conclusions, and was published in a known vanity or predatory journal, and these journals commonly have very poor peer review, if any. Pay, you get published.
Skepticism is essential to science. One of the qualities of a genuine scientific study is that it will look for and consider possible errors or artifacts.
There is a basic principle of law: "testimony is presumed true unless controverted." There is something about this that is easily missed. What is presumed true is the reported experience of the witness, not conclusions. This is fundamental to ordinary scientific process, and this is why data fabrication is one of the most serious charges one can make about a scientist.
In looking for information about Santilli, I was eventually led to an earlier article by van Erp. Never mind, at first at least, the conclusions. Look at his experience. Assume his reported experience is true, those emails (and the headers he reports). What would this imply about Santilli?
Any skeptical approach that properly suspends judgment on "extraordinary claims" will also suspend judgment on reports like that of van Erp. However, we start with an assumption of honest testimony. Honest testimony can be mistaken. However, it is unlikely that van Erp would show emails from various people associated with Santilli (or the same person, as he concludes, i.e., Santilli himself) that were fake. After all, he could, in fact, be sued with that as a basis.
Santilli's lawsuit against van Erp does not mention that article, however. It is about "The Continuing Stupidity of Ruggio Santilli," published in June, 2016. That article is still up, and there is no retraction or redaction. This article refers to the earlier article, from 2013.
Reading around more about Santilli, including material provided by Santilli or those clearly connected with Santilli, I find the matter totally obvious. Consider this web site.
With regard to this thread, Rossi is defamed by being compared with Santilli. Ugo Abundo has lost credibility by being published in the Hadronic Journal.
As you see in the article by van Erp, Santilli is bonkers. I never communicated with Santilli, and I knew nothing about him when he threatened to sue me (or maybe he did sue me -- not sure), but I heard from Gene Mallove that he was an extremist. This letter from him to van Erp sounds like what he was writing to Gene. This was after Gene tried to help him!
QuoteDisplay MoreSubject: The returned defecations
Dirty man,
Prof. Kadeisvili provide you quite nicely various scientific information and references on Prof. Santilli’s magnecules and their industrial applications, and also invited you to be part of their forthcoming course on hadronic mechanics, and you answer with this filth below! You are a dirty filthy puking man in great need of some legal fixing for which our Committee has been set forth and fully funded, that’s what we do, fixing human filth in science, and here is part of the action going on to fix you.
Our specialized Investigative Agency on scientific filth that includes former CIA operatives has already “bugged” your computer and is now collecting info to identify your real name, affiliation and ethnic connotation.
http://www.pepijnvanerp.nl/art…-with-ruggero-m-santilli/
As Abd says, comparing Rossi to Santilli insults Rossi.
There are extreme people out there. It is dangerous to get involved with them at any level, for any purpose. Even helping them or publishing their papers may cost you tens of thousands of dollars. That is what happened to Gene. Several people associated with "free energy" are like this. By "free energy" I mean apparent violations of the conservation of energy, or perpetual motion machines. Many scientists assume that cold fusion is in this category, and they know that such claims often attract extremists and criminals, so they avoid it, or they dismiss it out of hand. You can't blame them.
There have been odd people and absurd claims associated with cold fusion. But, as far as I know, Rossi and Defkalion are the first to engage in blatant criminal fraud. They did terrible harm to the field, and the harm continues to this day. We still do not know how bad it will get.
One other thing regarding the "specialized Investigative Agency." Defkalion made similar threats to me at the end. They said in public discussion groups that they had high level contacts as some place like the CIA (they implied without saying), and these contacts had "uncovered" dark secrets about my past, which is why they uninvited me. This tactic is used by other criminals. Watch out for it. Be careful of people who say they have friends in high places. All along Defkalion claimed they had high level contacts in various countries.
Defkalion certainly did in Greece, not that it lasted. Stremmenos was (at one time) very influential politically in Greece, but then they fell out over money.
QuoteAs Abd says, comparing Rossi to Santilli insults Rossi.
Now that deserves some sort of prize. It's pretty difficult to defame Rossi!
QuoteOne other thing regarding the "specialized Investigative Agency." Defkalion made similar threats to me at the end. They said in public discussion groups that they had high level contacts as some place like the CIA (they implied without saying), and these contacts had "uncovered" dark secrets about my past, which is why they uninvited me. This tactic is used by other criminals. Watch out for it. Be careful of people who say they have friends in high places. All along Defkalion claimed they had high level contacts in various countries.
First I heard of this. But arrogance, attempts to intimidate, and consistent lying about just about everything was Defkalion's modus operandi on their forum. Most, I think, was the "work" of John Hadjichristos. Talk about a piece of work that guy was/is.
Anyone recall when he "offered" to have me test his device? And then when I sent reputable academics to work out an agreement with him, he never seemed to be in his office. This was mostly argued on Peter Gluck's capacious and extremely silly blog.
QuoteRigel wrote:
Adb,
QuoteAbd wrote:
Abd
I am dyslexic (as in really), sorry again I am sure it is mildly frustrating.
They said in public discussion groups that they had high level contacts as some place like the CIA (they implied without saying), and these contacts had "uncovered" dark secrets about my past, which is why they uninvited me. . . .
. . . But arrogance, attempts to intimidate, and consistent lying about just about everything was Defkalion's modus operandi on their forum. Most, I think, was the "work" of John Hadjichristos.
Yup. It was Hadjichristos who said these things. I seldom heard from others. He was indeed a piece of work.
Defkalion certainly did in Greece, not that it lasted. Stremmenos was (at one time) very influential politically in Greece, but then they fell out over money.
As I recall, the dispute was not about money. Stremmenos accused Defkalion of lying, which it turned out they were doing. He said they never had access to Rossi's technology. They probably did not, especially since Rossi has no technology. In retrospect, Stremmenos seems like the only honest person in the lot of them.
Perhaps it was actually a falling out over money? I wouldn't know about that.
