I will take my team and read. We shall discuss.
If this comment was to me I would say that it is best you do. Research continues. Keep an open mind based on what evidence that is presented. I do. 'I unlike others' here see some avenues that do not work. I am still on the Pd bandwagon so to speak. I will ride this out for a while. We will see.
Actually, the Wikipedia entry says the opposite of what you said. Semiconductor properties were observed for decades before there was theoretical support for them.
hum, I said the developpement could happen only after a theory was established.
I also said, maybe not clearly, that until there was a theory some observations were not recognized as so.
I can add, it happened with germanium parasitic junction on early bars of newly discovered material, too impure to be predictable as semiconductor. This is not on wikipedia, and not a surprise as wikipedia is not a reliable source on controversies.
the controversy on the first transistor is around that period, very unclear.
It is very hard to find data on the early germanium experiments and ignored experiments in the 20s.
It was clear when I started to be educated on semiconductors that semiconductors, like fission and LASER, were taken, unfairly, and an example of a success of theory to application, unlike earlier technologies.
Not so false anyway as development of semiconductors applications could only boom after a theory was established.
Chrystal radios (1904) depended on naturally occurring semi-conducting spots in chunks of mineral chrystals - galena (a lead ore) was a popular choice.
It was not clear that semiconductors existed (variably conducted) until the late 1930s.
"I don’t like this solid state physics . . . though I initiated it . . . One shouldn’t work with semiconductors,
that is a filthy mess; who knows whether they really exist."
- Wolfgang Pauli, 1931
See:
like about LENR, it was clear in 1900 that something was there, but like LENR this clarity was not shared by most.
It is easy later to say that we were aware of semiconductors.
anyway radio was a so critical application that anything that worked was respected.
The branly's coherer was not undestood (is it? is it accepted as so?) understood until quite recently (it means during my lifetime ;-> ).
Wikipedia is a very imperfect surces. look about quasicrystal, and the hear from Schechtman interview's about the way he battled for his finding to be accepted.
Look at the story of superconduction as told by Wikipedia and as told by pioneers.
It looks so nice on wikipedia.
About transistors this article is maybe exageratting a little, but report many things that not only says that transistors was considered much earlied than officially, but also that many simila findings were disregarded in tha period.
https://alixus.wordpress.com/u…obel-prizes-transistor-2/
http://www.beatriceco.com/bti/…belllabs_transistor1.html
The work of Oleg Lowev, Russel Ohl, JE Lilienfeld, was ignored , and it is only when Shockley &al made noething more reliable in a big corp, with a fair theory, that it was accepted as a discovery....
history a mental construction...
maybe in 20 years people will say F&P discovered cold fusion , Bockris, Miles and McKubre replicated it, and who knows yet found a good theory, but today they are all fraudsters and loose scientists according to Wikipedia.
hum, I said the developpement could happen only after a theory was established.
I also said, maybe not clearly, that until there was a theory some observations were not recognized as so.
Um, no. Here is what you said:
It is also the core of the tragedy of LENR, as transistor was a victory of theory over experiment (or percieved so), and since the 50s physics is thinking theory-first.
But we both can agree, "maybe not clearly".
If that's too many details or you find it hard to understand, here is an introduction to the work, by me:
Well this looks pretty conclusive but these tests were done over 20 years ago. What happened? Why is that after 20 years we are where we are i.e. no working LENR/CF reactors? That is the hard question, is it not? I too can write lots of equations and make grandiose claims in a paper but if I cannot produce any working reactors then what good am I?
Well this looks pretty conclusive but these tests were done over 20 years ago. What happened? Why is that after 20 years we are where we are i.e. no working LENR/CF reactors? That is the hard question, is it not? I too can write lots of equations and make grandiose claims in a paper but if I cannot produce any working reactors then what good am I?
What happened was a science-politics battle between electrochemists and physicists. Funding dried up for LENR research. That's what happened.
but if I cannot produce any working reactors then what good am I?
this is not scientific, as normally a good lab experiment would convince to search.
anyway you seems to have the wrong way of mind that is very common today, and this explains why transistor was only accepted when it was, if not perfect, usable enough.
It remind me a lesson from the Army : "if you disobey alone, it is forbidden. if you do it in group, it is a form of obedience"
Well this looks pretty conclusive but these tests were done over 20 years ago. What happened? Why is that after 20 years we are where we are i.e. no working LENR/CF reactors? That is the hard question, is it not?
The question is not hard. I answered it several times. It is annoying that you pay no attention to my answers, so I shall respond once more only. Funding was cut off and researchers were fired because of academic politics, mass media attacks, and because people like you are hostile to the research and you have the mistaken impression that the effect was never replicated. Beaudette describes this in his book, and I explained it to you several times here, and pointed to statements by the people who attacked cold fusion such as these:
http://pages.csam.montclair.ed…lski/cf/293wikipedia.html
The researchers eventually grew old. They retired and died. If a young researcher were to suggest doing a cold fusion experiment, he would be fired.
I too can write lots of equations and make grandiose claims in a paper but if I cannot produce any working reactors then what good am I?
First, cold fusion is based on experiments, not equations or theories. Second, you cannot produce a working reactor if you are dead. You cannot produce one if you are a alive when you have no money and you will be fired for discussing the idea.
this is not scientific, as normally a good lab experiment would convince to search.
anyway you seems to have the wrong way of mind that is very common today, and this explains why transistor was only accepted when it was, if not perfect, usable enough.
It remind me a lesson from the Army : "if you disobey alone, it is forbidden. if you do it in group, it is a form of obedience"
In this day and age of rapidly advancing technology, why is that after "conclusive" tests were performed over 20 years ago we still have no working reactors?
Display MoreThe question is not hard. I answered it several times. It is annoying that you pay no attention to my answers, so I shall respond once more only. Funding was cut off and researchers were fired because of academic politics, mass media attacks, and because people like you are hostile to the research and you have the mistaken impression that the effect was never replicated. Beaudette describes this in his book, and I explained it to you several times here, and pointed to statements by the people who attacked cold fusion such as these:
http://pages.csam.montclair.ed…lski/cf/293wikipedia.html
The researchers eventually grew old. They retired and died. If a young researcher were to suggest doing a cold fusion experiment, he would be fired.
First, cold fusion is based on experiments, not equations or theories. Second, you cannot produce a working reactor if you are dead. You cannot produce one if you are a alive when you have no money and you will be fired for discussing the idea.
@maryyugo Jed is making some interesting arguments. How about you join me in double teaming Jed here. Truce?
But here's the thing: by your own description, the only way that even an expert with extensive experience can demonstrate the effect is by an arduous, expensive and time-consuming process fraught with potential problems. In a year or two and with a bunch of money, they can probably make it work again using a technique first demonstrated 20 years ago.
This strikes me as somewhat similar to the situation in "ultra-high-temperature" superconductivity.
I am not sure I see your point here.
There are many scientific experiments more difficult than ultra-high-temp superconductivity. Examples: building a tokamak power reactor, sending a robot explorer to Mars, or confirming the Top Quark. My point is that no one questions the validity of the tokomak because it costs billions of dollars and it takes thousands of experts many years to construct. So why should you or anyone else question cold fusion because it takes one expert a year or two to replicate?
High-temperature superconductivity at 100K or even 120K is quite reproducible and can be demonstrated relatively easily even by a high-school student.
Actually, that statement is incorrect. Or incomplete. The student can demonstrate it, but she could not fabricate the HTSC material herself. That takes an expert. And, to make enough reliable HTSC to sell it to high schools, it takes . . . wait for it! -- expensive equipment developed using millions of dollars. If you were to invest similar amounts in cold fusion cathode fabrication equipment, then any high school student would be able to demonstrate cold fusion, because calorimetry at the 1 to 10 W level is not difficult.
So my question to you is: what is it you would hope could be accomplished by more efforts on the palladium cold fusion system? Do you think that somehow automating the laborious and uncertain processes needed to get "the good stuff" would lead to something that is (1) scalable to useful power levels and (2) of economic value?
I doubt it. It is difficult to judge. Given the power density and temperatures shown so far, there is enough palladium to produce most of the world's energy, but no one knows whether the reaction can be controlled enough to do this.
But that would not be the purpose. The purpose is the same as it is when companies fabricate HTSC material for high-school kids. That is, to demonstrate the effect is real, and to spur research in it. No one claims that the HTSC samples given to high school kids is of any practical use, but I think everyone agrees it was worth the money it took to develop that material.
I guess my real question is: what is it you think might happen if all the bad juju aimed at cold fusion disappeared apart from perhaps having some of the research more generally recognized as valid?
If thousands of working cathodes were distributed to researchers worldwide (including high school kids -- why not?) everyone would see that the effect is real. Everyone would see it is a nuclear effect that produces no dangerous radiation. That's easy enough to prove with a helium mass spectrometer. Once you understand that, you understand that if cold fusion can be controlled, it can be scaled up, and it will then be the most important discovery since fire. It will revolutionize technology and society in various ways that I described in my book:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusiona.pdf
Once that becomes generally known, and the knowledge sinks in, people will begin spending as much money on it as they now spend on self-driving car development. I think that is around $20 billion per year. In other words, people would spend $50 to $100 million per day on cold fusion research, or more money every day than we have have spent on it since it was discovered. Progress would probably be swift. I say that because just about every other difficult problem in technology has been solved with lots and lots of money. Except plasma fusion. Cold fusion is way easier and more promising than plasma fusion ever was.
We have not cured cancer with barrels of money, but that's biology, not physics or engineering.
The cost of $20 billion for self-driving cars may seen high, but those cars will save roughly $190 billion in accidents in the U.S. alone, so no one thinks they are not worth $20 billion per year for several years. The savings from cold fusion will be on the order of $10 trillion dollars a year. (Oil costs $5 trillion and I am guessing other sources cost around $5 trillion.) That is not even counting the cost of wars over oil, or schemes to spend $1 trillion on renewable energy. So, if it works, spending a few hundred billion developing cold fusion will not even be in the noise level compared to the savings.
interested observer asks a valid question which is inline with what I am asking. What needs to be done to take these "thousands of successful replications" to the next level?
Just to be accurate, a high-school kid can (and in many placed did) most certainly fabricate YBCO for a handful of bucks, assuming they have access to a kiln in the art department or an oven in the chemistry department.
That is not what I heard. I spoke with a guy who supplied HTSC samples. He said it took a lot of dollars to set up and make the materials. Perhaps they supplied some sort of kit to high school kids, but I doubt kids were making their own alloys.
But this discussion misses the point. There are countless low-cost modern gadgets that anyone can use, but only experts can make using advanced fabrications machines. Examples include NiCad batteries, cell phones, digital watches, and so on.
ed: you didn't see my point in comparing UHTS to cold fusion. My point is that spending billions of dollars on superconducting H2S would likely be a waste of money.
I was not suggesting people should spend $100 million a day on Pd-D cold fusion. There are many other promising approaches. But, as a matter of fact, thin film Pd-D has a lot going for it and it could well be a viable source of energy. It should be explored. There is much more Pd available than people realize. Half of it is tied up in automobile catalytic converters. It would not be needed for that purpose with cold fusion.
As for plasma fusion, it is the primary straw man enemy of the LENR community.
It is not a straw man. You probably do not know the history of cold fusion. Within hours of the announcement, leading plasma fusion researchers lashed out. They called F&P liars and frauds. They planted fake stories in the press. They published fake data showing no results in their own experiments when, in fact, they saw the effect. They continued harassing, lying and cheating for years. They were the nexus of opposition and dirty politics that crippled cold fusion. Granted, they had plenty of help from MIT, the APS, the DoE, Nature, Scientific American, the Washington Post, Wikipedia and many others.
All of this was documented by Mallove and others, but the main sources are the plasma fusion scientists themselves, along with the editors at places like Nature and people such as Robert Park. They did not hide their roles. On the contrary, the bragged, and they still do. See:
interested observerasks a valid question which is inline with what I am asking. What needs to be done to take these "thousands of successful replications" to the next level?
I have answered that question maybe six times here already. Stop asking.
For that matter, you could read the literature and find out for yourself. Reading, thinking for yourself . . . what a novel approach!
