NASA partners with Global Energy Corporation to develop 10kW Hybrid Reactor Generator

    Quote from JedRothwell

    This is science. You can't just wave your hands and say there is an invisible unpublished technical problem that is your little secret. You have to show your hand. If you cannot point to one or more technical problems that caused people to doubt these results, you have no case. Making up fake history and ascribing unnamed, unsupported opinions to imaginary scientists are not valid arguments in a scientific context.


    I know you like to rehash the same arguments ad infinitum, regardless of whether they address the current issue, but it gets kind of tedious. I entered this discussion because of the new GEC/NASA alliance, and at Shane's query, the recent ubiquitous claims of transmutations. I cited history *only* to support my claim that mainstream science would welcome what they regarded as good evidence for cold fusion, Rossi or no Rossi. Nothing you have written has disputed the observation that cold fusion was welcomed with enthusiasm for a few weeks in 1989. And I think you know it, and you're trying to distract attention from your failure by cutting and pasting irrelevant arguments from your past.


    As for the validity of those old claims, that has been hashed and rehashed repeatedly, and by people far more qualified than you and I, so I'm certain we will not bring anything new to the discussion. It's reached a standoff with a few people thinking the claims are persuasive and have not been debunked, and the vast majority of mainstream science finding the claims unpersuasive and considering the debunkings (including Shanahan's) to hold sway. This is most clearly illustrated by the two expert panels enlisted by the DOE to examine the best evidence in 1989 and 2004. Both times they concluded that the evidence for cold fusion is not persuasive.


    I can't see any progress being made regarding the experiments of the 90s by more debate. What would be needed to advance cold fusion's case is better results, not more arguments. I suspect there is no way for the skeptics case to advance, other than by attrition and continued failure to identify a single experiment that a qualified scientist can perform with a positive result, even if only on a statistical basis. The absence of such an experiment is emphasized by the existence of the MFMP, which was formed specifically to identify one. Five years later, they're still trying.


    And I don't agree that a skeptic must explain every observation in experiments that claim cold fusion to remain skeptical, any more than a believer needs to explain the mechanism for cold fusion to believe it is cold fusion. This is a matter of judgement, and if one judges artifacts, errors, deceptions, or bias to be more likely explanations than nuclear reactions, particularly with the absence of commensurate reaction products, then one remains skeptical.


    Finding errors or artifacts or alternative explanations in others' experiments from the written report alone is a mug's game. What would be needed is to go into the lab, but this is time-consuming, and if the skeptics are satisfied (based on the wildly erratic and marginal results reported from different groups, and the examinations of the evidence by expert panels) that the likelihood of a nuclear explanation is vanishingly small, then they would regard it as a waste of time. If the effect is real, skeptics are prepared to wait for MFMP (or someone) to identify a killer experiment. We're not holding our breath.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    It "kicked in" instantly. As I said, the day after the announcement many scientists not only disparaged it, they said that Fleischmann and Pons should be arrested.


    You have not been able to back this up. I suspect you made it up. P&F were accused of fraud, but not until they published their evidence.


    Quote

    Later, they threatened scientists with deportation, they fired them, and in one case rumor has it they dumped manure onto an experiment.


    Later. I already agreed that cold fusion was disparaged *later*. I get the feeling you're not really listening.


    Quote

    Here is a sample of what they said; there are thousands of similar quotes in the mass media and in places such as Scientific American and Wikipedia:


    Again, these quotes came *after* the honeymoon period.


    I repeat, what part of "the first few weeks after the press conference" don't you get?

    Quote from JedRothwell

    In fact, there are no valid technical reasons to doubt the major cold fusion replications.

    > In fact, there are no valid technical reasons to doubt the major cold fusion replications.


    That's not a fact, it's your judgement, and the judgement of other cold fusion advocates. But most of the cold fusion advocates also thought that the ecat was real, so I don't trust their judgement.


    It was the judgement of the expert panels that there are no valid technical reasons to to believe cold fusion is real.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Louis Reed wrote:

    "Of course, we all know that Lewis and Koonin brought everyone back down to earth about a week later,"


    Do we know this?


    Well, Congress was ready to give P&F 25 million a week earlier, but reconsidered after the APS meeting. That event is usually identified as the turning point, where the sentiment changed. The NYT article cites those papers. But of course, it wasn't just Lewis and Koonin; their papers were just the most public expression of the new skepticism -- the most identifiable event.


    Quote

    What else do "we" know about Lewis? How about the fact that he probably observed excess heat but he made a glaring error and overlooked it?


    You're deflecting. He, his reviewers, the editors of the journal, and most of his audience disagree with your judgement, but either way, it marks a turning point.


    Quote

    Regarding funding, Congress did not fund cold fusion,

    I already said that Congress reconsidered after the negative reviews a week after the hearing.


    Quote

    but the state of Utah did. They established the National Cold Fusion Institute. Do you know what the institute accomplished? It published irrefutable proof that cold fusion is real. Proof that should have instantly convinced every scientist on earth. So I think it was money well spent. What do you think?

    More deflection. This does not inform the question the prevailing sentiment during the weeks after the press conference. And I'm not sure you can call something irrefutable proof if it fails to convince the world. It seems to have failed to convince the author himself, who abandoned the field for research into conventional batteries.


    Anyway, the levels of tritium Will claimed were orders of magnitude too low to account for the claimed excess heat, so that represents failure to prove the excess heat had a nuclear origin. It’s as though a city claims an elevated death rate of 100 per year, and blames it on poison in the water. The water is tested, and disputed evidence shows traces of arsenic, but too low to even cause 1 death per year. It would be nonsense to suggest that that shows that the hundred deaths are caused by *other* poison in the water that is undetectable.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Any widely replicated, high sigma experiment is real, by definition. There is no other definition of being real in experimental science. There are no other criteria.


    Maybe you should send a memo to all the Nobel laureates who dispute the reality of cold fusion. Evidently they don't know what science or reality are. I'm sure they would welcome a lesson in science from a computer programmer with no scientific credentials who thinks science should have a statute of limitations, and that reality (certainty) can be defined.


    Feynman said:


    "scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain".


    There is no "definition" of reality.


    But there are two problems with that statement apart from your ignorance of what science is:


    1) Cold fusion experiments are not widely replicated. They are a collection of wildly erratic claims of marginal evidence for nuclear reactions. McKubre has said that quantitative reproducibility does not exist in the field, and high sigma experiments that do not agree quantitatively within sigma are more likely due to artifacts.


    2) You're claiming a particular vague interpretation of experimental observations are real. For a century, scientists claimed electromagnetic experiments with far higher reproducibility indicated the existence of ether. After Einstein, that interpretation changed. Maybe the cold fusion observations are from vacuum energy, maybe a novel chemical reaction, or most likely artifacts or errors with a dose of confirmation bias.


    Quote

    Most opponents claim that cold fusion violate theory, but that is not a valid reason to doubt a replicated experiment. If there is actually a conflict, that can only mean the theory is wrong.

    You can put this canard to rest. No scientist since Descartes has held theory above experiment. And good grief, cold fusion was claimed a year after the Nobel prize was awarded for HTSC which was not consistent with theory.


    Quote

    This is not my opinion, or my "mind" as you put it. This is fundamental to the scientific method. If you do not accept that replicated, high sigma results are real, you are not doing science.


    You said there was no doubt. Doubt is in one's mind. And scientists enlisted to examine the evidence expressed doubt.


    I hope you understand if I take the judgement of panels of expert scientists above that of someone who thought Rossi had irrefutable proof for the ecat.

    Quote from Louis Reed

    Anyway, the levels of tritium Will claimed were orders of magnitude too low to account for the claimed excess heat, so that represents failure to prove the excess heat had a nuclear origin.

    In practice the levels of tritium were significantly over the background with a direct correlation with the presence (but not quantity!) of excess heat. It is a logical fallacy to claim that tritium levels should be similar to those expected from D-D fusion in order to prove nuclear origin. Because this assumes a priori the type of nuclear process. In 1989 it became rapidly evident that another phenomenon was at play. But still of nuclear origin because these tritium nuclei are not coming from nowhere.


    Either all these labs completely screwed up their analyses (I call this Shanahan's law, a nasty version of Murphy's law), or the underlying phenomenon is nuclear and different from D-D fusion. Still today only a few physicists are openminded enough to accept the latter with the majority hiding behind their prejudices.


    I think Barker is showing extraordinary lack of understanding.


    For those not familiar with electrostatics. Why does electric potential - which indeed would be 10MeV or more relative to ground inside a Van de Graaf ball, not alter the Coulomb barrier?


    A proton with point charge creates a 1/r potential well so that close to the proton the potential is very different from far away. This however, as mandated by Maxwell's equations, is a potential difference. Add 10MV to the ambient potential and the close-field potential alters by the same amount.


    Similarly the Coulomb barrier is "seen" by an approaching nucleon as an electric field that creates a force pushing it away from another nucleon. Electric field is potential difference / distance and similarly unaffected by potential.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    For those not familiar with electrostatics. Why does electric potential - which indeed would be 10MeV or more relative to ground inside a Van de Graaf ball, not alter the Coulomb barrier?


    Because potential wrt ground is irrelevant. Within a Van de Graaf ball, the local electric field is essentially zero, just as the gravitational field inside a hollow earth would be zero, and for the same reason: the Shell Theorem.


    Charge is free to redistribute itself, and does so so as to produce a zero field in the shell. It gets a little more complicated since the shell is not a closed sphere, but the result is the same.


    If a sample were suspended between a VdG shell and ground, you'd get a field which varies with position, but that's been dealt with on this thread. Within the shell, you get nothing at all.

    Quote

    ... most of the cold fusion advocates also thought that the ecat was real, so I don't trust their judgement


    Indeed and that included many here and especially on Vortex. And many of them were condescending or exceedingly unpleasant and rude to the skeptics. And they seemed extremely confident about Rossi. They were not simply offering a possibility or a tentative opinion. They were certain that Rossi was the real deal despite all the obvious warning signs.


    Rossi also fooled Nobel winner Dr. Brian Josephson (hook, line and sinker) and no less than McKubre along with dozens of casual observers and internet pundits. Along the way, a number of skeptics were banned from Vortex, their posts were censored elsewhere, Lewan stopped accepting skeptical comments on his blog, and so on.

    • Official Post
    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    Indeed and that included many here and especially on Vortex. And many of them were condescending or exceedingly unpleasant and rude to the skeptics who thought Rossi was a crook, which it has been amply shown he is. And they seemed extremely confident about Rossi. They were not simply offering a possibility or a tentative opinion. They were confident and sure that Rossi was real despite all the obvious warning signs.


    Hmmm, so this is all about getting even. Payback time. Where is the compassion, turning the other cheek, and all that other stuff?


    Would we be forgiven our sins, if we former Rossi believers signed confessions, wore dunce caps, and begged your forgiveness?

    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    Indeed and that included many here and especially on Vortex. And many of them were condescending or exceedingly unpleasant and rude to the skeptics.


    Yes, indeed. I apologize for any rudeness I might have shown to skeptics on my part on Vortex. Keep in mind that the people there and on this forum are just amateurs and hobbyists, usually without any particular basis to judge claims, and often unaware of the limits of their own knowledge. We're like spectators watching and cheering on different teams in a game.


    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    Rossi also fooled Nobel winner Dr. Brian Josephson (hook, line and sinker) and no less than McKubre


    I'm pretty sure you have McKubre's position wrong, and I suspect you have Josephson's position wrong as well. As I understand it, both of them have approached Rossi with considerably more nuance than this statement implies.


    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    Along the way, a number of skeptics were banned from Vortex, their posts were censored elsewhere,


    The skeptics on Vortex (whose views I always found interesting, even if I disagreed on particular points) regularly fell afoul of the no-sneering rule. Keep in mind that Vortex was conceived as a refuge to explore weird and heretical ideas away from the kind of harsh criticism encountered on newsgroups like sci.physics.fusion. One may disagree with the soundness or wisdom of such a rule, but it's there. (Our version of that rule is much more relaxed and relates to whether a person is being a boor.)

    Quote from Eric Walker

    I'm pretty sure you have McKubre's position wrong, and I suspect you have Josephson's position wrong as well. As I understand it, both of them have approached Rossi with considerably more nuance than this statement implies.

    I do not know much about Josephson's position, but I discussed this with McKubre at length. I agree his views were nuanced. He called Rossi something like "dubious" or "dishonest" (I do not recall his exact words). He wasn't sure whether Rossi was using this dishonesty to disguise a real result, or to hide a fraud.


    McKubre was one of the first to note the problems with the Defkalion flow rate at the ICCF conference. This was later revealed to be a fraud, described in detail here:


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GamberaleLfinaltechn.pdf

    Quote from Louis Reed

    You said there was no doubt. Doubt is in one's mind. And scientists enlisted to examine the evidence expressed doubt.

    Which scientists? Where? Do you refer to the 2004 DoE review? There were 6 supporters, 10 opponents and 2 undecided (my count). The opponents did not examine the data. Their doubts were based on theory and ignorance. They made only a few statements about the experiments and these statements were wrong. So they don't count. See:


    http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?page_id=455


    I do not know of any group of scientists who have examined the data, found errors, and published them. Do you know of any such publication? (I have asked you several times before but you have not responded.) If you will not tell me what report you have in mind, I have no way of evaluating your statements.

    Quote from Louis Reed

    You're deflecting. He [Lewis], his reviewers, the editors of the journal, and most of his audience disagree with your judgement . . .

    How about you? Have your read the technical discussion by Fleischmann et al.? Do you understand it, and do you agree? This is not a matter of opinion. It is a technical issue. Fleischmann, Miles and others think that a calibration constant should not be measured after heat starts to appear, because that will skew the results. It will make the earlier results look like a negative, endothermic reaction, when in fact they show an energy balance.


    Do you agree or disagree with that?


    There is a particularly clear example of this same mistake made by another group of researchers, on pages 14 - 18 here, especially Figs. 3 and 4:


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanlettersfroa.pdf


    This is a technical question. The number of people who got the wrong answer, and whether they include the editors and "most of his audience" is irrelevant. Perhaps you have made consensus fallacy ("appeal to popularity").


    If Lewis's result is incorrect, any conclusions based upon it are invalid, no matter how many people go along with those conclusions, or how much they shaped public opinion in 1989.

    Quote from WhatRoughBeast

    Because potential wrt ground is irrelevant. Within a Van de Graaf ball, the local electric field is essentially zero, just as the gravitational field inside a hollow earth would be zero, and for the same reason: the Shell Theorem.


    Charge is free to redistribute itself, and does so so as to produce a zero field in the shell. It gets a little more complicated since the shell is not a closed sphere, but the result is the same.


    If a sample were suspended between a VdG shell and ground, you'd get a field which varies with position, but that's been dealt with on this thread. Within the shell, you get nothing at all.


    Thx WRB! But, if you read the rest of my post, it was a rhetorical question!


    I was not even considering that anyone would imagine non-zero field inside a VDG sphere. The point at issue is that +10MV makes no difference since cannot be determined locally...

    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    Rossi also fooled Nobel winner Dr. Brian Josephson (hook, line and sinker) and no less than McKubre

    No, they have not been fooled by Rossi.


    Josephson justified his faith after the support that his academic colleagues gave to the Ecat results:


    Quote

    https://www.physicsforums.com/…84427/page-2#post-3212649

    ...

    1. on the basis of the 2nd investigation by the U. of Bologna, where 15kW was generated continuously over a period of 18 hours, I have little doubt that the Rossi reactor is real and that over the next few months everyone will have to accept this.

    ...

    Quote

    https://www.physicsforums.com/…84427/page-2#post-3213610  

    ...

    But how many of these have been checked out by university depts. as Rossi's has (and he is willing to allow further investigations)?

    ...


    As for McKubre, he said he trusted a couple of his friends:


    Quote

    From his presentation "What Happened to Cold Fusion", on Oct. 11, 2011 ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3N3dWlIPUQ&t=6m )


    … people that I know and trust have stood in front of Rossi's reactor and come away convinced that it really is doing more or less what Rossi claims. This includes my ex program manager at DARPA, very, very intelligent man, a good friend of mine. This test here AmpEnerco Run 1 and Run 2 conducted on September 25, 2009, in New Hampshire was witnessed by a good friend of mine, also a very smart guy. …


    Not the only intelligent and smart guys in this story, I'd say.

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