The Quasicrystal Discoverer- From Disgrace to a Nobel

https://www.sciencealert.com/q…ing-new-ways-to-make-them

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00026-y

Yet more tiresome complaints from the LENR community about HOW THE WHOLE WORLD MISTREATS US!

Yes, Schectman faced stiff opposition at first from some quarters, but then he put his evidence in order and within 2 years of first discovering quasicrystals had published it in a top physics journal. Then came replication and widespread acceptance.

Yes, there was personal conflict and he was ejected from his research group, but he was then was absorbed into another group where he could continue his work. If you take Linus Pauling out of the whole quasicrystal controversy then what you have is a pretty standard set of battles in the world of professional science. And yes, Pauling had a big voice as an elder of crystallography at the time, but Schectman himself describes how Pauling was widely ignored and eventually couldn't even get his papers published because his complaints about quasicrystals were so against the evidence.

So just what was so wrong with how the quasicrystal events unfolded? I see temporary obstacles fairly quickly overcome by solid evidence. Yes there is "dogma" within science (if that is what you want to call consensus expectations within a scientific community) but I think that this has to exist for a science to work as a science. It is the business of science to say at any moment ... 'yes we think this is true but we think this is not true'. It has to be that way or you don't have a platform from which to make predictions, nor do you have progress. If people here think that LENR has been hard done by then stop weeping and get to work, find good evidence, and then publish it as Schectman did (and as I see Rothwell and Mizuno beginning to do). Oh ... and if there is a ban on publishing evidence that disagrees with the prevailing wisdom then how did Schectman publish?

I suppose this thread will crank along now along in a predictably lachrymose fashion. In fact here is a prediction ... I predict that we will soon we see posts here whose logic is that because LENR faces a lack of acceptance from mainstream science it must therefore be true! But that reasoning is fallacious. Mainstream opposition to something doesn't make it true.

Maybe quasicrystals have more common with cold fusion within metallic lattices than one would guess. Quasicrystals are internal tension, negative space-time stuff close to metallic glasses, topological insulators and superconductors. Normally atoms are considered a rigid spheres which gives rather limited range of crystalographic groups and packing geometries based on Platonic solids in 3D. But occasionally they can behave like overlapping furry spheres or charged particles repelling at distance - it applies particularly to atoms sporting elongated d- and f-orbitals protruding from atom surface. In this case additional hyperdimensional packing geometries can be observed. Similarly to superconductors quasicrystalls are brittle, because they experience strong internal tension based on balance of strong repulsive and attractive forces and they're on the verge of crystalline and amorphous solids similarly to water clusters and ice. Their high locally compression of atoms crystal lattice at one side and loosening followed by formation of cracks and nanocavities at another brings conditions for localized directional waves and resonance effects at the crystal grain boundaries and along their dislocations. In my theory Coulomb barrier could be overcomed when collective action of multiple atoms colliding in 3D gets focused along density gradients of lattice in sort of piston and/or Astroblaster effect (water crystal fusion during sonofusion and/or laser implosions also comes on mind here). The anomalous distribution of electrons along these gradients would further enhance cold fusion by screening effects.

Quote

In fact here is a prediction ... I predict that we will soon we see posts here whose logic is that because LENR faces a lack of acceptance from mainstream science it must therefore be true! But that reasoning is fallacious. Mainstream opposition to something doesn't make it true.

This is what the straw man fallacy (combined with reduction to absurdum fallacy) is called. You're arguing against cold fusion from artificially introduced nonsensical position, which NO ONE here in this forum actually occupies. Of course that mainstream opposition to something doesn't make it true by itself, but such an application of a fallacy already IS a trait of pathological skepticism, i.e. biased perception of reality or tendency to deform it.

IMO the ignorance of cold fusion has many aspects common with dismissal of quasicrystals and/or let say heliocentric model, because it requires to look at problem from dual perspective topologically inverted to mainstream. Yes, the Sun looks like revolving the Earth at the first sight, but what if it actually runs in opposite way? Yes, the atoms usually repel each other at distance - but what if there are also negative, i.e. attractive forces at distance? And so on - whole the scalar wave physics and crackpot overunity could be actually a stuff of topologically inverted perspective of space-time. After all, dark matter is also negatively curved space-time stuff, whereas general relativity allows only positive gravity and space-time curvature.

The opposition to mainstream therefore can occasionally get true not only despite it's opposite to mainstream, but JUST BECAUSE of it. But the probability of this opposition will be quite different from mainstream science probabilities, which mainstream scientists use to expect. Mainstream science adheres on casual continuity, correspondence principle and universality of laws and established facts, whereas these dual hyperdimensional anomalies manifest itself along foamy and stringy manifolds in causal space - you should know where to look for them, universally valid determinism doesn't apply there - only rare coincidence of well tuned parameters.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

You're arguing against cold fusion ...

No I'm not.

Quote from AlainCo

Dan Shechtman: 'Linus Pauling said I was talking nonsense'

https://www.theguardian.com/sc…prize-chemistry-interview

In the same article Shechtman says that Pauling eventually couldn't get his papers published because they were so obviously against the evidence. Shechtman himself was able to publish his discovery in a top flight journal within 2 years and widespread acceptance followed soon after. People here are ignoring this because it doesn't fit the narrative that the very greatest discoveries (like poor poor LENR!) are ignored and buried by the mainstream since they are earth shattering and science doesn't like shattered earth. .

Shechtman's revolutionary observations were cautiously received but then fully accepted within half a decade. So ... not like LENR.

There have been many scientific discoveries that were mocked, derided or ignored but later turned out to be completely valid.

There have been many alleged scientific discoveries that were mocked, derided or ignored and eventually turned out to be bogus.

Neither of this facts has any bearing whatsoever on the ultimate fate of LENR. So how about if we stop talking about the Wright Brothers, plate tectonics, Piltdown Man, or any other previous case? They are irrelevant. Only scientific research will settle the issue, not analogies.

Quote

My own view is that academics are too often back-stabbing precious buggers who would benefit from a little ,more fibre in their diet.

Not to mention Vitamin C, a potent laxative in Pauling-sized doses.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Not to mention Vitamin C, a potent laxative in Pauling-sized doses.

Even worse, it can damage your esophagus due to reflux and induce cancer...