Posts by Ascoli65

Quote from sigmoidal

Obviously you disagree, and have postulated a Big Conspiracy.

I find that silly.

Since this first time, you kept repeating this mantra many times till now.

I never used the word "conspiracy", nor it is my intention to suggest anything of that kind. I have not enough information to do that, and, in any case, it's not my scope. I just would like to know something more about the Ecat story.

Almost everyone who writes on the web belongs to one of these two parties: either (A) those who think that the Ecat works (ie it is capable to produce some excess heat), or (B) those who think that this affair is a big scam conceived and carried out mainly by Rossi. I personally cannot believe neither of these two options. So I'm looking around for finding a complementary explanation (C). In doing this, it is inevitable to review all the many relationships which Rossi had with several important and expert people of so many public institutions that incomprehensibly gave him a strong support all along the Ecat decennial saga, and reflect on them.

Strangely, this effort is considered by someone the same thing as postulating a conspiracy. It isn't, of course, but the insistent insinuations toward this erroneous interpretation could be considered "per se" a strong indication in that direction.

Anyway if you deem that either (A) or (B) option already provides a satisfactorily explanation of the Ecat affair, I have no reason to convince you to change your opinion. I find more useful discussing with someone, if any, who is looking for a third option (C), or has useful information, and sincerely wants to share some of them.

Quote from THHuxleynew

First: I agree that Rossi getting support from UoB academics was a great PR coup. He has repeated this, with other academics, a number of times. It is a real strength of "the Rossi effect".

Do you also know that this PR attitude of him was well known by the people who first met him at the beginning of his last adventure?

Quote

From: http://www.infinite-energy.com…ng-a-lawsuit-in-lenr.html

It was impossible to ignore Rossi. Even several years later when he had not yet produced a demonstration of his technology that was universally proclaimed to produce excess heat, he was acknowledged to have attracted attention to the cold fusion field in proportions it hadn’t seen for years.

Rossi not only didn’t wait for the ICCFs; he didn’t attend them. He gave demonstrations of his technology, put videos on the internet, ran his own website, and worked ceaselessly to get what he was doing out there. He knew PR. At one point when he was just starting to get up a head of steam and his ECat technology had not yet been named, I attended a meeting with him in the offices of a major public relations firm in offices above Grand Central Station. The firm leader was a colleague of a brilliant executive who had guided media for the company I’d worked with years earlier. Rossi was looking for financial support at the time and I thought he could use the introduction. He ended up describing to the public relations professionals how he had successfully hired writers to produce books about him and get them distributed in all the bookstores, making him “the biggest environmental hero in Italy” before events had turned his story in the opposite direction. He described the publishing costs, decided on the message he wanted to convey, hired writers, got the books written and designed, even told us how to get them into the bookstores. My friend who had arranged the meeting had worked for one of the largest PR firms in the U.S. and then been the public information director of a multimillion dollar corporation. “Rossi has a very sophisticated sense of this business,” he surmised. “He’s a really personable, charming, likeable guy.” The firm, upon instruction, sent a proposal on their services. Rossi sent a warm but noncommittal reply. If there was one thing Andrea Rossi didn’t need, it was a public relations firm. He knew how to do it himself.

Ask yourself why they didn't meet at MIT, or CalTec, or any other scientific laboratory, but in a PR office. What could they expect from him since the beginning: an exceptional scientific invention, or a great PR coup?

Quote

Second: I don't agree that it would have been physically impossible for them to get these tests wrong.

I don't know what does it mean "get" in your sentence, but if you mean that the people involved in the writing out of the January 2011 report could have been unintentionally wrong, you need to read better the comment of mine you are replying to, including the links. In particular, you should wonder how it was possible that make, type and model of a missing RH probe, that should have been the most important instrument of that demo, had been unintentionally mentioned in a report written and checked by the UoB physicists.

Quote from JedRothwell

I forget some minor detail about Rossi, who is one researcher out of thousands.

Sorry, but also in this case I think you are kidding. Assuming that you are talking about the CF/LENR researchers and that this role applies to Rossi, it's very hard to believe that you consider him "one researcher out of thousands". Thousands are the comments you wrote to support the Ecat claims, or the number of replies reached by this only thread, one of the dozens dedicated to this very special "CF researcher".

I would like to know if sigmoidal believes you also in this case.

Quote

Earlier I reported one of the temperatures Rossi gave me: 101 deg C. Later, I replaced with another temperature he gave me: 103 deg C. The difference between them [...]

I just told you, that I'm not interested in the last tests. You can keep valid whichever temperature you want. I'm not going to dispute any results of the tests carried out after the official withdrawal of the UoB. They are private affairs within the CF/LENR field.

Anyway, this your insistence to address the Doral test confirms what I said before. You want to focus all the attention on the last tests, and this provides a possible explanation of your pretense to confuse the first ones.

Hi, sigmoidal,

Quote from sigmoidal

It is hard for me to understand why you can't see that it's Rossi's deception that is the cause of the initial positive confirmations, ...

That's an important point: the "initial positive confirmations". The public part of the Ecat story developed from the initial impulse gained after the public demo held in Bologna on January 14, 2011. Everybody in the field, and many other common people in the world, knows it because almost every book or newspaper article on the Ecat subject begins with that event.

But, it's not true that this fame is due to a Rossi's deception. At that time, Rossi, by himself, was lacking of any credibility as a CF scientist, and it was well known that he could have been a "crook" (see below).

His initial fame among thousands of his believers have been mainly boosted by a worldwide massive propagandistic campaign, which started immediately after the January 2011 demo, and was totally based on the credibility of the professors involved in the test. You can realize it looking at what JR wrote on Vortex the day after (1): "This tells us that various professors at the university have been involved for some time, and they designed and implemented the calorimetry. I do not think there is any way Rossi could "fool" these people. I think that would be physically impossible. Rossi may be a crook but he could not persuade Levi to destroy his career. The fact that Levi and other established professors took part in the experiment is about 4 orders of magnitude more significant than what Rossi may have done, ..."

In this case, I agree with his words. Rossi couldn't have deceived the professors, because, as JR said, they first "designed and implemented the calorimetry", and thereafter they personally "took part in the experiment". A week later, they also wrote, checked and issued the calorimetric report. So, it was "physically impossible" for Rossi to "fool those people". Consider that JR was one of the most informed people in the world on that demo, because he was directly in touch with the testers. And he kept on saying the same things for many years later (2).

The same applies to all the non public previous tests carried out in the US. It's impossible that Rossi conned also all the several well trained CF/LENR researchers working for the US agencies that in the previous years had the opportunity to know him very well and to see many times the magic tools at work. They are colleagues of you, aren't they? Do you think, they could have been fooled for years by a controversial Italian philosopher? The same person that failed to provide them a working TEG device just a few years before?

Quote

It's hard to overstate how disruptive and damaging it can be to a research field when a research entity intentionally deceives.

Yes, you are right. That's exactly the situation of the LENR field after this revealing Ecat saga.

Did you follow the January 2011 demo? Did you examine the technical details? You are a researcher, and you told me you are familiar with publishing results. Do you think that it is possible to unintentionally declare in a report that the steam dryness was measured by a well specific type of RH probe, while dozens of pictures show you that that probe was inexistent and that at its place was placed a simple thermometric probe? Are you able to answer the questions I recently posed to DW (3) and that remained unanswered?

(1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vo…0eskimo.com/msg41324.html"

(2) https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…D/?postID=29406#post29406

(3) Rossi vs. Darden developments - Part 2

Quote from JedRothwell

Impossible to believe I made a momentary mistake?

Sorry, sir, it's impossible to me. The "18 hours" is an immediately recognizable trademark of a test that everyone who followed this story since 2011 knows very well, because it has been the only one based on liquid phase calorimetry. And you have been the main supporter of the reliability of its results, so I cannot believe that you made such a mistake, and I wonder how many others here can believe that.

It looks to me that your strategy here is trying to make the people forget the REAL first tests made by Levi at the beginning of 2011. It seems that you want the people think that the first test made by him is the Ferrara test on the HotCat. You already did it many times, for example answering to Mary Yugo (1) and thereafter objecting to my comment to him (2).

I got the impression that you are trying to divert the attention far away from the 2011 tests, in order to focus it on the last and less documented tests.

Quote

Evidently I was wrong. The effect was never independently replicated, and it turned out Rossi was deceptive in ways I did not anticipate.

The Ecat tests held in 2011 were deceptive in ways, that you were more than able to anticipate, and that you should have known at that time. Ways that many people on Vortex, and elsewhere, told and explained you shortly after each test, and that you have regularly and stubbornly denied.

Quote

I don't know what to make of the earlier results.

You don't, but they still remain in the history for explaining people the real nature of the Ecat affair, which, considering also your special and privileged role, could be easily extended to the whole CF/LENR field.

(1) Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

(2) Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

Quote from JedRothwell

No, it a trivial matter. It is momentary confusion, like when you owe $15, you accidentally hand the cashier a $10 bill instead of a $20, and you ask for change. If you find that "funny" you are easily amused.

OK, I know, this is your personal way to pay homage to the genious of one of your heroes: Machiavelli. Anyway, he recommended to appear at least credible, and in this case you forgot to follow his advise.

It's impossible to believe that the LENR librarian, the world's most informed man about the Ecat story, can accidentally confuse the famous "18 hour test" performed by Levi, with the subsequent test documented by the two Swedish professors.

The "18-hour demostration" is one of the few items on the "news" page of your site (1), and in those days, in February 2011, you extensively documented that test on Vortex. You also wrote a letter to Josephson specifically addressing that test (2), in which you strongly supported the results briefed to you by Levi about the production of a huge and continuous excess heat along the whole 18-hours period. But after MrSelfSustained reasserted which test he was referring to, you answered him (3): "These are interesting news items." Were those items really new for you? Should we really believe, that you forgot even for a while that test and your letter to the Nobel laureate?

On the same answer to MSS, you say:

"I cannot draw any conclusions from it. Lewan's description is no better. […] What you see here in these two reports does not meet the essential first steps for a scientific evaluation. […] You can't draw any conclusions from them."

But a few months after that test, in August 2011, answering to the same objections, you wrote (4):

"This data is similar to what you find on a boiler test form, filled in by an inspector. It is no less detailed than that. No sensible person would suggest that such tests are inadequate, or that there is some reason why they might be wrong. They are, of course, imprecise. As it says on the guides to these forms, the results are plus or minus 10%."

And, again, a few comments later (5):

"If your best argument against this data is the assertion that Lewan and I are incapable of transcribing numbers correctly, or that Levi and the others did not bother to check the published report in NyTekNik to be sure the numbers are right, you have lost this debate."

So you were well informed about those early tests, but now you skip all the questions about them, and you try to divert all the attention on the last 1 MW-1 y test, keeping on repeating the same clichéd statements.

This looks like a game, you are playing since 6+ years. At least.

The following is a clear example of your tactic:

Quote

You people make mountains out of molehills, like making a huge fuss about the difference between 100.1 degrees and 103 degrees. In reality, any machine of this size will have fluid over a broader range of temperatures than this. Two or 3 degrees are meaningless.

But you mistake person. I'm not interested in the last innings of this game. The very last is only a win-win matchball inside the LENR field.

(1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/News.htm

(2) http://www.physicsforums.com/s…hp?p=3214604&postcount=41

(3) Rossi vs. Darden developments - Part 2

(4) http://www.mail-archive.com/vo…@eskimo.com/msg49829.html

(5) http://www.mail-archive.com/vo…@eskimo.com/msg49861.html

Quote from maryyugo

Jed wrote:

Jed Rothwell wrote:

I do not know about it. Was it described in this paper, which is in Portuguese for some reason?

This answer is one of the most incredible (and one of the more revealing) statement I ever read. Rothwell was answering to this question posed by MrSelfSustain: "What do you think about the 18 hour test that Dr. Levi conducted back in 2011."

It was very clear which test MMS was referring to. If you ask Google about "18 hour test" + "Levi" + "2011", you get dozens of links to the Ecat test held on February 10-11, 2011.

But, very surprisingly, the LENR librarian, who takes care of thousands of carefully catalogued documents, found instead a Portuguese translation of the report by Kullander and Essen, referred to a different test held on March 29, 2011. Isn't it funny?

Quote

Best guess as to why it was not valid is that Rossi knowingly and calculatedly placed the output temperature thermocouple close to the huge electrical heaters the device had.

No, sorry, the best guess is the simplest:

https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…D/?postID=25977#post25977

Quote

As to how long Rossi fooled people, he didn't fool me at all.

If you think the he was the one who fooled so many people, you also have been fooled! Just in a different way.

Quote from can

I do suspect too that there are several "poker players" in the LENR field.

It seems to me that the table on which this poker game is played, is much wider than the LENR field.

Quote

As for their motive, however, I'm not sure. Are they trying to divert attention from something else? Or perhaps hoping that by making skilled people focus on the subject someone will eventually come out with a truly working LENR reactor? Or are they just playing a confidence game for their own personal benefit?

What's your take?

"They"? I guess that the game involves a lot of players, and, if we look carefully, we might find ourselves among them.

Anyway, speaking about the LENR card dealers only, I don't know which kind of bluff they play, and, as for their motives, I don't know either, but I would exclude the second one.

Quote from Rigel

(this being you stating that this was known back in 2011)

The first time I posted the above slide was at the end of March 2011, in the quite popular Physics Forum (1). It was the first of 3 slides attached to a comment addressed to Brian Josephson, that in an earlier message asked to put in evidence at least one flaw in the previous Levi tests. After the short Josephson's reply to my comment the thread was immediately closed. At that time that thread was quite famous in the LENR community due to the presence, as guest speaker, of the Nobel laureate, therefore I presume that many LENR folks did look at that slide. In addition, Rothwell and Melich had some more reasons to be aware of the problem of the missing RH probe since the first days after the demo.

Quote

if I understand the single lead on the TC had to be incorrect as it was single signal poled.

That was only one of the many clues that would warn whoever physicist with a little laboratory experience, that the one shown in the pictures was not the RH probe claimed to be used in the Levi's report.

Quote

And to get steam you need the different TC? I hope this is correct.

No, the main problem with the missing RH probe is related to credibility. In this specific case you can't believe that they measured the dryness of the steam. And, moreover, you can't believe anything else will be stated by those people, until they correct themselves about these earliest incongruities. But they never did it.

Quote

May ask if you are in the CMNS locked group?

No, I don't.

Quote

How do you think Rossi is just a lieutenant?

It seems obvious to me. Anyway this will be more clear when the two questions posed by Krivit on Vortex nearly 7 years ago (2) will find their answers.

(1) http://www.physicsforums.com/s…hp?p=3219628&postcount=83

(2) https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…D/?postID=30415#post30415

Quote from Rigel

If this has been brought up before I missed it. Any by your references it was there all along, it is a very good question but your premise may not be true, It maybe based on unknown information at this point.

You can take advantage of the exchange I had last summer with Abd-Ul Rahman Lomax, starting from the link (1) in my comment above, and concluded on August 4 with the following comment of mine, which remained unanswered.

https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…D/?postID=31022#post31022

Quote from Dewey Weaver

I was the first in the IH network to communicate with Michael and Marianne starting back at ICCF-18.

OK, thank you.

There still remains the problem of who was the first phone caller who gave rise to the establishment of the IH company. At this point we could think at whoever other person along the command line, up to nearly the top.

Quote

I've learned a lot about the early US E-Cat demonstrations and several of the Navy folks believed that they witnessed at least one credible demonstration back in the early days.

That's also very interesting. So in the middle of 2013 (at ICCF-18) you got firsthand information on the early Ecat tests coming from "several" Navy folks operating in the field.

You also said that all of these folks are very smart. I believe it. They are for sure first class scientists. Most of them have REAL PhD obtained in the US universities, which boast the highest world ratings. Moreover, they worked for many years in the most famous scientific and technological laboratories of the world.

But after being present at some demonstrations of the most incredible object you can imagine, held by an Italian philosopher, with an "engineer" degree released by a US diploma mill - "a person who has an almost 40 year history of deceiving people" (your words) – the only thing they said is: "at least one [was] credible".

You may easily understand that there is something that doesn't fit! Unless .. Unless for them, the word "credible" means "which has some chances to be believed by somebody else".

Quote

No one was ever able to dig into the setup / experiment details […] We're still working on those forensics and may have the answer to how everyone was fooled.

Probably, there was no need to dig very deep INTO the setup, they had just to see what was in front of them, if they really wanted it.

Look at the following slide (sorry, I already post it in the past (1), but I need to be sure that you are in front of the right one). How long you take to realize that the probe "B" is different from the probe "C"?

Got it? Fine.

The "C" probe, the one cited in the Levi report, was (should have been) the most important instrument in the most important public demo of the CF/LENR history, but it wasn't there! At its place there was the very different probe "B". Many videos and pictures show this probe. It was just in the middle of the lab, on top of the Ecat. With its long stem and the bright yellow cable, it was one of the most visible object in that room. Do you think that Rothwell and Melich were not aware, since the beginning, of this glaring inconsistency in the experimental setup?

It happened in January 2011! Well before the IH engagement in this affair.

(1) https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…D/?postID=30631#post30631

Hi, can,

Quote from can

Basically, are you suggesting that the E-Cat and some of the key people involved with it are or have been part of a PsyOp campaign?

No, I'm not looking for a specific name to propose. For my experience, giving a specific name to an initiative like this could be misleading. Because you start mixing up the characteristics of both. I prefer a generic name such as bluff, and defining better the role and awareness of people and organizations involved.

Anyway your link is interesting, I didn't know this kind of military operations. It reminds me the initiative in the French Africa of Voice Of America about the Cold Fusion, which talked about the Ecat 1 MW plant too (1).

(1) La voix de l'amérique - Afrique : Les industriels s'intéressent de plus en plus aux réactions nucléaires à basse énergie

Quote from Dewey Weaver

My response to you was sincere and within the bounds of what I can share.

I understand that there are limits to what you can share with us. I didn't want to insist. My questions were mostly rhetorical, just to introduce what it might be deduced from the available information. And also, as you could have seen, I started from your answers, so I did consider sincere all of them. The derived hypothetical scenario comes from the effort to fit your answers with the rest of the information provided by firsthand witnesses, as Krivit and Macy herself.

Quote

For the record Michael Melich was not involved in any of TD's initial CF conversations and they met / spoke for the first time in Padua.

OK, thank you again. I take note of this. In such a case I should deduce, from your own words, that you have been one of the first IH investors to have been in touch with Melich. Your words demonstrate also that you are very familiar with him and his wife, so you are well informed. But, I don't want ask you anything more of what you said about him. However, it seems to me that it is impossible to judge the role of Rossi in the Ecat affair without figuring out what has been that of Melich.

Quote

I consider Mike, along with the rest of the Navy scientist that I've met over the past 4 years, to be honorable, smart, honest and hard working folks.

No doubts about that, believe me. I don't want threaten the honorability, smartness, honesty and hard working goodwill of anyone. But, after having attributed all these characteristics at the same time to the Navy scientists which followed for so long Rossi and the Ecat affair, the only scenario whose I can think about is a big bluff.

Quote from IH Fanboy

I find this conjecture to be pretty bizarre and highly unlikely.

It was only a question, just for proposing a debate by using a little bit of lateral thinking.

Anyway, do you see anything in the Ecat story which is not "pretty bizarre and highly unlikely"?

How many oddities and incongruities could instantaneously be solved by an affirmative answer to that question?

Quote from Dewey Weaver

I do not plan to share details around NRL related conversations that I have been having since ICCF-18

I understand. Anyway, you have already provided very useful information about the relationship between IH and the Navy people. Thank you.

There still remain a lot of open issues, but it is possible to figure out a suitable scenario, filling the gaps by means of other already available information. Let me try.

You said yesterday, you were in touch with Melich since 4 years. That's around the beginning of 2013. One year later, IH announced to have "acquired the rights to Andrea Rossi's Italian low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) technology, the Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat)."

I should presume that the same was true for the others IH investors, in particular it's much probable that Darden was in touch with him even earlier than you. Well, during his opening speech at the ICCF19 in Padua, he said:

Quote

Thomas Darden, at ICCF19 in Padua, April 13, 2015 (1):

"One day I received a random call about cold fusion. I didn’t give it much credence because I remembered in detail the disclosure about Fleischmann and Pons years before, and I believed the subject was dead. Then thirty days later I received another related inquiry from a different group, so we began to do some research, and then thirty days later, I received a call from another group. We had invested in 100 startup companies and I had never gotten an inquiry about fusion or about LENR: three in 30 day intervals. We funded two of these groups, and then later, as many of you know, we licensed Andrea Rossi’s technology."

So, a person and two groups phone called him in 30 days.

Who could have been that person? Considering what has been revealed by Krivit about the Melich engagement for finding some financing for the Ecat affair, we can think of him has the first caller.

What about the two groups? Probably at least one of them is one of the two groups that have been first funded by Darden/IH. So they could have been groups involved in the LENR research.

But why they both called Darden in a so short period? The best explanation is that they have been recommended to do that by the first caller, and considering the affiliation of this last, it's much probable that these groups were among those operating inside the DoD perimeter.

But the next question is, why these public groups were looking for a private financing? One possible answer is that at the end of 2011 "the authorities have finally closed down cold fusion research at SAPWAR [sic]" as announced on Vortex on December 17 (2).

A few days later, the same very well informed person, added:

Quote

From Vortex, December 22, 2011 (3):

"The people at SPAWAR are negotiating with management about this. They are hoping to arrange to have the equipment and know-how transferred to the private sector. (Rather than have the equipment chucked into the dumpster, I suppose, which is where a good many cold fusion experiments have ended up.)

They say they will let me know as this process shapes up. people interested in supporting this work may have a chance to invest in the company. At some point, it might be a good idea to make polite, positive suggestions to the Navy management. But not now.

It might be possible to restart the work in the lab there. I kind of doubt it, but let's see how things work out."

Did these negotiations eventually result in the IH initiative?

Quote from Dewey Weaver

I was initially concerned about CF suppression by DoD scientist but was able to eventually resolve that they are good hard science folks who mainly want/wanted to get to the bottom of things.

No doubt, DoD scientists are good hard science folks. No doubt that Melich, which is also a DoD scientist and who follows the CF since the very first days, is as well a very smart expert in the field.

But at this point I have a lot of doubts about what you told me yesterday:

Quote from Dewey Weaver

The NRL researcher that you reference in your above quote was not Michael Melich although I have had numerous conversations with both Michael and Marianne over the past 4 years. Very good people who really do care about this sector.

We all got fooled for at least a season.

How it was possible?

Macy told us that his husband met Rossi in 2007, and that they both spent a lot of time with him traveling throughout the world (4). At the same time, from what you said, I deduce that for "at least a season", therefore well after the 2013, Melich was confident that the Ecat was a working device.

Assuming that with "working" he meant that the Ecat was capable of producing many kW of excess heat, how can I believe that an expert PhD in Physics, a professor at the Postgraduate Naval School, where the high level officers of the US Navy are educated to cope with the more sophisticated warfare tricks, has been fooled for so many years by an Italian philosopher, well known for all the judiciary troubles, that you have yourself easily found on the web, and that are there since the '90ies?

Quote from Dewey Weaver

Rossi saw the CF sector as ripe for his skills and soiree'd right on into the mix with his patented methodology and business model. He is truly one of the best at what he does and may this cycle be his last regarding his ability to take advantage of well-meaning people.

Yes, "he is truly one of the best at what he does", but it was well known since long, even at DoD.

Could it be, perhaps, the reason why he was chosen and has been educated for this last mission?

(1) http://www.e-catworld.com/2015…speech-on-lenr-at-iccf19/

(2) http://www.mail-archive.com/vo…@eskimo.com/msg59243.html

(3) http://www.mail-archive.com/vo…@eskimo.com/msg59712.html (4) https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…D/?postID=30002#post30002

@ Eric Walker,

a premise. You used twice the word "innocent". This is not a law court. I don't want to make any accusation. All of us use energy. We are using it in such amount and quality that nobody in the future will be able to have the same, but we need it to survive in this society, so all of us are guilty, and innocent at the same time. All I would like to understand are the facts, the role of the people and organizations involved in this affair, and how much conscious they were of the reality of the facts. Nothing more.

Quote from Eric Walker

I find (4) somewhat improbable, because there would have to be a lot of collusion/collaboration between different parties to pull it off

Yes, there have been many different parties involved in the Ecat affair, but only a few of them would need to be aware of the intimate nature and of the real purposes of this initiative. This is because among those who collaborated to carry it out there are a lot of different motivation of much lower level, for instance of psychological nature. As JR reminded on Vortex (1), "scientists believe whatever you pay them to believe." Well, probably not everybody, hopefully a minority. But it means that if you allocate a certain budget for whichever research, you will find for sure so many available scientists to spend the entire budget. So, in order to carry on an hypothetical farcical initiative you have just to control an appropriate budget, and little more.

Quote

you seem to want to get the University of Bologna in trouble for getting caught up in all of this, but my own impression is that its role seems to have been as an unwitting and largely innocent bystander.

No, that's not my aim. I'm very sorry that this affair involves an Italian university. But the problem is much more wider. It doesn't specifically affect the UoB, it involves the whole academic e scientific world engaged in the research for an energy breakthrough. Think to the flop of the NIF initiative, or to the misrepresentation of the performances of the large tokamaks such as ITER, as recently denounced by Krivit (2).

But here we are talking about the Ecat, and, unfortunately, all the scientific confidence in the reliability of its performances has been provided by members of the Physics Department of UoB. Even today, 6 years after the demo, some people still appeal to the scientific authoritativeness of Focardi, or to the credibility of the first Levi tests.

These scientists (not only those in Bologna) are the vanguard of the humankind, they should show the right track, and correct themselves immediately as soon as they realize that they were wrong. Did it happen?

(1) http://www.mail-archive.com/vo…@eskimo.com/msg97821.html

(2) http://news.newenergytimes.net…1/12/the-selling-of-iter/

Hi, zeus46,

Quote from zeus46

let's just skip to the good stuff.... If your thesis is correct, who (or what) was ultimately behind the hoax, and what benefit did/do they derive from it?

Sorry, I have no thesis. I'm just proposing to consider some important aspects which are usually ignored in this debate.

As for the benefit, we are talking about energy. Everyone is benefited, in some way, by the use of energy. So, it's not a matter of "they", but of "we". We know that the energy resources are limited. The CF/LENR proponents, as well as those of other revolutionary energy technologies, promise a way to have safe, cheap and limitless energy. These promises influence the way in which we use the present energy sources, so they affect the lives of all of us, as well as those of our descendants. It's very difficult to evaluate the consequences, in terms of benefit (and of its opposite), deriving from this hoax.

Quote from Eric Walker

(1) Ascoli65 assumes that Rossi is either misled/deluded or is a bit player in a larger scheme. (2) Ascoli65 draws special attention to the role that Jed and other people played in championing Rossi in 2011 and on in forums such as Vortex. (3) Ascoli65 suggests that the University of Bologna and similarly reputable institutions bear a heavy responsibility for having let things get this far by allowing their name to be used in connection with Levi's endorsements. (4) And (the radical suggestion that loosely ties the others together somehow) he hints that there might be agencies such as the US Department of Defence that had a hand in orchestrating things behind the scenes for ulterior purposes. Asocli65, please correct me if I have misstated anything.

In (1), I would exclude the first option.

For the rest, it is a quite good summary and description of my position. Thank you for doing that with such a fairness. In particular, I appreciate in (4) the wording "he hints that there might be ...". It sounds to me (and I hope it is) you mean that I propose to take into serious consideration also this possibility, only as an hypothesis. Of course I have no means to demonstrate it, and therefore I'm not going to sustain it with any certainty. But I think that, for those who want to give reason of the many inconsistencies of this weird story, it's worth to debate all the many clues which point in this direction.

Quote from Dewey Weaver

The NRL researcher that you reference in your above quote was not Michael Melich

Ok, thank you.

May I ask you some more info about the timing? I mean.

How long ago was this NRL researcher "involved with the Rossi investigation"?

And, if possible, how many NRL researchers were involved in this investigation?

When did he "reached the same conclusion as IH"?

When did he inform you about this conclusion?

What do you mean with "a season"? About 3 months or a longer period, for instance a few years?

Thank you for your attention.

Quote from Eric Walker

This is a mischaracterization. Since 2011 Rossi has been the subject of much speculation and doubt both among long-time CF researchers and among hobbyists following the story on Vortex and other forums. At no point has a report from Levi received anything approaching unanimous endorsement, although his reports have been taken seriously.

I said "almost" unanimously. "Almost" is not a well defined adverb, but if you consider the number, and the importance (the weight) of the long-time members of Vortex community (at that time the most representative site debating on this subject) which strenuously supported the reliability of the data provided by Levi, I think its use is not a mischaracterization.

Krivit got the same impression, as expressed in this recent article:

Quote

Krivit on November 2, 2016 (1):

"Longtime LENR researchers who played the most significant roles in promoting Rossi's fraudulent E-Cat were Michael Melich (b. 1940), Edmund Storms (b. 1931), Michael McKubre (b. 1948), David Nagel (b. 1938), and Mahadeva Srinivasan (b. 1937). Among the credulous promoters was Nobel laureate Brian Josephson (b. 1940). ..."

These people are among the main protagonists of the CF/LENR hystory. In addition, Krivit forgot (?) to mention Jed Rothwell, and his overwhelming role in support of the Ecat (2).

A sensational endorsement has been provided 4 years after the Bologna demo in the special issue of the magazine Current Science entirely devoted to the LENR (3), probably the most important acknowledgment of the field in the scientific publishing of the last years. It contains two articles by Nagel talking extensively of the Ecat results since the first tests, and a Storm review on the "main experimental findings of the LENR field" citing as first reference the Lewan book, that in turns starts with the January 2011 demo. This last has been cited even in the preface:

Quote

Preface at "Corrent Science" Volume, February 25, 2015 (3):

"It is precisely at this juncture that there comes the latest twist in the LENR story. An unknown ‘outsider’, an engineer–inventor from Italy, Andrea Rossi surprised us all by announcing that he has invented a working, industrial-grade Ni–H LENR reactor. On 14 January 2011, he gave a semi-public demo of the same in the presence of an invited audience ..."

(1) http://newenergytimes.com/v2/s…Investigation-Index.shtml

(2) https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…D/?postID=29406#post29406

(3) http://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/toc.php?vol=108&issue=04