Ascoli65 Member
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Posts by Ascoli65

  • Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

    Quote from joshua cude

    You do like to split hairs.


    Yes, I admit it, but you do like to do it further. So, just not to reach the atomic size, I recap my replies to the first part of your comment by addressing this only quote of you:


    Quote

    Basically, you're relying on Rothwell's impression from his exposure to the literature. But his impression from the same exposure is that LENR is undoubtedly real. You reject the second. I'm surprised you accept the first without question.


    Here is my rationale. There are two type of JR says, those inherent the LENR history, organization, protagonists, funding, and so on, and those inherent the physical performances of CF devices and tests. It's easily understandable that, as CF/LENR librarian, he may have many reasons to be, let's say, hyper-optimistic in the second, but he has no specific reason to be as much biased for the first type of declaration. Moreover, his stressing that the major financial contribution to its development came from the public, and in particular from the military, does not enhance the confidence that LENR is a solid and viable technology. So, I have no reason to doubt of his declarations on this respect, and I rely on them.


    Quote

    me: You are a US citizen,
    you: You seem a little like the believers making assumptions not in evidence...


    Sorry, I was convinced you were. Probably due to your vehemence in negating the predominant role of DoD in funding the CF. I apologize. Anyway, IF you are a US citizen, you can ask one of your Representatives, otherwise let's hope that someone of them, or their staff, follows this forum and will pose the same questions to the Secretary of Defense.


    Quote

    The two quotes you provided indicated previous associations not connected to cold fusion. The self-funding I referred to was for their cold fusion research. This is a matter of record.


    The two quotes I provided ARE connected to CF, and the fact that they refer to periods before the 1989 press conference make them still more interesting.


    The first quote continued with this declaration: "We knew his abilities," says Pamela Mosier-Boss, an electrochemist at the San Diego centre. "I had to believe that he had something real going on there." She was talking about CF, and, if I understand correctly the wording and the tenses, she said that she should be aware that Fleischmann was working at something special, evidently related to CF.


    The same for the second quote in Italian. In this case, I'm sure of the sense of wording. Del Giudice was clearly alluding that Fleischmann could have started to work on CF well before the 1989, in the labs of British Navy.


    I don't know how true these quotes are, but their meaning is clear. The quote from JR is also clear: "[...] Fleischmann, Pons, [...] were funded by the British and U.S. governments, mainly from DARPA and other military sources." He said also "since 1989", but maybe he was confusing the periods. JR is here and, if he wants, he can clarify.


    Quote

    Well, the final report to EPRI was published in 1998.


    OK. There are still 15 years, at least, of McKubre activity at SRI to be explained. And, anyway, in the Hubler's slide presented at ICCF18 the sponsoring of DoD units to SRI started immediately, in 1989.


    Quote

    And not knowing who funded him is hardly a basis to assume it was the DOD.


    Here is a confirmation by JR (1):
    "Nearly every researcher was a government employee, including Fleischmann, Pons, Mizuno, Storms, Srinivasan, Miles etc. More recently, the development was paid by DARPA grants to SRI and places like that."


    Quote

    My objection was to your apparently certain assertion that the "DoD has been [cold fusion's] major funder throughout a quarter of century"


    My assertion is based on the clear statements of JR, and on the Hubler's graph. I think they deserve to be believed. The last was an insider, the first, by his words, was in deep contact with insiders (2):
    "The people in the U.S. and British military realize this. They assisted me when I wrote chapter 11 in my book, about weapons. I only scratched the surface. Any military expert could write hundreds of pages more."


    (1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg105843.html"
    (2) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg83637.html"

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

    Quote from cam

    Wow, it seems to me that this forum is mainly made of believers than of experts. Where are physicists and chemists? How many can effectively do a query on a nuclear data bank?


    Please, analyze the meaning of my phrase: "this forum, which presently is the most important on LENR". It would be wrong only if you can cite the name of a forum which presently is more important than this on the LENR subject. Can you cite one?


    After all, this is the place you chose to show how smart you are in inquiring the nuclear data banks. Didn't you know in advance that here you couldn't have found any physicist or chemist at your unusual level?


    And in any case, we all believe in something. You believe in the generally accepted science. Many people here believe in what has been declared by some scientists working in public and qualified Institutes. Both behaviors are legit, even if, in this specific case, I share only yours.


    From my own, I simply believe that CF/LENR is not real science, and that to understand its appearance and development we should take into consideration other categories of the human being, story and relationships, whose details are not archived in the nuclear data banks.

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

    Quote from JedRothwell

    I got that info. mainly from the acknowledgements in papers, and from things like the slides show above from Bob Duncan. He lists DARPA, ONR and other DoD sources as the major contributors. He knows much more about funding than I do.


    I do not know of any money from the DoE or other U.S. agencies. But I do not keep track carefully. I am sure there is a lot I do not know about this.


    Thank you for the specification of your sources. I think that your role is privileged in assessing the funding aspects of the field that you followed so closely since the beginning.


    The slide I included in the comment you replied had been presented at ICCF18 by Hubler, not Duncan. Have you any reason to say that the shown graphic comes from Duncan?

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

    Quote from joshua cude

    You rely on the person who said in 2011 that "Rossi has given out *far* more proof than any previous cold fusion researcher," even though you have argued that the 2011 demonstrations were fatally and obviously flawed.


    So what? Do you assume that once somebody says something you don't believe, all he said or will say is also unbelievable? It's a nonsense, and not applicable to JR. He admires Machiavelli, not Pinocchio! And in any case if you analyze carefully the phrase you have reported, you should admit that it is also believable, in some way.


    Quote

    The qualification "in the US" is not part of your claim.


    I was talking about the different attitude toward the CF of DoE vs. DoD, two US Departments. In any case, the Hubler's scheme shows that the DoD sponsoring of CF was extended overseas.


    Quote

    I would need better evidence than an assertion from Rothwell.


    He is the CF/LENR librarian, and, as he explained himself, he has analyzed the acknowledgements of thousands of documents he has catalogued.


    Anyway, you can take advantage of the next briefing on LENR of the Secretary of Defense to the House of Representatives. The Committee of Armed Services is formed by more than 60 members (1). I don't know if on September 22, they will be allowed to individually submit some more questions to the Secretary. You are a US citizen, so, if you wish, you can try to ask one of these Representatives to submit a question about this specific point. (*)


    Quote

    Fleischmann and Pons were self-funded until 1989, ...


    Also in this case, you should ask JR for more convincing details. I can only report you a couple of phrases I found on internet.


    a – This has been reported in NewEnergyTimes (2): "The navy's researchers were also influenced by personal contact with Fleischmann. A world-renowned electrochemist and Fellow of the Royal Society, he had long been a contract researcher and consultant for the navy, and several of its scientists had published papers with him."


    b – This comes from Emilio Del Giudice, an Italian physicists (now deceased) who worked with Fleischmann (3): "Ci fu una grande polemica in merito alla cosiddetta ‘fusione fredda’. nel marzo 1989 due scienziati, un inglese e un americano, Fleischmann e Pons, annunciarono di essere riusciti a realizzarla – da notare che Fleischmann, precedentemente, aveva lavorato per sette anni in laboratori militari della marina inglese." (Please, use Google for translation.)


    It would be interesting to know something more by JR on this respect.


    Quote

    McKubre had substantial funding from EPRI, and wrote a detailed report for them.


    For what I read in his Brief History of ICCF Conferences (4), the (partial?) support of EPRI ceased with the ICCF4 in 1993, but McKubre did work on CF/LENR until recently. Who funded him? Wikipedia tell us that SRI International is mostly funded by DoD (5). For any other info, ask JR.


    Quote

    You are using idle musings to support your case.


    I'm sorry for that. I believe that no military anywhere in the world, apart a really negligible minority, wish to blow up people. I also think that JR has the same opinion, and, I agree with you, his words were only idle and rhetoric musings.


    I was also in doubt to cite his quote, but I choose to include it, because it shows a blatant incongruence in the whole CF history. Many supporters and insiders of the field, for example the just cited Del Giudice, allude to the possibility to get terrible weapons by this technology. Now, this alleged use of CF doesn't absolutely fit with the policy of public support and divulging of documents adopted by the DoD units involved in the field.


    Quote

    So, you have failed to support the claim that the "DoD has been [cold fusion's] major funder throughout a quarter of century."


    As already said, I was comparing its attitude to CF with respect to that of DoE, therefore in a US context. Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised to see the DoD at the top of the hit-parade of all the CF/LENR funders, on a world scale.


    (1) https://armedservices.house.gov/subcommittees/armed-services
    (2) http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2006/NET18.shtml
    (3) http://www.sinistrainrete.info…be-nucleari-crescono.html
    (4) http://www.iccf19.com/history1.html
    (5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International


    (*) I would suggest to the organizer of this forum, which presently is the most important on LENR, to open a specific thread, with a poll list, in order to gather and let vote all the questions that one would like to be answered during the next DoD briefing. Maybe some members of the Committee, or their staff, will consult by their own such a thread in order to get some suggestions.

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

    Quote from joshua cude


    Do you have some evidence to support this? You do like to cite things.


    I rely on what JR wrote on Vortex.


    (1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg64637.html"
    "The US military is in favor of cold fusion and it has a great deal of political and economic power. Most cold fusion research in the US for the last 20 years has been funded by the military"


    (2) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg103252.html"
    "Government has also been nearly the only source of funding for cold fusion since 1989. Fleischmann, Pons, Miles, McKubre and nearly all others were funded by the British and U.S. governments, mainly from DARPA and other military sources."


    (3) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg103986.html"
    "Fortunately (I guess it is fortunate), cold fusion has numerous weapons-related potential applications, so it has been kept on life-support by organizations such as DARPA. You must understand that DARPA's fundamental purpose is to find better ways to blow people up. That is the purpose of most of the R&D money spent by the U.S. government."


    (4) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg106173.html"
    "Government is still the only source of money in the field, mainly from DARPA, the ENEA and the Japanese government." ... "No research in cold fusion could have been done without institutional support." ... "There is not a single important technology in which the U.S. and British governments did not play a key role."


    For evidence or any other detail, please, ask the CF/LENR librarian.


    About the contribution from ENEA (cited above), it is worth noting this scheme:


    https://fusionefredda.files.wo…del-2015-03-21-200336.png


    It has been extracted from the following presentation at the ICCF18 Conference:
    https://mospace.umsystem.edu/x…eOverviewPresentation.pdf


    The scheme seems to be based on firsthand info. This is the bio of the author: http://iccf18.research.missouri.edu/bio_hubler.php

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

    Quote from cam

    Ignoring? I would say "rejecting". In Pisa I have visited an exhibition entitled "Balle di Scienza", lies of science. Cold fusion was among them.



    Wow! So, this would be an argument for demonstrating that the Italian political and research establishments reject Cold Fusion. Wouldn't it?


    At best, it can be used for stating that in Italy the CF is considered a lie in the even years (in 2014 and 2016, local exhibitions in Pisa and Catania), but deserved the highest considerations in the odd ones:


    2013 – A well known parliamentary Representative, which is also President of the House Commission on Environment Affairs, presented an inquiry to the Ministry of Education aiming to further promote the research on LENR in Italy, on the basis of the excess heat (EXCESS HEAT, Cam-illo, not nuclear stuff!) detected by Italian scientists working at public institute (1): "è stata rilevata una «produzione» di eccesso di calore con densità di potenza elevatissime, superiori per ordini di grandezza a quelle delle ordinarie reazioni chimiche, esplosive incluse, quindi di grande potenzialità per le applicazioni energetiche; l'elevata densità di potenza faceva proclamare, fin dai primi scopritori, essere quelle che avvenivano nella cella reazioni di fusione a temperatura ambiente, la «fusione fredda» (FF)." (Please, use Google for translation.)


    2015 - The ICCF19 Conference was held in Padua under the Patronage of (2):
    - Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri (Prime Minister)
    - Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico (Ministery for Economic Develompment)
    - ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development)
    - CNR (National Research Council of Italy)
    - Others
    The INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) was also represented by a work of Celani.


    This is a quite surreal situation, similar to the one in USA, where the DoE deemed the CF/LENR not suitable to be funded, while the DoD has been its major funder throughout a quarter of century. Guess why.


    Or, maybe, do you think that at DoE, they are able to properly consult EXFOR (at least at the same your unusual high level of skill), while at DoD, they are not so familiar with nuclear stuff, so that no one there has ever heard of such an archive or any other nuclear data bank? Do you also believe that in the Italian scientific institutes, the EXFOR archive is accessible only in the odd years?


    (1) http://banchedati.camera.it/sindacatoispettivo_17/showXhtml.asp?highLight=0&idAtto=7370
    (2) http://www.iccf19.com/home.html

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

    Quote from IH Fanboy

    I will disclose to you that I have no conflicts of interest, no financial gain, and no financial loss, in this whole affair


    I was talking about the possible conflict of interest affecting the academic world and other public research institute, not the individuals (you and me included) or the private sector. These last ones are free to use their own time and risk their own money at will, they have just to respect the laws.


    On the contrary, the public academic and research institutes have some more obligations, which are well described by these words of professor Stephan Pons (1):
    ”Let me start with stating that I think I have an obligation to take part in the E-Cat discussion. I am employed by Uppsala University – and thereby in a sense by the Swedish tax-payers – as professor in applied nuclear physics and as such I teach nuclear physics on various levels. In addition, I also give lectures on the topic of “Science and Pseudoscience” in schools, to students, and on the PhD student level.


    Given the additional fact that the E-Cat-story, since it began to come to public attention in January 2011, involves people from Uppsala University, it is clear that it would be wrong for me not to honor a university teacher’s duty within the so-called 3rd task. This 3rd task means that I should not only teach and do research within the walls of the university, but also actively spread scientific knowledge to society. The latter very much includes to take part in discussions about science and scientific reasoning in general and to defend science.”


    Quote

    and in fact my country of origin (U.S.) would likely be placed at a short-term disadvantage given its new-found prominence on the world energy stage with its oil fracking.


    All the countries are in serious danger given the unwise politics of the last half century. These politics have been mostly based on the presumption that an energy breakthrough, usually a form of nuclear fusion, would have been available in order to replace abundantly the fossils.


    A significative example of this miope way of thinking is provided by an old number of Fusion (2), a magazine edited in the '80 by the Fusion Energy Foundation. All the 88 pages of this special report dedicated to agricolture are worth to be seen, but a good short summary is given in the counter-cover (the last of the linked pdf): "[...] With a full-scale commitment to agricultural research and high-tech, capital-intensive methods, U.S. agriculture will lead the world into the fusion age. [...] The message is clear: With American agricultural methods, there's no limit to the number of mouths the world can feed."


    In 1980, when the above magazine was issued (nearly at the expiring date of the symbolic Churchill time limit), the number of mouths to be feed were 4.4 billions. Now they are more than 7.4 millions, and the politics are proposing the same refrain.


    Quote

    Would your country of origin be placed at a short-term disadvantage if LENR+ proves to be commercially viable?


    My country has very little natural resources, and would have been one of the most advantaged by a technology like that, if it were real. I fear that our energetic situation will become increasingly difficult with time, but if we have to hope in LENR+, it means that it is desperate since now.


    (1) http://stephanpomp.blogspot.it…cold-fusion-reply-to.html
    (2) http://wlym.com/archive/fusion/fusion/19801111-fusion.pdf

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

    Quote from joshua cude

    Ascoli65: Google doesn't provide me a translation of "whacky".


    Check a dictionary or thesaurus. Preposterous, crazy, loony, that sort of thing.


    I followed your advice, and I found this:


    Quote

    http://www.thesaurus.com/misspelling?term=whacky
    whacky
    no thesaurus results


    But checking another dictionary I found this:

    Quote

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Whacky
    Whacky
    Similar to wacky, except to emphasis "whack". (the sound you hear when something is struck with a long flat board), Meaning that something is stupid and should be struck with a long flat board or something else worthy of inflicting damage.


    So, the extra "h" provides to the word a particular taste, the usual that you have habit to use with anyone disagrees with you.


    The rest of your comment is conform to this attitude of you. Your scope is only to polemize and in order to do that you started quoting my old comments on ecn, giving them your own interpretations, mostly divergent from my intent. I don't think that anyone here cares of what I said somewhere else. I'm not a protagonist of the facts we are commenting here, I'm just an observer. So, I deem quite useless to reply specifically to your points. The best I can do is to list here below the address of the 5 comments on ecn from where you extracted the quotations of mine, so that each one, if any, interested in them can forms his own opinion, without relying on your judgements.


    (1) July 23, 2014, http://ecatnews.com/?p=2660&cpage=19#comment-69718 @ popeye,
    (2) July 22, 2014, http://ecatnews.com/?p=2660&cpage=19#comment-69658 @ John Milstone,
    (3) July 21, 2014, http://ecatnews.com/?p=2660&cpage=19#comment-69554 @ John Milstone, popeye,
    (4) September 18, 2015, http://ecatnews.com/?p=2676&cpage=6#comment-120897 @ Thomas Clarke, [not more achievable on the web]
    (5) June 19, 2016, http://ecatnews.com/?p=2686&cpage=9#comment-145860 @ Mary Yugo,


    The comment (4) is no more available on the web, because nearly all the comments of that thread disappeared suddenly last December ( http://ecatnews.com/?p=2686&cpage=5#comment-143374 ), so I repost its content here below:



    As for the "oil prices" issue, mentioned in a your own quote, you know that it is not a conjecture of mine, but I always referred to these two mails of JR on Vortex:
    (a) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg60675.html" - 07 Jan 2012
    (b) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg90155.html" - 09 Feb 2014


    So, I let the author of these 2 mail, who already liked your comment, to explain you their real meaning.


    The same for the aphorism of Stan Szpak that I found on this comment of him:
    (c) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg97821.html"


    And finally, on this last point, I would like not to be misunderstood:

    Quote

    and if I understand you, to vindicate Churchill's prediction.


    No, you didn't understand, maybe due to my English.


    I heard about the Churchill article on Popular Mechanics, thanks to a JR mail on Vortex (d), and I found it one of the most important and illuminating document I ever read. At that time, only few people in the world could have imagined a future possible nuclear revolution. Churchill was one of them, because he had already been a main protagonist of the previous energetic revolution, from coal to oil.


    I consider his article a sort of manifest of the nuclear era, for the clarity of his vision expressed in the first part. But it is far from being an appeal to do that. At the end of his article, Churchill warns about the risk of this development. He write: "After all, this material progress, in itself so splendid, does not meet any of the real needs of the human race. [...] What is the purpose of life? Whither are we going?’ No material progress, even though it takes shapes we cannot now conceive, or however it may expand the faculties of man, can bring comfort to his soul. [...] And with the hopes and powers will come dangers out of all proportion to the growth of man’s intellect, to the strength of his character or to the efficacy of his institutions." These are very wise words.


    I like to mention the Churchill article, because it provides a time reference to check the status of the missed nuclear revolution. He wrote the article in 1931, and put a time limit of 50 years, within 1981, for finding the way to exploit the fusion energy for civil use. Now we are 35 years in delay in realizing this energy supplying system, but we are in schedule in increasing the energy consumption. Too bad.


    I think that that article can be, even today, a good source of meditation for the decision makers, and maybe of inspiration for the people at DoD which are preparing the text for the September briefing.


    (d) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg106340.html"

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

    Quote from IH Fanboy

    Ascoli65 wrote:
    nearly unanimously denied by [hot fusion] mainstream science [with blatant conflicts of interest] a few months after its appearance


    FTFY


    I partially agree with your FTFY. There is a huge "conflict of interest", but it is not the one between hot and cold fusion. This last is in blatant conflict of reality with Nature (not only the journal!), as the physicists, whatever they worked for, highlighted few months after the F&P press conference.


    The real problem is that in our technological and highly complex society the "scientific truth" is in serious "conflict of interest" with the "research funding".


    The Ecat affair could be considered as the emblem of this conflict. At January 2011, an unusually high number of academicians affirmed without any doubt that a table top device, indeed quite ugly, was been capable of multiplying by 12 an input power of 1 kW. At that time, their Department did already receive an economic proposal aimed to study that device. Few months later, the Council of Department, on behalf of all its hundred members, approved a biannual research program under the promise of a financing of 0.5 MEuro. This important economic contribute to the research activities of their Department is the only possible reason I can imagine for explaining to myself how it is possible that so many respectable and competent scientists could have explicitly supported such miraculous energy results, and so evidently wrong.


    Well, let's go now to the opposite end of the fusion temperature range: the hot one. In this case the funding at stake is enormously higher. The ITER project has on its yearly budget 200 MEuro specifically devoted to the research, and this is only part of what the developed countries devolve to the research on ITER and the hot fusion in general. This funding is based on the expectations that the enormous technological and practical problems, that have delayed by dozens of years - with respect to the first too optimistic forecasts - the achievement of a useful controlled hot fusion, will be resolved in the next (how many?) decades. The big problem is that these forecasts are mostly made by the same physicists which benefit of the funding to their sector. How can we trust them? Who tells us if they are right or wrong?


    If we look at the Ecat affair, the answers are not encouraging. After more than 5 years, no one of the academicians involved personally in the tests admitted that the calorimetric data were wrong. In the meanwhile, their affirmations raised a so high level of public expectancy that many Parliamentary initiatives, in more than one countries, asked the Governments to increase the fund to the research on CF. This affair provides us with a paradigmatic example of a perverse cycle - wrong scientific claims, public expectations, political decisions, research funding, more wrong scientific claims - which could be heavily contributing to misguide the whole society toward a fatal energetic trap.


    It's extremely urgent, IMO, that this kind of perverse cycles be interrupted, the scientific truth restored, and the public trust in the academic research, adequately protected against any possible detrimental effects of this almost unavoidable "conflict of interest".

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

    Quote from joshua cude

    The alternative that you hint at -- that Rothwell and all these scientists, technicians and academicians conspired together to lie to the public for some unspoken purpose -- [...] or complicit in a simple fraud.


    I didn't say that, and wouldn't hint at that: no conspiracy, no complicity, and no fraud. Maybe someone, a minority, has been fooled, but not by Rossi, possibly by other more credible sources. I wrote, instead, "some other deep and diverse reasons".


    Deep reasons, because they could reside in some remote, and even unconscious, corner of the individual and collective psychology. At the individual level, there is, for instance, the professional vindication desire, you have also cited, and many others personal stimuli. At collective level, our western societies have developed over the last 2-3 centuries a sort of fideism with respect to the limitless capability of our intellect. We have lost the contact with our physical limits, building up a perverse mechanism that needs incessantly to grow. The situation is the same well described 85 years ago by Churchill: "... if it stopped or were reversed, there would be the catastrophe of unimaginable horror. Mankind has gone too far to go back, and is moving too fast to stop. There are too many people maintained, not merely in comfort but in existence, by processes unknown a century ago, for us to afford even a temporary check, still less a general setback, without experiencing calamity in its most frightful form." Consider that at that time the world population was less than one third of the present one.


    This same mechanism automatically rewards whoever proposes any idea to continue this trend, even the most absurd. In many cases, it will find more easily the financing for its research, will be divulged by the media, and will gather many supporters and enthusiasts on internet.


    Even a phenomenon like CF/LENR, whose reality has been nearly unanimously denied by mainstream science a few months after its appearance, can find many individuals and private or public organizations ready to support it in a spontaneous way, each one with his specific motivations and purposes. That's what I meant with diverse reasons. They look as being coordinated, but they are just following a stream, as leaves on a river.


    Of course such a stream needs to be maintained in some way, but usually it is done by financing the initiatives from the top, nearly all the rest happens spontaneously. If a project is funded with 10 M$ yearly, there will be about 100-500 scientists, depending where they live, willing to work on it. This aphorism from Stan Szpak (1) describes the situation: "scientists believe whatever you pay them to believe." That's of course an exaggeration, and it doesn't apply to the majority of the scientists, but it's true that if you need 100 scientist to work on a certain project, and you have the funds, you will find them. This is less socially acceptable when it involves people, as academicians or other researchers working in other public institutions, whose income is guaranteed for life, so as to make them less economically conditionable.


    Quote

    Dozens? Come now. Levi and Focardi [...] Who else?


    In an answer to a similar question on ecn (2), I counted 14 academicians, considering only the ones who assisted at the tests held in Italy or Sweden. You should add all the other physicists, or equivalent experts, who assisted at the tests held in the USA, including Melich, and those who declared to be anyway convinced of the reality of some unusual phenomena (excess heat or gamma bursts) generated by the Ecat, for instance Josephson, Celani, and some others at NASA and DoD units. You can also add those who declared to have replicated the Rossi effects, at least those who have some scientific degree. And what to say about the people from NASA and other aerospace industries that imagined the future of air transport powered by the Ecat?


    Quote

    Essen and Kullander were sympathetic, but were careful to say more measurements were needed.


    Of course. Nearly all the researchers will say that more researches are needed, as well as those that know that the device doesn't function. You can't distinguish each others only on this base.


    Quote

    there is nothing remarkable about a tabletop device producing 12 kW out without any input at all.


    We are talking about LENR device, and hence of the alleged excess heat with respect to any conventional and identifiable energy source. Of course.


    Quote

    Widely reported in some major media? The vast majority of people (at least outside Italy and Sweden) have not even heard of the story. That's not widely reported.


    The "some major media" include Popular Mechanics, printed in millions of copy in many English speaking countries, Science&Vie pour la francophonie, and many other magazines readable worldwide (Wired, Forbes, ecc). For the other countries, FWIK, there is NyTeknik in Sweden, and Focus and Panorama in Italy, but if you want a more complete picture you can regularly follow the AlainCo scoop site (3).


    Finally, the most important contribution for the revival of the popular expectations about fusion energy came recently from TIME Magazine, which, in November 2015, dedicated the cover and a long article to the subject, citing also the Industrial Heat.


    Anyway, the mediatic pressure has been sufficient to raise many public and parliamentary petitions and queries to the governments of some countries in order to further support the field, up to the last and most important, the query of the US House of Representatives to the DoD.


    Quote

    You exaggerate to support your whacky theory ....


    Google doesn't provide me a translation of "whacky". Somewhere else I find an assimilation with "stupid". I don't know if that was your intention. Anyway, I hope that you don't keep on using this kind of arguments as you did many times on ecn (4). I think you are able to expose your opinions in a plain and polite English.


    (1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg97821.html"
    (2) http://ecatnews.com/?p=2686&cpage=9#comment-145860
    (3) http://www.scoop.it/t/lenr-revolution-in-process-cold-fusion
    (4) http://ecatnews.com/?p=2686&cpage=6#comment-144109

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

    Quote from JedRothwell

    A brief, 400 word report is not what I would call "well informed."


    Why not. Your report was longer than the 360 words (captions included) used by Levi in his calorimetric report for describing the results of the January 14 demo (indicated in the report as [Test 2], while [Test 1] was the one held on December 16, 2010). Anyway, you were in touch with people who gave you first hand the calorimetric data, and you have been the first to divulge on the web a "Brief Description of the Calorimetry" (1).


    Your description raised almost immediately a lot of criticisms on Vortex. Within few hours, the two weakest points of the energy balance were already highlighted, though not using the right objections. Jones Beene raised the issue of the pump and of the error in the flow rate measurement (2), and Driscoll the issue of the inadequacy of the instrument used to confirm the dryness of the steam (3). In both cases, you answered opposing the argument of the scientific authority and personal credibility of the testers (4-5).


    Now, you also admit that those measurements were badly wrong. But, until recently, you gave credit to a group of academicians, which claimed some highly extraordinary results which were contrary to the common opinion affirmed by the vast majority of their peers. They, and all the other scientists, technicians and academicians who confirmed the excess heat from the Ecat tests, were not all deceived by Rossi. A single and controversial philosopher can't convince dozens of physicists, that a tabletop device is capable of producing more than 12 kW from only 1 kW in input. There should be some other deep and diverse reasons, so that the most incredible myth in the LENR history got so many exceptional supporters and was so widely reported in some major media.


    But the big, big trouble is that the wrong expectation of an almost inexhaustible nuclear energy, prophesied by Churchill 85 years ago, and that you have reminded on Vortex (6), has for sure contributed to the build-up of the present monster of a global society of 7.5 billion people, thirsty for energy. We are already out of 35 years, with respect to Churchill schedule, how long can still last this bluff?


    The political and economic sectors who have urged the US House of Representatives for submitting the inquiry on the LENR, still evidently believe in the fairy tales. Let's hope that the response of the Secretary of Defense be wiser than the inquiry.


    (1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg41442.html"
    (2) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg41482.html"
    (3) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg41492.html"
    (4) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg41487.html"
    (5) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg41495.html"
    (6) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg106340.html"

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

    Quote from JedRothwell

    That was not the 2011 test.


    That's exactly what I said. The test that gave rise to this thread is the one called AmpEnerco Run II in the McKubre's speech, whose video is linked above, and it was held on September 25, 2009, about two months before the test revealed by the Krivit's mails.


    BUT ... in the same list shown by McKubre, the AmpEnerco test was followed by the two tests held in Bologna at beginning of 2011. These are three apples in the same basket. In the same video, McKubre discussed also a fourth apple outside the basket, the test held on October 6, 2011. We have public data only for the 3 tests held in 2011, and from these data we can easily deduce that 3 out of 4 apples were poisoned. What about the fourth apple (the 2009 test), that we can't analyze in any way? I fear, it is the same of the other apples.


    Quote

    I do not think I was paying close attention in 2011


    The demo held on January 14, 2011, was the first public test of the LENR+ era. It is the most celebrated event of this era. Sorry, but it's very hard to believe that you didn't pay close attention to it. Who wrote the nearly ten mails per day that bear your name as author on the Vortex mailing list, in the weeks immediately following the demo (1)?


    Quote

    I did not get much information.


    One of the above email (2), sent to Vortex the day after the demo, says: "I spoke with one of the people in the project about the calorimetry. Then I typed up the notes from our conversation as a brief report (400 words). I e-mailed the report to the researchers so they can confirm I got the numbers and other details correct, and also add the name and model numbers of some of the instruments."


    And another email (3), sent the next day, resumes publicly, for the first time in absolute on the web, the calorimetric data of the test, but, unfortunately, without reporting the name and model numbers of the instruments!


    If you really were the author of the above two mails, you were the most informed man in the world, apart the members of the test team.


    (1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/search?a=1&l=vortex-l%40eskimo.com&haswords=&x=6&y=14&from=Rothwell&subject=&datewithin=1w&date=2011-01-20&notwords=&o=relevance"
    (2) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg41364.html"
    (3) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l%40eskimo.com/msg41410.html"

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

    Quote from Eric Walker

    But by all means give it a try. He can defend himself on the specifics of his statements pertaining to the 2011 demo.


    I'd like to understand better by his own words his position about the 2011 demo and the other first tests documented by Levi at the beginning of 2011. I already asked him (1), but in vain, to specify which tests he means with "first set of tests by Levi". Of course, he is not obliged to answer. Then, you came up to justify in some way his position, so I explained you the reasons why I think he should give to the LENR community some more clarifications about those tests and about the role he possibly played in defining the calorimetric data of the 2011 demo.


    This particular L-F thread deals with a non public E-cat test, which, on JR words, “looked like it worked”, even if he can't be sure. Probably, it was the AmpEnerco Run II test, held on September 25, 2009, one of the Ecat tests whose results have been discussed by McKubre at his October 11, 2011, public presentation (2).


    If you go at t=5:59 of the YouTube video, this test is the first of a list of three Ecat test. The last two are the Bologna tests, which turned out to be completely flawed as shown in the previous comments (3-4) of this thread. Also the results of the last Ecat test discussed by McKubre in the video (since t=9:08) can be explained in a very mundane way (5).


    So the only Ecat results that cannot be explained are those of the US test shown on the top of the McKubre slide, for which we have no public data to examine. In this case, we can rely only on the downward credibility chain expressed by his words ("ex program manager at DARPA, very, very intelligent man" or "a very smart guy") and on our upward credulity chain, as have to do the persons seated in front of the worldwide maximum expert of CF/LENR. In this case the two chains met in a room with a few dozen old people. In other cases the same two chains met on the colorful pages of popular scientific and political magazines directed to millions of readers, mostly young.


    The next meeting between the two chains is scheduled for the next September 22, at the US House of Representative between the bottom-up representatives of the US people, and the top-down representative of the US Gov. Let's see what will be said.


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

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    (3) Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”
    (4) Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”
    (5) Mats Lewan's Test Report

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

    Quote from Eric Walker

    But even Jed's opponents here will perhaps agree with me that you're on the wrong track in thinking Jed Rothwell is operating from a place of Machiavellian cunning.


    I'm not an opponent of anybody. I'm only interested in clarifying the facts we are talking about, and absolutely not with the intent to raise any accusation, but just because it is the only way to fully understand what exactly is the CF/LENR phenomenon (I mean the socio-mediatic one). This is overwhelmingly important. In the "What is LENR?" page of this site you read: "This can be one of the most important steps in the history of mankind", ... if it were real. But if it is false, how denounced by the mainstream science since the 1989, this is the most absurd case of self-deceiving of the humankind. This is the real risk. When a caravan is in the middle of a desert with a half of the initial resources remaining, there is nothing worse and less wise than running after a mirage.


    Quote

    Jed does not give me the impression of being one to lie about anything. As one example, he has made embarrassing admissions after the fact, as was seen with the mistaken Mizuno results.


    In a your previous comment you cited two words: "credibility" and "credulity". These words should be extraneous to any proper scientific initiative, but they are at the core of any propagandistic scheme. Science is based on "demonstrations by experts", propaganda is based on "public perception". Speaking in general, the admission of errors on a few marginal cases, increases the perception of reliability on all the others more important issues. That's a sort of trade-off. But, anyway, I won't say that this applies to JR. I'm only interested to the facts, and, since he is one of the main protagonist of the CF/LENR field, he is inevitably involved in this effort to understand the facts.


    I had many occasions of speaking about his role in some blogs. However I had a sole opportunity to have a short exchange with him (1), but it remained incomplete due to some difficulties in visualizing the pictures I addressed to him (2). Here on L-F, the site allows a comfortable managing of the attachments, and he can intervene at his will for correcting, commenting or confuting my assertions and hypotheses.


    Quote

    My suggestion, one that you are free to disagree with, is that Jed Rothwell is not making use of Machiavelian tactics now, and hasn't in the past.


    I too have a suggestion for you: look with your eyes, at least up to the point they can see. Set aside your credulity and the credibility of the others.


    I already invited you to look carefully at the first of the flaws, the ghost probe, of the 2011 demo (3). You answered: "I have no issue with your characterization of them". That's not exactly what I expected. You should have had some issues. Anyone looking at that flaw should ask himself:
    - Who decided to cite an absent instrument in the calorimetric report?
    - Why has been chosen that specific probe?
    - When has been decided?


    If you ask yourself the right questions and try to rebuild step by step the story of this minimum detail, you will probably get a much better idea of the whole picture.


    (1) http://cassandralegacy.blogspo…3012#c3444273872031988150
    (2) http://cassandralegacy.blogspo…2028#c4374687688654994971
    (3) Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

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

    Quote from Eric Walker

    The phrase is "stretches credulity," not "stretches credibility" (I wrote it incorrectly). It refers to something that is very hard to believe.


    So, your previous statement, leaving apart the "deceit", would sound as:
    it is very hard to believe, that he has been operating from a place of cunning.
    Wouldn't it?


    I don't know from which standpoint he operated in the Ecat affair, but look for instance at this phrase of him (1):
    "One of the cardinal rules of being a good military leader or a good politician is to make do with what you have, and to find a way to win by subterfuge if you do not have a material or strategic advantage. Cold fusion is very much a political fight, so we should take lessons from these disciplines."


    or at this other one (2):
    "Also you cannot make something a crime after the fact. In the U.S. that violates the Constitution. There is no law against lying about cold fusion, or any other physics or chemistry. People do it all the time, in every major newspaper! Also any such law would violate freedom of the press."


    If I have correctly understood the sense of these phrases (he can correct me), it seems to me that, in order to support the LENR field, he would have welcomed the adoption of some, how to say, machiavellisms?


    Now, the big question is, how many machiavellisms have been adopted since F&P?


    And again. This thread deals with an E-cat test for which no public information is available. Does it also belong to the above set of tests?


    (1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg73665.html"
    (2) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg64649.html"

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

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    IMHO, Jed is very optimistic, overly so, and therefore gullible.


    I don't like at all name calling the people. I find it absolutely useless and irritating. And anyway, no, I don't think he is gullible, not for sure on the matter we are talking to.


    He catalogued thousands of documents on CF/LENR, most of which deals with the calorimetric techniques or excess heat measurements. For his words, he has some personal experience with calorimetry, owns his personal instruments, and spent weeks in labs with world-class scientists, as Fleischman and Nobel laureates. It is absolutely not possible that it didn't look for the position of the few instruments used for measuring the input and output powers during the demo of January 14, 2011. It was the first public demo in the CF/LENR history in which the production of an industrial amount of excess heat was claimed. I find absolutely impossible to believe that someone with his experience did not realize that the probe with the yellow cable, shown on top of the Ecat in dozens of pictures and video-frames, was completely different with respect to the "HP474AC" probe, cited in the calorimetric report and shown to be on top of the Ecat in Fig.2 of the same report.


    Even a kid could do it. It is not rocket science. It is as simple as to distinguish a banana from a potato.

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

    Quote from Eric Walker

    I was there on Vortex when Jed defended the conclusions of people he was in contact with who thought that at least one E-Cat test had merit.


    Eric, I didn't mean "at least one E-Cat test", but I wrote "the demo of January 14, 2011", a WELL SPECIFIC test, on a well specific device.


    That demo was not a generic Ecat test, it was THE launch of the Ecat in the world. If you was on Vortex on that time it was due probably for THAT test. If you look back at the archived mails, you will see that JR not only did vehemently defend the conclusions of that test, but he was among the firsts to report publicly the extraordinary energetic results, many days in advance with respect to the UniBo official reports.


    Those results were based on large flaws, the biggest of which was the missing of the most important instrument, an absence that everyone could have been able to detect by simply observing for a few minutes any of the dozens of photo and video frames available for that test.


    Quote

    He will staunchly defend a possibility if there is someone he trusts providing him his data.


    I know, he is very determined to defend his position, but in the case of the January 2011 demo there was no need to trust anyone. He could have checked in short time the compliance of all the data that he was gathering. In a couple of weeks he could have had at his disposition, from the open web, 3 videos, dozens of pictures, some preliminary technical descriptions and calculations, 3 reports issued by a University Department of Physics, uncountable declarations and interviews of the witnesses, journal articles, TV reports, hundreds of comments on tens of blogs, and so on.


    For any physics professor or for anyone who has a minimum of experience with calorimetry, it should have been quite easy to realize that the most important instrument was not used. And this should have been even easier, for anyone privy of firsthand information, as JR was.


    Quote

    To suggest that he has been operating from a place of cunning (i.e., deceit) stretches credibility.


    I didn't mean "deceit". The first Italian translation of "cunning" on a web dictionary (http://it.bab.la/dizionario/inglese-italiano/cunning) is "astuzia" and the first example cites Machiavelli, of which JR is an esteemer.


    And finally, sorry, I don't understand what do you mean with the last two words, which credibility would be stretched?

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

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    You call it a scam, fraud and deception on the part of the perpetrator (Rossi)


    As you well know, my position about the F-issues (and scam is an F-subspecies) is totally different from yours (see for example: http://ecatnews.com/?p=2686&cpage=6#comment-143913). IMO, it is unfair, and probably not legit, calling someone a fraudster in public, unless there is a sentence of a judge. Secondly, in the specific case of the Ecat affair, I don't see how it is possible that someone has been defrauded, but even if it was, the above point prevails. Anyway, we can still talk about a lot of details of this story, without alleging any crime hypothesis.


    As for the rest of your comment, we already had some confrontations on those issues on ecn. So, if you don't mind, and in consideration that that site has been abandoned to its fate, I'd transcript here below one of the latest comment I addressed you and that answers most of your points:



    I hope this also gives JR an opportunity to provide us some more clues in order to better understand the real genesis of the calorimetric data reported for the January 14, 2011, demo.

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

    Quote from Eric Walker

    I think you're correct to put importance on the role that Rossi has played over the last five years in bringing attention to the matter. But it should not be blown out of proportion or taken to be representative of the field as a whole.


    I'm talking about the social-mediatic aspects of the issue. With this respect, the Ecat story has saturated the public perception of the CF/LENR field. I already cited the long article appeared in the November 2012 issue of Popular Mechanics. Another, out of many others, example comes from France. The popular scientific magazine Science&Vie in the issue of April 2015 has published an article regarding three different approaches anti-ITER to harvest the energy Graal: huge hot fusion (NIF), medium size hot fusion (Lockheed) and cold fusion (guess which (1-2)).


    Quote

    There's been lots of work on LENR apart from Rossi by people with skill and integrity.


    But the Ecat has been supported by many skilled and authoritative people. The above French magazine told its readers that scientists from 3 European Universities did confirm the production of excess energy from nuclear origin. Does it exist any other work on LENR supported by so many scientists from such renowned scientific institutions for so long?


    Quote

    I think the field deserves attention, and I'm delighted that there is investment going into it.


    I'm not worried about the investment in science, whatever the purpose, provided that the scientists and researchers respect the scientific rules, are available to publicly discuss their public claims whit their peers, and are prompt to admit their errors if they result to be evident. But the most famous CF initiatives, and in particular the Ecat one, seems not to belong to the scientific context. It seems to me that their main scope was/is to convince the public opinion about the existence of something that doesn't really exist. How could we call it?


    (1) http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/D…et_33854_30.htm#t41503675
    (2) Mainstream French Science Magazine Science et Vie on Cold Fusion/Rossi

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

    Quote from Eric Walker

    I don't consider Ashfield a neutral source of information.


    He seemed to me a strong LENR supporter, and that's exactly the reason I quoted him.


    Quote

    Presumably the universal consensus is a consensus that does not include Ashfield's friend, who is also in the DoE.


    The presence at DoE of his friend, and the likes, indicates that the two official DoE positions have resulted to be negative, notwithstanding all the voices are represented there.


    Quote

    What other DoD staff are not included in the universal consensus, one wonders.


    Yes, this is exactly the point: somebody was wrong, badly wrong, or has played outside the scientific scope.


    Quote

    If the Coulomb barrier ...


    Unfortunately, the big problems are in the "if", as usual.


    Quote

    I agree that the early tests by Rossi have generated a lot of attention. I have no issue with your characterization of them. It seems only distantly relevant to the point I was making.


    I don't think so. The Ecat tests are the most evident and impressing demonstration that the DoE was right, but most of the LENR supporters have claimed for long that they are the most evident and impressive evidence of the contrary.


    Quote

    I was unable to find previous comments that document that the DoD leadership think that LENR is an impossibility — can you link to them so that I can take a second look?


    I didn't say that. Please, read again my statement.


    Quote

    Keep in mind that LENR as a field is quite separate from the E-Cat thing, and from the DoD's view of the E-Cat spectacle.


    I think that we all should keep in mind that the "Ecat spectacle" has been mostly played on a web site called JoNP, which has a Board of Advisers, one member of which is a DoD functionary, the same that, as alleged by Krivit, could have registered the relative web domain.


    Since 2011, the Ecat became for the world public opinion nearly a synonym of CF/LENR. It's not just a coincidence that the web article on Popular Mechanics about the House Committee inquiry begins with a picture of the 1 MW plant. The US people want to know the true about the reality of the Ecat, and their Representatives have asked the appropriate Institution


    Quote

    Given that the DoD has sponsored research into ESP, I suspect they'll continue to keep an open mind about LENR.


    The big difference is that LENR has been proposed to the public as the possible, and often the only one, solution to the present major problems of the humankind.