Posts by JedRothwell

Quote from interested observer

There were plenty of very convincing criticisms of the old Levi work

Was there? Where was it published?

Quote from interested observer

My answer is that the original work is just as fraudent as the later work. Why? Because it stands to reason.

This is experimental science. Nothing "stands to reason." Any claim stands or falls by experiment only. There are no other standards. You have to have technical reasons to justify your assertion or you have nothing.

The Levi experiment was not replicated so we have no way of knowing if it was real or not, but just saying "it stands to reason" without listing technical reasons is not science. It is your unsupported opinion. It is also not debatable or falsifiable. How would anyone show you are wrong? If it cannot be falsified, it isn't science. The same goes for THH's claim that there might be an as-yet undiscovered error in Fleischmann's experiment. That's true, and it applies equally well to every experiment in history. There might be undetected errors in experiments done by Galileo or Newton, but it is exceedingly unlikely. While it is true there might be an undetected error in Fleischmann's work, you cannot make that claim in a scientific discussion because it cannot be either proved true or false. THH has to point a specific error and show evidence for it. A negative view does not get a free pass. He, and you, have to support your assertions with as much rigor and as many facts as anyone making a positive assertion does.

Quote from axil

But a home heating system still needs to produce about 100 kilowatts which is extremely unwieldy for the QX to meet.

Quote from Adrian Ashfield

The QX has an output of 1 kW that would be suitable for home heating.

Good grief! Both of you need to go to Home Depot and look around. 1 kW??? Really? An electric heater that barely keeps one small room warm is 1.5 kW. They cost $15. See:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/PELON…c-Space-Heater/1000378947

100 kW?? The average home furnace in the U.S. is rated at 80,000 to 100,000 btu. That's 23 to 29 kW.

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/…e-btu-furnaces-88602.html

These number are common knowledge, and available on a million internet sites. Yet both of you were wrong by factors ranging from 4 to 20.

Quote from interested observer

Because you refuse to say that Rossi has never produced a new energy device and has always been nothing but a fraud.

I refuse to say that is absolutely certain, because I do not know of any major errors in this report:

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

Do you know of any? If you don't, how can you be so certain? Absolute certainty with no technical basis is not science. It is the opposite of science.

Also, can you explain the burst or radiation measured by Celani during one of Rossi's early demonstrations? I can think of some ways that might have been done deliberately, but they are far-fetched.

There is a clearer copy of the video of the boiling cell on the internet somewhere. I forget where. The URL was in this thread I believe. It was broadcast on TV, in Japan and in Canada as I recall. It is clearer because it is not time lapse. You can see the difference between electrolysis bubbles and boiling. You can see that boiling occurs only on the cathode. It does not show the entire event and it is not time stamped, so you cannot use it to do calorimetry, but it does make it clear that the skeptics here do not have a leg to stand on.

There was a close up video years ago that was even better. I wish I had a copy but I had no means of collecting video when it was available.

Quote from Shane D.

For the life of me, I can not imagine, were Fleischmann alive and healthy today, that he would not mop the floor with the likes of Ascoli, Kirk or THH.

Robert Duncan is one of the world's leading experts in calorimetry. He would blow them out of the water if he bothered. Bockris, McKubre and many others would easily show they were wrong. Bockris was an expert but he took no chances. He said he called in the best expert in the state of Texas to evaluate his calorimetry. The expert looked at the equipment and the results, laughed, and said: "Anyone can measure that much heat! You don't need me." He wasn't exaggerating. As I have often pointed out, Lavoisier measured that much heat when he measured guinea pig metabolism and carbon dioxide production using an ice calorimeter in 1780. He showed that the ratio of heat to CO2 is the same as it is with combustion. Ascoli, Kirk and THH are convinced that hundreds of modern scientists are incapable of making a measurement that any scientist could have made in the last 240 years. And they are convinced that they know better than the likes of Robert Duncan.

Heck, I showed they were wrong just by listing some of the facts that anyone can see with naked eye, such as the fact that only the cathode is boiling. Not one of them has addressed that issue, or any of the others I raised.

Marwan et al. conclusively proved that Kirk Shanahan is wrong, here:

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

There is no need for anyone to say anything more about his claims. He does not understand why he is wrong, so he resembles the black knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." There is really no point to arguing with him. Why bother cutting off his legs when Marwan already cut off his arms?

Quote from Alan Smith

Making gammas appear is one trick. Making them vanish again an even better one. Tx 4 the info.

Take a gamma source out of a lead box for a moment. Put it back.

I realize that to reduce gamma rays by a factor of a billion takes a very large lead box, but to reduce them to below detectable levels in the next room does not. Celani reported this happened when Rossi went into the next room to start up the machine, and no one was watching him.

I am not saying that is what happened, but as far as I know it is plausible. On the other hand Celani said one of his meters pegged and if the burst had gone on much longer they would have been killed. So, perhaps you could not do this by taking the sample out of a box manually, but perhaps something like a camera aperture or a falling object would do. During WWII at Los Alamos they tested uranium criticality by dropping samples in a gadget that resembled a guillotine. See:

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/11/20/here-be-dragons/

Quote from Shane D.

Not sure, but I do know the QX and SK have the same something, but the SK has a lot more of it. Their something though, is very different from the older Ecat LT/HT's something.

There may be something to what you say.

(In his classic book How to Lie with Statistics, Darrell Huff recommended this response as one that satisfies everyone. He adds: "It reminds me of the minister who achieved great popularity among mothers in his congregation by his flattering comments about the baby brought in for christening. . . . No one could remember what the man said . . . It turned out his invariable remark was, "My" (beaming) "This is a baby, isn't it.")

Quote from seven_of_twenty

I seem to recall Dr. Celani reported radiation detection once in a demo of the 2011 simple "steam" ecats.

That is correct.

Quote from RussGeorge

As for the claim by those that they need to be anonymous lest they compromise their claimed jobs, that is a vacuous claim made without a shred of evidence. Show us the data!

I do not know anyone who fears being fired for posting here. But if there is such a person, and they showed you the data, it seems likely that would lead to them being fired. Wouldn't it? So this demand is unreasonable. It is as if you were saying: "I will not believe this casserole is spoiled unless you eat it and get food poisoning."

Quote from Shane D.

Another is to accept that there are those whom do not like arguing with an anonymous poster, so don't start an argument with them. To be honest, in their shoes, after spending a lifetime toiling away doing the work, to then have some nameless poster tell me my conclusions are wrong, or I screwed up...well, that would be irritating. I would tell them to shove off.

See:

https://www.wired.com/2006/04/the-wikipedia-faqk/

QUOTE:

But why should I contribute to an article? I'm no expert.

That's fine. The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum." For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War – and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge – get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment.

Quote from RussGeorge

Rossi for one might have as a 'money making retirement strategy' the filing of scores of such legal actions as it is perfectly clear he is regularly and routinely liabled with malice on and with the support of this forum and many other forums by named and anon defaming posters and posers.

I do not think so. All of the accusations against him that I have seen are backed by the lawsuit docket, mainly by statements that Rossi himself made, and by his Penon report. An accusation is not slander when it is true, and the person making the statement can prove it is true. What better proof can there be than Rossi's own words? What he said in his own defense, and the report that he filed to prove his claims, prove beyond doubt that he is a thief and a con man. He bragged about that!

Quote from THHuxleynew

An error in the boili-off enthalpy due to foam does not depend on whether excess enthalpy was found before boil-off.

That was ruled out by several tests such as inventorying the salt, which you ignore.

Quote from THHuxleynew

There might (indeed you well know there are) other possible issues with those earlier calculations.

There might be errors in any experiment, even Newton's prism experiments. That assertion can never be falsified, so it is not scientific. You have to say what those errors might be. Neither you nor Ascoli has pointed to any error that Fleischmann did not conclusively rule out.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Address Ascoli's specific points?

You should address Fleischmann's specific points, but you never will. You will evade and evade, and make statements that cannot be tested or falsified such as "there might be errors." You have never found any error in this experiment or any other major cold fusion experiment. You only pretend that you have found errors, or that Ascoli has.

Quote from Shane D.

I can understand our academic/university prof/student members -who we have many of here, wishing to remain anonymous.

Yes, I said something similar earlier. Those people would get in hot water. They would be treated like someone who rats out a drug dealer, only more politely. As Woodrow Wilson said, academic politics are vicious because the stakes are so low.

Quote from Director

Anonymity helps prevent racism and bigotry and sexism.

On the contrary, I think it promotes expressions of these things. This is one of the reasons KKK members used to cover their faces. When no one knows who you are, you tend to be bolder and meaner. This has been widely noted since the internet become widespread. This is why, for example, newspapers did not allow anonymous letters in the pre-internet era.

Anonymity might prevent sexism against an individual woman if no one could tell from her screen name that she is female, but it will not prevent expressions of sexism, racism, and so on.

I have mixed feelings about it. I myself would never think of posting a comment anonymously. Nor would I ever say something online that I would hesitate to say in person to anyone, including a person I am criticizing. In my opinion, if you would not have the guts to say it the person, you shouldn't say it at all. Of course exceptions must be made for whistleblowers, people reporting corrupt officials, or people ratting out drug dealers! I mean in ordinary, non-dangerous online discussions.

Quote from oystla

Pure heresay and speculation? Morrison was informed by someone that claimed Fleschmann had told someone that only 300 seconds electric logging intervals where used throughout.

The paper shows data points averaged every 300 seconds. Not taken; averaged. Taking one data point every 300 seconds is quite different from taking thousands and averaging them. When Morrison challenged Fleischmann at the conference, saying this was inadequate, Fleischmann showed a slide of an oscilloscope trace of the data. The trace showed no spikes or other problems that would call into question the averaged data. The oscilloscope data was not included in the paper, but Morrison knew it was taken.

The point is, an oscilloscope is much faster with higher resolution than most data collection computers.

Quote from interested observer

Reading the comments of Rossi fans is pretty much pointless. Whatever opinions they express are either based strictly upon what Rossi says . . .

Actually, as I said above, their opinions are not based strictly on what Rossi says. The only technical claim he ever made is in the Penon report, and it is nothing like what A.A. or Axil imagine. What Rossi says on his webpage has no technical content, from what I have seen. There are no numbers or details.

(I haven't watched the video of his demo. Perhaps he makes falsifiable assertions there.)

Other people have written technical reports about his work that can be evaluated. As I have often said, this one appears to have merit, but at this late date, I don't know what to make of it:

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

There is nothing in this report that reveals anything about the internals of the devices. I gather the "protected" thread will be about how to replicate, or about how the gadgets work. I don't see how anyone could guess that, even assuming the gadgets do work. There is zero information about them, even including the patents. This Levi report and the Penon report do tell us about the calorimetry, and also about Rossi's technical skills, judgement, and overall believability.

Quote from PhysicsForDummies

I think it is a major mistake to censor opinions on specific threads.

It is not censoring. It is just a polite request. Just ignore that thread. If the discussion there centered around claims such as "there is no reason to distrust Rossi" that would be annoying, but as long as they are discussing the imaginary physics of his imaginary claims, it is harmless. Pointless, but harmless.

I do think it would be a good idea for the pro-Rossi crowd such as Axil and A.A. to read the Penon report, because it is the one and only technical report that Rossi published. I doubt he will ever publish another. It would help them understand him. However, they are allergic to facts so they will not read it. For those who want to know what Rossi actually claimed, rather than a version that you yourself invent out of whole cloth, the report is here:

http://coldfusioncommunity.net…/01/0197.03_Exhibit_3.pdf

Quote from can

I find kind of hypocrite that those who demand identities to be public would also require a private discussion forum hidden from public view.

I believe that is to avoid trolls and useless arguments, not to hide their identity. Everyone knows who the major cold fusion researchers are.

Quote from bocijn

Is that one year payback on your mind in Georgia?.

I am talking about the energy payback. Not the money payback! One year may seem like a short time given all the embodied energy in a nuke, but remember that a nuke produces a gigawatt and it is turned on all the time; 24/7 for the whole year. It is a baseline generator. A gigawatt is enough to power a large city. Two nukes produce 1/4th of all the electricity in Georgia:

https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=GA

One of the critics who claims the energy payback time is 6 years claims there is a large amount of embodied energy in the uranium oxide fuel, and much of that is from fossil fuel from mining. That can't be right. If that were the case, the uranium oxide would end up costing as much per joule as fossil fuel does. It is far cheaper. You cannot hide such costs.

The embodied energy in ethanol biofuel exceeds the energy content of the ethanol. In other words, the farmers and production factories use more oil energy to produce the ethanol than you get from burning the ethanol. It is an energy sink, not an energy source. That fact cannot be hidden. It shows up in the cost of ethanol, and the fact that ethanol only exists with massive government subsidies. It is government handout to OPEC and gigantic agrobusiness. See Pimentel's book.

Quote from Wyttenbach

The energy payback-time for conventional fission nuclear plants is about 4.6 years (40 years live time guaranteed)

Most sources I have seen put the energy payback time for nukes at about a year. That includes the fuel and embodied energy in the construction materials. Here is a detailed industry estimate that works out to be about 0.7 years:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/i…return-on-investment.aspx

Here's two sources that claim it is 6 years. I doubt it.

https://evcricketenergy.wordpr…-understand-the-question/

https://energypost.eu/renewabl…nuclear-dispelling-myths/

The fastest payback time is for gas fired aeroderivative generators.