Merged Cold Fusion Claims

[Aepervius]

Like: Project Blue Book concluded that UFOs don't exist.

Nitpick derail, i think project blue did conclude that there is no evidence that UFO are alien craft from another world. It did not conclude that there was no UFO (Unknown Flying object) in fact IIRC the report, it stated that some UFO report were too old and unverifiable making it impossible to give it an assignment beyond, yeah , it is unknown, an UFO.

But aside that I agree with your post.

 

[pteridine]

ben m;9515039]So! Never mind what the experts actually concluded, you're just going to reject their conclusions because you don't like their attitude.

This is great! This opens up great vistas of science for us. If we can reject anyone's conclusions because we don't like their attitude, then anything is possible. Like: Project Blue Book I[/I]concluded that UFOs don't exist. But I don't like Edward Condon's haircut, so clearly the UFO question is still open. They say there's no such thing as perpetual motion, which they teach the Freshmen at Ohio State, and we can ignore that because the Buckeyes are under NCAA sanctions and can't be objective.

Thanks for your misinterpretation of my statements. As you remember, I was responding to the proposal of a bet made by others [for which I was chastised as 'bumping' the thread] I wanted to collect the 'for' and 'against' bets and made the statement: "All who wish to bet for or against Rossi and the ECat should so state, so we can have lists of participants on either side. I have included the egomaniacs Nathan Lewis and Richard Garwin on the 'against' list but those guys are chameleons so I expect that they will somehow weasel out of public confession of error." Exception was taken to my characterization of those two as 'egomaniacs.' This has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with their conclusions. In the case of Lewis, it has to do with the presumption that he was the arbiter and set the bar at 20% excess. What about the rest of the world? In the case of Garwin, I picked the wrong naysayer although I still include him as 'against.' I am also including John Huizinga as 'against.'

 

[ben m]

Exception was taken to my characterization of those two as 'egomaniacs.' This has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with their conclusions.

Fair enough. But what makes you describe Garwin Huizenga as an egomaniac? You objected to the fact that he works for U. Rochester (in the chemistry department) because Rochester happens to have a laser fusion lab (not in the chemistry department). Is this a blanket accusation that everyone at U. Rochester is an egomaniac, tainted by the presence of the laser lab?

 

[pteridine]

Fair enough. But what makes you describe Garwin Huizenga as an egomaniac? You objected to the fact that he works for U. Rochester (in the chemistry department) because Rochester happens to have a laser fusion lab (not in the chemistry department). Is this a blanket accusation that everyone at U. Rochester is an egomaniac, tainted by the presence of the laser lab?

No.

Huizenga [Professor of Chemistry and Physics] had a vested interest in hot fusion research and still led the review of "cold fusion" for DOE. He biased the report to such an extent that Norman Ramsey [Nobel in Physics 1989] complained. The final edit still did not address the positive results of some DOE labs. Huizenga knew better and killed it.

A more balanced report, DIA-08-0911-003, can be found here: https://www.fas.org/irp/dia/lenr.pdf

 

[bruto]

Questions of ego aside, Pteridine, I am still wondering how your proposed bet could ever be in good faith, considering that it is one you can never lose as long as there is a future. About the only way it seems you would admit to a fraud would be if Rossi himself opened the box, showed you the trick, and said "ha ha, I was kidding all the time." Even that is not guaranteed. It did not work for some of the people who believe in crop circles.

 

[ben m]

A more balanced report, DIA-08-0911-003, can be found here: https://www.fas.org/irp/dia/lenr.pdf

From your link:

Prepared by: Beverly Barnhart, DIA/DI, Defense Warning Office. With contributions from: Dr. Patrick McDaniel, University of New Mexico; Dr. Pam Mosier-Boss, U.S. Navy SPAWAR/Pacific; Dr. Michael McKubre, SRI International; Mr. Lawrence Forsley, JWK International; and Dr. Louis DeChiaro, NSWC/Dahlgren.

So this report compiles facts supplied by: a cold fusion researcher, another cold fusion researcher, another cold fusion researcher, and another cold fusion promoter, plus of course a cold fusion promoter. It's the inclusion of the fifth cold-fusion promoter that makes this "balanced", right?

 

[Reality Check]

Norman Ramsey signed the amended, unbiased and released report

Huizenga [Professor of Chemistry and Physics] had a vested interest in hot fusion research and still led the review of "cold fusion" for DOE.

And what was this "vested" interest, pteridine?

For that matter - where is that report, pteridine?

I do hope that it is not the rather silly notion that anyone who has ever done a physics course where hot fusion was mentioned is biased !


Or maybe it is the slightly less silly notion that anyone who has done research on hot fusion is biased against "cold fusion". Which is silly because

• you need experts in fusion to properly evaluate any type of fusion.
• anyone with the background in science needed for fusion research is capable of evaluating experiments like the Fleischmann and Pons experiments.
• If you think that a Professor of Chemistry and Physics can not evaluate "cold fusion" then why do you think someone with a Nobel in Physics can?
  Especially when that Nobel had nothing to do with fusion!

He biased the report to such an extent that Norman Ramsey [Nobel in Physics 1989] complained.

Accessible citation to that complaint and your other assertions, pteridine?
Why did Norman Ramsey [Nobel in Physics 1989] sign a report that he thought was biased?

ETA:
I have seen statements that Huizenga came into the project with the stance that cold fusion did not exist (this is what anyone who knew about the laws of physics would reasonably conclude). The initial report was so clearly against "cold fusion" that Norman Ramsey refused to sign it as biased. Norman Ramsey signed the amended, unbiased and released report.

 

[pteridine]

Questions of ego aside, Pteridine, I am still wondering how your proposed bet could ever be in good faith, considering that it is one you can never lose as long as there is a future. About the only way it seems you would admit to a fraud would be if Rossi himself opened the box, showed you the trick, and said "ha ha, I was kidding all the time." Even that is not guaranteed. It did not work for some of the people who believe in crop circles.

Thanks for addressing the heart of the posts; the bet. From the posts, it is unlikely that any poster whining about how long things take or why Rossi hasn't done things to their personal satisfaction has ever developed a product based on new technology. This is not an academic activity where professors research what they are interested in and publish in the literature so they can be successful and get more grant money and do more research on what they are interested in. This is about making a salable product by attracting investment for development and production while meeting all of the safety and regulatory requirements for such a product. Investors need to see what they are investing in and due diligence requires that tests be made to the satisfaction of the investors' technical people which we are not privy to. This is followed by technical development that includes some directed science that is designed to better understand the phenomenon [to improve the product] while engineering a working device that satisfies operational and safety requirements. Where in this process would a public test with disinterested observers be completed?
What do you think is a reasonable timeframe and what would be considered a decisive event?

 

[pteridine]

And what was this "vested" interest, pteridine?

For that matter - where is that report?

I do hope that it is not the rather silly notion that anyone who has ever done a physics course where hot fusion was mentioned is biased


Or maybe it is the slightly less silly notion that anyone who has done research on hot fusion is biased against "cold fusion". Which is silly because

• you need experts in fusion to properly evaluate any type of fusion.
• anyone with the background in science needed for fusion research is capable of evaluating experiments like the Fleischmann and Pons experiments.
• If you think that a Professor of Chemistry and Physics can not evaluate "cold fusion" then why do you think someone with a Nobel in Physics can?
  Especially when that Nobel had nothing to do with fusion!

The vested interest was the funding going to U Rochester for hot fusion research. Turning off that spigot would not endear John to the University. It is all about research money, RC.
I'm glad that you are still able to generate random silly notions and then hope about them. It is a singular talent of yours that you have assiduously developed.

 

[nathan]

... is an egomaniac, tainted by the presence of the laser lab?

Oh, I need to declare that as a post-grad I had a massive frickin laser, and a shed load of liquid He, and an oscilloscope displaying a folding Lissajous figure -- that actually meant something important! bwa ha ha!

 

[Andy_Ross]

The vested interest was the funding going to U Rochester for hot fusion research. Turning off that spigot would not endear John to the University. It is all about research money, RC.
I'm glad that you are still able to generate random silly notions and then hope about them. It is a singular talent of yours that you have assiduously developed.

What Rot!

If there was anything in 'Cold Fusion' Fusion Labs would get grants to research it.

 

[ben m]

The vested interest was the funding going to U Rochester for hot fusion research. Turning off that spigot would not endear John to the University. It is all about research money, RC.

I work at an R1 university. I know how research money works. Your conspiracy-theory version of this is, if possible, even less grounded in fact then your belief in cold fusion.

I mean, to believe in cold fusion, all you have to do is believe the people who are explicitly telling you to believe this. "A faculty member would not turn off a research spigot" ... geez, did you make that up yourself? Based on what knowledge of funding, academia, and academics' motivations?

a) At my university, I can think of ten cases off the top of my head where the success of Research Group A would hurt the funding for Research Group B. There is not even a hint of a whiff of truth to your conspiracy-drawing along these lines.

b) Huizenga was studying fission and transuranics. Fission, not fusion. Transuranics, not tritium. A breakthrough in fission research would also hurt the case for inertial confinement fusion.

c) I mean, you can't even draw a picture of the motivations here. Let's game it out. It's 1989. Suppose you've just seen evidence of a $100 cold fusion apparatus, very widely publicized, easily reproduced, already in the public domain. "Well," you say, "I bet that one negative assessment of this apparatus would successfully suppress all R&D on this technology for 30 years. I'm so certain that that suppression will work---i.e., no one will reveal my lies by actually repeating this easy public-domain experiment, or reanalyzing the public-domain data I'm lying about----that I'm willing to commit a federal crime (misuse of research money). My lie will cost America over $100B/year for decades, but it'll preserve one lab at U. Rochester that earns the University $2M/y in overhead, i.e. as much one operating room at the university hospital. Although I'm an academic with tenure, non-performance-dependent salary, and contractual immunity from various forms of admin interference, I will mysteriously bow to the University's whim on this, bearing all of the personal, reputational, and criminal risk myself. OK, that all sounds like the most likely and desirable outcome---let the coverup begin!"

The only evidence you have that for this fantastic conspiracy---that Huizenga was biased by Rochester's research bean counters---is nothing at all. You don't like his conclusions, so you went off conspiracy-spouting.

It's about as plausible as the Moon Hoax. "Hey, guys, let's spend $10B and employ ten thousand people to build sound stages and detailed moon-gravity and moon-optics simulations. This is a lie, but it's perfectly safe, none of those 10000 people or their spouses or kids or equipment-suppliers or auditors would ever spill the beans."

 

[catsmate]

The vested interest was the funding going to U Rochester for hot fusion research. Turning off that spigot would not endear John to the University. It is all about research money,

Absolute drivel. You have absolutely no idea how research funding works in the Real World do you?

 

[bruto]

Thanks for addressing the heart of the posts; the bet. From the posts, it is unlikely that any poster whining about how long things take or why Rossi hasn't done things to their personal satisfaction has ever developed a product based on new technology. This is not an academic activity where professors research what they are interested in and publish in the literature so they can be successful and get more grant money and do more research on what they are interested in. This is about making a salable product by attracting investment for development and production while meeting all of the safety and regulatory requirements for such a product. Investors need to see what they are investing in and due diligence requires that tests be made to the satisfaction of the investors' technical people which we are not privy to. This is followed by technical development that includes some directed science that is designed to better understand the phenomenon [to improve the product] while engineering a working device that satisfies operational and safety requirements. Where in this process would a public test with disinterested observers be completed?
What do you think is a reasonable timeframe and what would be considered a decisive event?

I have not been keeping track of Rossi's promises, but how about taking some promised future date of his and adding some factor. Clearly it would be difficult to decide on a decisive event if such events are to be concealed, but at some point the process of gathering investors must give way to using the investment to do some of the work that is promised. Actual investors will, I presume, want to see something that actually works, and would, I presume, actually want to see that it works. If that never happens, we are looking at a Ponzi scheme. As I said, I have not kept track of Rossi's promises recently, but if the bet is in good faith, at some point the continued non-fulfillment of promises would have to be a signal to bail out. This thread is already two and a half years old. If the bet is in good faith, those on the Rossi side would, I think, have to allow for some lingering doubt. After all, those on the anti-Rossi side are likely willing to eat their words if need be, so joining that side is never final either.

 

[Aepervius]

The vested interest was the funding going to U Rochester for hot fusion research. Turning off that spigot would not endear John to the University. It is all about research money, RC.
I'm glad that you are still able to generate random silly notions and then hope about them. It is a singular talent of yours that you have assiduously developed.

ha the usual "he is in for the money" I heard that excuse from very crackpot about why their special theory was rejected. i heard the same **** from global warming denier "climate scientist are in for the money". Yeah. Right. Most scientist I know barely scrap by compared to what lawyer, doctor, people in private sector, engineer, scammer and whatnot earn. Way way way below. Last I heard my ex colleague earn only 1/2 to 2/3 of what I am earning now in the private sector. And I did not even play the "changing of firm to get higher pay" game.

But even then, it would not explain why the REST of the world is not making ANY progress on the cold fusion front. no reproducible experiment. Are you telling us everybody is on the money ? EVen if ONE person killed the american cold fusion program, why is not Japan making any progress ? Why is not China making any progress ? Why is not Russia, or germany making any progress ? there are teams from all over the world working on this, and they are *mostly* at the same state as we were 10 years ago : no reproducible experiment.

Your argument about money is bovine excrement. You are just using it to sully the reputation of somebody, an ad hom, because you have no evidence or argument.

I also note that you abandonned the point about not knowing what's in the box of Rossi.

 

[Horatius]

Thanks for addressing the heart of the posts; the bet. From the posts, it is unlikely that any poster whining about how long things take or why Rossi hasn't done things to their personal satisfaction has ever developed a product based on new technology. This is not an academic activity where professors research what they are interested in and publish in the literature so they can be successful and get more grant money and do more research on what they are interested in. This is about making a salable product by attracting investment for development and production while meeting all of the safety and regulatory requirements for such a product. Investors need to see what they are investing in and due diligence requires that tests be made to the satisfaction of the investors' technical people which we are not privy to. This is followed by technical development that includes some directed science that is designed to better understand the phenomenon [to improve the product] while engineering a working device that satisfies operational and safety requirements. Where in this process would a public test with disinterested observers be completed?
What do you think is a reasonable timeframe and what would be considered a decisive event?

With all your whining about how hard it is for Rossi to produce a working prototype, have you completely forgotten Rossi's original claims?


peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Andrea_A._Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Generator

This link was provided in the very first post of this thread, almost three years ago now. In that article, we find this quote:

According to Rossi, the demonstrated device shown on January 14, 2011 is their industrial product that is claimed to be reliable and safe. In normal operation it would produce 8 units of output for every unit of input. Higher levels of output are possible, but can be dangerous. They will soon start serial production of their modules. Combining the modules in series and parallel arrays it is possible to reach every limit of power. The modules are designed to be connected in series and parallels.

Rossi also says that they have had one reactor that has run continually for two years, providing heat for a factory. It reduced the electric bill by 90%. Also, the reactors can self sustain by turning off the input, but they prefer to have an input. The device will be scheduled for maintenance every six months. You control it "just as you turn on and off your television set."

If Rossi could validate any one of the claims he's made here (from three years ago!), that would convince almost everybody here. If he's not completely full of ****, proving the fundamental basis of his claims would be trivially easy.

Show any of the above to be true, and investors would be beating a path to his door, even if he's still a few years away from a marketable version (which he shouldn't be, if three years ago he had a device that "has run continually for two years, providing heat for a factory", and which "reduced the electric bill by 90%"). There isn't a factory owner in the world who would even blink at investing in a device that could accomplish that.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

[snip]

There isn't a factory owner in the world who would even blink at investing in a device that could accomplish that.

Well, perhaps not ... if 50% of the workers who came within ~3m of the device came down with radiation sickness within a week (and 50% of those died within a month), say, a factory owner might think twice

 

[ben m]

Thanks for addressing the heart of the posts; the bet. From the posts, it is unlikely that any poster whining about how long things take or why Rossi hasn't done things to their personal satisfaction has ever developed a product based on new technology.

Wrong again!

This is about making a salable product by attracting investment for development and production while meeting all of the safety and regulatory requirements for such a product. Investors need to see what they are investing in and due diligence requires that tests be made to the satisfaction of the investors' technical people which we are not privy to.

Wrong yet again. I have also hired companies, on best-effort contracts, to finish development, testing, and delivery of products. This process does not work the way you seem to think it works.

In fact, your knowledge of business, like your knowledge of nuclear physics, appears to consist entirely of stories you invented to provide excuses for Rossi's behavior. If someone caught Rossi using hollow wires to feed gas to an oxyacetylene torch inside his reactor, you'd say "Obviously Rossi needs his reactor to consume a token amount of fossil fuel before the Illuminati will sign off on his carbon-reduction tax credit."

Where in this process would a public test with disinterested observers be completed?

Maybe you're right. Maybe Rossi is so busy with investors that he doesn't have any motivation to stage a public test. He certainly wouldn't invite a roomful of reporters to steam-puffer show, invite his Italian and Swedish buddies to point a thermal camera at a HotCat (and assist them in cutting it open), file an ungrantable patent, and maintain a blog that pretends to be an academic journal about his technology. Oh, wait, that's exactly what he did.

Or maybe, like every other business in the world, they do better by not providing the public face of a scammer, and revealing their honesty only in private. Go look at some real, now-verified pie-in-the-sky tech. Look at how American Superconductor pitched its superconducting-wire R&D (and, now, sales). Look at how D-wave pitched their quantum computer. Look at how eSolar pitched its fast-cheap-mass-produced solar thermal plants.

 

[Horatius]

Well, perhaps not ... if 50% of the workers who came within ~3m of the device came down with radiation sickness within a week (and 50% of those died within a month), say, a factory owner might think twice

Well, there's another way Rossi could substantiate his claim! Show us the pile of bodies accumulated over the two years he was running his factory off this prototype! I'll even personally waive the wrongful death suits that would inevitably follow!

 

[pteridine]

I have not been keeping track of Rossi's promises, but how about taking some promised future date of his and adding some factor. Clearly it would be difficult to decide on a decisive event if such events are to be concealed, but at some point the process of gathering investors must give way to using the investment to do some of the work that is promised. Actual investors will, I presume, want to see something that actually works, and would, I presume, actually want to see that it works. If that never happens, we are looking at a Ponzi scheme. As I said, I have not kept track of Rossi's promises recently, but if the bet is in good faith, at some point the continued non-fulfillment of promises would have to be a signal to bail out. This thread is already two and a half years old. If the bet is in good faith, those on the Rossi side would, I think, have to allow for some lingering doubt. After all, those on the anti-Rossi side are likely willing to eat their words if need be, so joining that side is never final either.

That seems like a reasonable thing to do; the problem now is to select a deciding factor. One event could be having a licensee company reproduce the device but that would require belief that the licensee was not lying about it. A salable product would take longer as Rossi continually underestimates the time it takes to fund and develop new technology. Maybe the best is to wait until the investors come forward with a promise and hold them to some timeline for it or hope for a true third party test.
The other thing that must be settled is what we are going to bet on. Do we use LENR from any company as one leg [LENR exists or doesn't] and LENR from Rossi as another [Rossi has it or doesn't have it] or is this about Rossi, alone? If LENR is shown to be real by another entity before Rossi, can we assume that he has it, or some variation, also?
Given the levels of adrenaline and outrage I have induced in the other posters on this board, I can't imagine what they would accept. Probably a Nobel prize would do it but even then they may claim 'fraud,' as that is the word they use regardless of the actual events.