Merged Cold Fusion Claims

[WhatRoughBeast]

No, Rossi may not come across in October since projects like this have a way of getting delayed. But I read where he has already built 170 of the 300 units needed to start his new plant site. What I predict will happen is that when Rossi does prove E-Cat to the world, you skeptics will either quietly withdraw to some more comfortable thread, or despite huge evidence to the contrary will continue to attack the validity of the E-Cat.

No "may not come across in October" about it. Will not. And not the next deadline, either. Or the one after that. And what will Rossi's excuse be? That "projects like these" get hiccups? Despite the fact that he's been running his units for 4 years, they are too new to manage effectively? No, I expect that he'll blame the government.

You see, y'all are too focussed on research papers. You need to pay more attention to what we laughingly call "the real world". Let's assume that Rossi is on the up and up. Has it occurred to you that Rossi is proposing to install 300 nuclear reactors? Has it occurred to you that these reactors operate on untried and unproven principles and processes? Has it occurred to you that each reactor involves 30 KW+ of gamma radiation? Do you have any faint idea about the bureaucracy involved? I've no direct experience with the GAEC, which seems the obvious choice of responsible agency, but I can't believe that they are any more agile than our own NRC; and look at the permitting process for proven designs.

And for what it's worth, I've submitted the question to Rossi on his journal. Twice. The silence of his response is thunderous.

Although, in investigating the question I have discovered the fascinating fact that an e-Cat does not fall under the purview of the NRC. Who'd a thunk it?

 

[ben m]

a-b) The control experiments were carried out at the same time as the deuterium loaded experiments negating any background effects.

c) The experimenters collaborated with other research groups to develop a calibration technique for CR-39. They reliably quantified the energies of known nuclear reaction products using this analysis technique.

Nope. I took another look, and my conclusion remains the same. The paper (more specifically, the Naturwissenshaft supplementary materials) show some *unquantified* (and indeed unquantifiable) smoothed line charts, with no accompanying numbers, which seem to correspond to *attempts* at calibration. But there is nothing quantitative and nothing that looks remotely reliable.

As I said, it's a challenging detection technique; the basic "OK, here's a plot of beam-on minus beam-off, so the background subtracted. Done." works with other detectors but not with CR-39 or emulsions. They're tough, and the Mosier-Boss approach shows no sign (again, speaking as an expert in low-background radiation detection, including neutron detection) of basic competence.

 

[attaboy]

So not an actual research paper to read? Hmmm .... could your present something in the way of evidence?

BTW just post the UPL like the ############ and we will fix it


I notice that is an interview not data.

Oh I see. You're one of those who needs to be spoon fed. OK - let me get you started. If you google Dr. Storms you'll shortly find reference to numerous technical articles. From there you'll find plenty of data.

 

[ben m]

Oh I see. You're one of those who needs to be spoon fed. OK - let me get you started. If you google Dr. Storms you'll shortly find reference to numerous technical articles. From there you'll find plenty of data.

This is not "spoon feeding", it's called a "citation". It's standard practice.

 

[attaboy]

Yes, how silly of me to think that repeated assertions that "corporate blood suckers" worked behind the scenes to suppress cold fusion and/or steal" his device, could possibly be considered to suggest that there's a "conspiracy" at work.

Its occurred to me that maybe its just a matter of us not being on the same page here. I hope you're not suggesting that the integrity of corporate america is of some very high level and its offensive when someone questions this integrity. I don't think I ever used the word conspiracy. I'm referring to the fact that if Big Energy sees some new source of energy come along that could replace what they have to offer, they won't sit idly by and let it happen. But as far as me trying to foment a conspiracy, if that's what you're getting at, I'm just a retired scientist with no means or inclination to start a conspiracy.

 

[attaboy]

This is not "spoon feeding", it's called a "citation". It's standard practice.

Jeeez, I thought I gave enough citation. I didn't just cite the review but printed out the abstract. On the article I felt I cited enough info for one to easily retrieve it.

 

[excaza]

Jeeez, I thought I gave enough citation. I didn't just cite the review but printed out the abstract. On the article I felt I cited enough info for one to easily retrieve it.

I'm going to start doing that on all my research papers. No citations, I'm just going to copy+paste the abstract at the end of the paper and tell whoever is reviewing it to google the rest.

 

[Dancing David]

Belz...



This is what you wrote in your post. The master's thesis I linked to you will help you understand this claim. Though it is not true....

Dancing David



I am not here to defend others research.

I asked you what data there is on how they used the CR-39 and controlled for the background, you made the claim and I asked you to support it. So what did they say they did for control, yous aid they used controls and I am sking how they did it.

You brought it up.

Watch the hour long seminar presentation I highlighted in my previous post. Read the dozens of papers and conference proceedings authored by the SPAWAR group over the last 20 years. Then read the Storms review and look up the references. I was especially impressed by the transmutaion and coulomb repulsion shielding effect of metal lattice experiments. This will take months (as it has me). Then you can martial your complete picture of the phenomenon and present a reasoned argument to back up you skepticism.

that also is not what I asked you, Ia sked specifically to a claim that you made.

You are not arguing with a crackpot wooster. I am a professional materials scientist, I get paid because of my excellent critical thinking skills. Saying something like, my guess is they are looking at noise, doesn't even rise to the level of argument put forth by creationists when they argue against evolution. I have no interest in discussing the issue with people that can take the time to post criticisms of an experimental observation based on blatant logical fallacies on a skeptic site!

Oh so you are now saying that my question about teh controls they used for background noise is irrelevant, it is totally relevant to the question of how they controlled for teh back ground effect in determing a signal effect.

You are making a rude response to a pertinent question, I made no logical fallacy, apparently your rhetoric is stronger than your discussion skills.

Why do you bother to post on this thread? You obviously have no interest in actually learning anything about cold fusion.

I asked a specific question about the claim for controlling background noise in the CR-39 signal.
[/quote]

What pleasure do you get from making off the cuff remarks dripping with the same logical fallacies that you criticize woosters for?

What the Fred, that is an outright lie, you are very rude and can't substantiate that I made any such statements in this thread.

This thread consists of waiting for somebody to post something ridiculous like "it's a conspiracy theory!", then ridiculing that poster for a while before patting yourself on the back for you healthy skepticism.

Blah b;ah b;ah, are you going to post the control protocol or not?

You are becoming that which you abhor. Many people here seem to be well trained scientists. Use your training and do a little reading if you want to contribute to a discussion. A rational, critical evaluation of the available facts. You can't evaluate an enormous body of literature based on things you heard in 1989, new scientist articles, and wikipedia. Saying things like (poetic licence) "A guy I knew tried to replicate the experiment and failed!" is absurd pseudoskeptic BS. You should all dogpile on that guy instead of focusing on people posting conspiracy crap. Be like the swedish skeptic testing the rossi device and do something useful for the skeptical movement. It is freaking amazing to me that from one second to the next he could go from respected skeptic to crackpot outsider, just for reporting what he observed! One minute he was a competent champion of critical thinking and professor of physics the next he was a ignorant rube who you wouldn't trust to wash your car. It is a disgusting display by the skeptical community that I find extremely disturbing. It has definitely lowered my opinion of the movement of which I was previously a supporter.

NOTE:I added the rant tags they are not in the original post. they are placed there by DD not Crawdaddy.

You have confused me with your imagination and attributed things to me which I did not say.

So are you going to answer my question or just continue to rant?

 

[excaza]

I'm referring to the fact that if Big Energy sees some new source of energy come along that could replace what they have to offer, they won't sit idly by and let it happen.

So you're saying that the members of 'Big Energy' are working together to keep the truth, that cold fusion works, from getting out and bankrupting them all. There are 3 problems with this.

a.) That's a conspiracy theory.
b.) There is no evidence for this.
c.) If cold fusion did exist, it would make 'Big Energy' billions of dollars. There is no reason for them to try and keep it from getting out, but ample reason for them to buy/develop it for themselves.

 

[Dancing David]

Oh I see. You're one of those who needs to be spoon fed. OK - let me get you started. If you google Dr. Storms you'll shortly find reference to numerous technical articles. From there you'll find plenty of data.

I see, so you don't have any research of his that you think is valid, fair by me, you said he has valid research and I am asking for your favorite.

I can sppon feed myself but i will not read through mountains of stuff, you tell me what you like.

I will continue to spend the bulk of my study on malware removal, which is about an hour a day right now.

ETA: I entered what you said into google, and I got an interview, bravo, you did not cite a source, just copy and paste the url and cut out the www. , we can add it.

 

[Horatius]

Its occurred to me that maybe its just a matter of us not being on the same page here. I hope you're not suggesting that the integrity of corporate america is of some very high level and its offensive when someone questions this integrity. I don't think I ever used the word conspiracy. I'm referring to the fact that if Big Energy sees some new source of energy come along that could replace what they have to offer, they won't sit idly by and let it happen. But as far as me trying to foment a conspiracy, if that's what you're getting at, I'm just a retired scientist with no means or inclination to start a conspiracy.

The simple fact that you can use a term like "Big Energy", as if every energy company in the world all acted as one entity, shows you're engaging in conspiracy thinking, even if you don't recognize it.

Otherwise,you're left with the conundrum: why wouldn't at least one Big Energy Company decide to screw over all the others, and start using Cold Fusion for themselves? If I, as the President of some hypothetical Giant Electricity Producing Company, could produce electricity for a fraction of the cost compared to my competitors, I could drop my price to consumers by 10%, and wipe out the competition, all while making record profits for myself. Why wouldn't I do that?


Also, thinking that they could "suppress" something like table-top cold fusion, that can be discovered by someone who is "just an inventor, not a scientist" also shows such thinking, as you're tacitly granting "Big Energy" a level of power and influence that they simply cannot have.

Right now, if we were to believe everything Rossi has said, the only element we're missing from being able to build e-cats in our basements is an identification of what he's using as a catalyst. If he were to be targeted by some "Big Energy" types, how hard would it be for him to publish this information on so many sites that no real organization could suppress it? Consider that even this forum, which doesn't believe a word of what he's saying, copies and redistributes pretty much everything he says. Add in all the places that already believe him, and any mirror sites that will pop up at the first hint of "suppression", and Big Energy wouldn't have a chance.

 

[Belz...]

Belz...

You actually got my nickname right. Impressive. Most people don't spot the dots.

Then you can martial your complete picture of the phenomenon and present a reasoned argument to back up you skepticism.

Martial ? As in kick it in the face ?

Why do you bother to post on this thread? You obviously have no interest in actually learning anything about cold fusion.

Be careful about what you think is obvious. Cold fusion, so far, has not held up to scrutiny. It's only fair that we be even more skeptical than usual about its repeated claims now.

 

[Belz...]

David, slow down. Typos make your posts harder to read, man.

 

[Belz...]

Otherwise,you're left with the conundrum: why wouldn't at least one Big Energy Company decide to screw over all the others, and start using Cold Fusion for themselves? If I, as the President of some hypothetical Giant Electricity Producing Company, could produce electricity for a fraction of the cost compared to my competitors, I could drop my price to consumers by 10%, and wipe out the competition, all while making record profits for myself. Why wouldn't I do that?

What a stupid question. Because you're EVIL, of course.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Nope. I took another look, and my conclusion remains the same. The paper (more specifically, the Naturwissenshaft supplementary materials) show some *unquantified* (and indeed unquantifiable) smoothed line charts, with no accompanying numbers, which seem to correspond to *attempts* at calibration. But there is nothing quantitative and nothing that looks remotely reliable.

I disagree with your conclusion. The technique of etching off the top 70microns of the CR-39 to eliminate everything but neutrons and then using an automated technique to measure the track length is perfectly reasonable. The smooth curves you mention seem to have peaks of over 10000 counts. BTW every

Furthermore the direct measurement of tri-alpha tracks generated by the dissociation of a carbon atom is a very convincing hallmark of high energy neutrons. The fact that they are never observed with controls is extremely convincing.

The fact that the supplementary material doesn't include a rigorous statistical treatment of the data is not unusual. If you watch the conference proceeding on youtube you might be more convinced.

I don't see your objection to CR-39 as valid. Do you not think that if you placed a CR-39 detector near a very weak neutron source for a long time and then compared it to a CR-39 film that had only been exposed to background that you could quantify the difference between them with an appropriate etching and track measuring technique? For a chemist (like me) this would be relatively strait forward. It would likely be much more difficult for a physicist, who are generally not as rigorous as trained chemists when performing etching etc.

 

[ben m]

I'm going to start doing that on all my research papers. No citations, I'm just going to copy+paste the abstract at the end of the paper and tell whoever is reviewing it to google the rest.

Yep. Nobody references anything any more.

Old style: "Wolfe-Simon et. al., PLOS1 55 256-259 (2009)". New style: "I could swear I saw something by Wolfe-Simon on the Web but Firefox 4 ate my browser history."

Old style: "Trace Analysis, ed. GR Morrison, Wiley Interscience 1965". New style: "Some chemistry book. Green binding, minor foxing, about yea thick. It used to be shelved at eye level somewhere on the 2nd floor. You can find it."

 

[excaza]

Yep. Nobody references anything any more.

Old style: "Wolfe-Simon et. al., PLOS1 55 256-259 (2009)". New style: "I could swear I saw something by Wolfe-Simon on the Web but Firefox 4 ate my browser history."

Old style: "Trace Analysis, ed. GR Morrison, Wiley Interscience 1965". New style: "Some chemistry book. Green binding, minor foxing, about yea thick. It used to be shelved at eye level somewhere on the 2nd floor. You can find it."

It would certainly make it easier to remember how the ******* citations are formatted.

 

[catsmate]

Its amazing that you could come up with my comment being "conspiracy stuff".

Edited by LashL: 

Removed quote of moderated content.

Edited by LashL: 

Removed response to moderated content.

No, Rossi may not come across in October since projects like this have a way of getting delayed.

Preempting his inevitable failure I see.

But I read where he has already built 170 of the 300 units needed to start his new plant site. What I predict will happen is that when Rossi does prove E-Cat to the world, you skeptics will either quietly withdraw to some more comfortable thread, or despite huge evidence to the contrary will continue to attack the validity of the E-Cat.

No. Real scientists accept reality. You'd know this if you were one.

 

[catsmate]

This is possibly true, I've known some idiots who've managed to fufill the doctoral requirements. It's also irrelevant.

It wasn't.

Based on what? His fake journal? His history of fraud? His refusal to allow examination of his magic energy machine?


More information please. Why was your work "discredited"?


They chose to go public with very dubious and unrepeated data. They made fools of themselves and their supporters.

The alleged discoveries of Pons and Fleischmann have never been repeated by any reputable experimenters. That's in spite of thousands of attempts.
Do you know what that means?

You might want to use the Quote function properly.

Its hard for me to believe you're for real and poses the question of how much actual real world experience many of you people have.

Well I've a real doctorate (and soon a second one), a pair of masters degrees, published papers (in physics, materials science, information technology, computational science and history) and a couple of decades in the "real world".........

 

[ben m]

Do you not think that if you placed a CR-39 detector near a very weak neutron source for a long time and then compared it to a CR-39 film that had only been exposed to background that you could quantify the difference between them with an appropriate etching and track measuring technique? For a chemist (like me) this would be relatively strait forward. It would likely be much more difficult for a physicist, who are generally not as rigorous as trained chemists when performing etching etc.

That'd be a start. Then you'd try to remove the effects of at batch-to-batch variation in the acrylic (Variation in: background track density, etch response, neutron sensitivity.). Then you'd double-blind the etching, pit counting, and data analysis operations. Then you'd do a blind, controlled, beam-off map of the room backgrounds (neutrons---and they're everywhere, as a component of cosmic rays---do surprising things. And most importantly you'd publish tables of numbers (not smoothed-out graphs) showing the raw pit number counts on ALL of the plates (not on selected "representative" runs, nor averages or any sort)---beam-off, beam-on, calibration, etc.

Then you'd throw out the CR-39 and do it all again with an electronic detector, for crying out loud.