Merged Cold Fusion Claims

[Craig B]

Whoa, guys. There's been Ponzi schemes, but that doesn't mean all investment is a scam. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Don't write off cold fusion, not when there's no such thing as heat at the subatomic level. A "hot" particle is a fast-moving particle, that's all. The important thing is pressure. Go look at cold welding.

We're looking at Rossi in particular here, and he is weird even by cryofusionist standards; but in any case if the cold fusion people possess evidence that they can do something commercially useful with these fast-moving particles, nothing prevents them from producing it.

 

[attaboy]

Attaboy

Rossi says he has an energy machine, and he's taking money from investors. Explain to me why he doesn't require to provide evidence that his machine works. And if you want us to believe Rossi's statements we are entitled to ask you for evidence that they are true.

Don't get me wrong, I also feel Rossi is a somewhat shady character. But as far as evidence, he has satisfactorily demonstrated his machine to a number of people highly (perhaps the highest) qualified to evaluate his machine. These include experts from Sweden one of which is well known as a skeptic. U. of Bologna scientists are another group involved. And I believe (may be wrong here) he did a demo for NASA.
I've told you before, he has very good reason not to reveal any more than he absolutely has to right now. The skeptics on this forum are just not going to get the kind of data they seek at this point in time, just as Edison was not willing to divulge his light bulb data.

 

[ben m]

Whoa, guys. There's been Ponzi schemes, but that doesn't mean all investment is a scam. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Don't write off cold fusion, not when there's no such thing as heat at the subatomic level. A "hot" particle is a fast-moving particle, that's all. The important thing is pressure. Go look at cold welding.

You're insinuating that the laws of thermodynamics, in particular the distinction between macrostates and microphysics, has an opening which makes Cold Fusion theoretically possible. You're wrong.

There *is* such a thing as heat on a subatomic level. Give me a block of nickel, and the laws of thermodynamics, and I'll tell you the probability distribution of any subatomic quantity you want to know. Including, say, the probability of finding a nickel nucleus moving at any speed v. Including the probability of a nickel nucleus "tunneling" a distance r towards another nucleus. And so on.

Ordinary thermodynamics, coupled with ordinary nuclear physics (nucleon wavefunctions, etc.) is, in fact, perfectly able to predict the rate of spontaneous cold fusion---microphysics, heat, velocity, pressure, and all. The predicted rate is vanishingly small.

That's why cold fusion theorists try to invent new nuclear physics. Because simple aphorisms like yours---"the important thing is pressure"---don't actually work.

What the heck does "cold welding" have to do with it? It sounds like you're thinking "physics says welding happens to HOT metals, but the existence of COLD welding tells us that this physics is oversimplified". Baloney. Cold welding is ordinary, perfectly-thermodynamically-allowed solid-state physics. (In fact, it's practically the default behavior. If you simplify things, cold welding "should" happen at every metal-metal contact. You have to do some surface physics---including complexities like oxides and adsorbed gases---to understand the cases where cold welding fails to occur. But that's ordinary physics, thermo, and stat mech too.)

 

[Horatius]

Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Okay, here's a serious question:

How much bathwater do we have to throw out before you might entertain the notion that there's no baby there?

You use this example:

Whoa, guys. There's been Ponzi schemes, but that doesn't mean all investment is a scam.

This, of course, is an incredibly silly analogy, because while, yes, there are investment scams, there are also real investments, that can clearly demonstrate their value over time, and can be clearly distinguished from the scam investments. However, there's nothing to distinguish the "real" cold fusionists from the "fraud" ones. Neither group has ever produced working examples of the devices they claim to have. They're all still doing the same stupid experiments with the same stupid mistakes that we've been pointing out for literally decades now.

We've bailed so much bathwater that we're scraping at the porcelain now. Where's that damn baby already?

Maybe there isn't one.

Just consider that as a possibility.

 

[pteridine]

Let's remember the long history of real scientific discoveries (now commonplace of course) for which the original evidence was "the fraud conviction was overturned" and "there's no comprehensive proof of incompetence".

Like high temperature superconductors! Remember the theory-shattering announcement of LBCO in 1986? Didn't that come in the form of a blog-post from an unknown nonphysicist, who promised to have a $50,000 hovercar on the market by 1987? And didn't people call him a fraud when he couldn't even show a resistivity curve? He was vindicated in the end, if I remember, even though the first affordable hovercar didn't hit the market until '91.

Like Edison and the light bulb! Edison developed the light bulb in complete secrecy, and he never patented it in order to protect his secret filament technology! That's why the consumer public never even saw light from a light bulb, much less a theory to explain them, until the Teapot Dome Industrial Espionage scandal of '38. But all of the people who spent the '20s saying "there is no such thing as a light bulb" had to eat crow.

We also can't forget the established Physics community and their record of the highest quality scientific research. Prosper-René Blondlot's discovery of N-Rays was key to modern N-Ray theory. Another example is Leon M. Lederman's discovery of the 6 GeV Oops-Leon particle which provided new scientific insight into random noise. More recently, Jan Hendrik Schön published his studies on semi-conductors in Science and Nature. He won the Otto-Klung-Weberbank Prize for Physics in 2001, the Braunschweig Prize in 2001 and was even given the Outstanding Young Investigator Award of the Materials Research Society in 2002 [later rescinded.]
It is apparent that physicists everywhere make no errors, think only pure thoughts, and never let emotion or human weaknesses influence their never ending search for truth.

 

[Craig B]

pteridine

Of course scientists make errors. Outside the field of physics we have Piltdown Man and the planet Vulcan, along with innumerable other errors and delusions. And a few swindles too. But these things are corrected as well as perpetrated by scientists. An observer permitted closely to examine Blondlot's "detection" of N-rays (a level of intrusion that Rossi never permits!) was able to adapt Blondlot's apparatus to demonstrate that his findings were illusory.

But if science frequently harbours delusions and fraud, the field of "free energy" for its part contains nothing except these things, fraud overwhelmingly predominant. This is all the more true when "investments" are being garnered.

Rossi is a proven and inveterate liar, as has been demonstrated many times, most recently and above all in the Florida Board of Radiation Control affair. Explain that if you can. Rossi enthusiasts usually employ the "Big Energy world conspiracy of which the Florida state inspectors are a part" defence. Is that your view?

And could you please answer the question put to you: how long do you intend to give Rossi to produce the goods before you give up on him? Or will you spin this nonsense out for ever?

 

[Farsight]

We're looking at Rossi in particular here, and he is weird even by cryofusionist standards; but in any case if the cold fusion people possess evidence that they can do something commercially useful with these fast-moving particles, nothing prevents them from producing it.

Fair enough. But don't forget you could say the same about HEP.

 

[Farsight]

You're insinuating that the laws of thermodynamics, in particular the distinction between macrostates and microphysics, has an opening which makes Cold Fusion theoretically possible. You're wrong.

I'm not wrong. Fusion is actually achieved through pressure. This pressure is achieved in hot fusion by slamming fast-moving particles together. And by the way, that's quite easy to do, as per the Farnsworth fusor. It's an engineering problem to make a fusion power plant rather than a physics problem.

There *is* such a thing as heat on a subatomic level. Give me a block of nickel, and the laws of thermodynamics, and I'll tell you the probability distribution of any subatomic quantity you want to know. Including, say, the probability of finding a nickel nucleus moving at any speed v. Including the probability of a nickel nucleus "tunneling" a distance r towards another nucleus. And so on.

But a proton doesn't have any property associated with heat or temperature. A hot proton is a fast proton, that's all. See the proton-proton chain which powers the sun: "In general, proton–proton fusion can occur only if the temperature (i.e. kinetic energy) of the protons is high enough to overcome their mutual electrostatic or Coulomb repulsion"..

Ordinary thermodynamics, coupled with ordinary nuclear physics (nucleon wavefunctions, etc.) is, in fact, perfectly able to predict the rate of spontaneous cold fusion---microphysics, heat, velocity, pressure, and all. The predicted rate is vanishingly small.

Don't start giving me another naysayer lecture from some fifty-year old textbook. You're in condensed matter physics, go do some research, read http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.2411

That's why cold fusion theorists try to invent new nuclear physics. Because simple aphorisms like yours---"the important thing is pressure"---don't actually work.

The important thing is pressure! That's how you overcome the Coulomb barrier.

What the heck does "cold welding" have to do with it?

It shows you how you can use a combination of heat and pressure to achieve a result, and you can use less heat if you use more pressure. An arc welder uses blue heat and no pressure. A blacksmith welds at red heat by hammering. And so on.

It sounds like you're thinking "physics says welding happens to HOT metals, but the existence of COLD welding tells us that this physics is oversimplified". Baloney. Cold welding is ordinary, perfectly-thermodynamically-allowed solid-state physics. (In fact, it's practically the default behavior. If you simplify things, cold welding "should" happen at every metal-metal contact. You have to do some surface physics---including complexities like oxides and adsorbed gases---to understand the cases where cold welding fails to occur. But that's ordinary physics, thermo, and stat mech too.)

Don't put words into my mouth.

 

[Farsight]

Okay, here's a serious question: How much bathwater do we have to throw out before you might entertain the notion that there's no baby there?

I do entertain it. But other people don't entertain the possibility that the baby is there. To answer the question, you give it as long as it takes, you do the research, you gain understanding, you take it one step at a time, and you explore all avenues because this is important. It's save-the-planet important.

You use this example: "Whoa, guys. There's been Ponzi schemes, but that doesn't mean all investment is a scam". This, of course, is an incredibly silly analogy, because while, yes, there are investment scams, there are also real investments, that can clearly demonstrate their value over time, and can be clearly distinguished from the scam investments. However, there's nothing to distinguish the "real" cold fusionists from the "fraud" ones. Neither group has ever produced working examples of the devices they claim to have. They're all still doing the same stupid experiments with the same stupid mistakes that we've been pointing out for literally decades now.

It isn't a silly analogy. It's the right analogy. And if we applied your logic to HEP, we'd close down CERN and Fermilab.

We've bailed so much bathwater that we're scraping at the porcelain now. Where's that damn baby already? Maybe there isn't one. Just consider that as a possibility.

I have considered it. You consider the alternative. And read up on guys like Doug Coulter and stuff like this:

"On the other hand, Professor Peter Hagelstein from MIT, who continues to defend the deuterium fusion concept, has argued, with some effect, that if helium is the resulting material that forms through fusion at critical vacancies in a metal lattice, then the accumulation of helium can choke-back the reaction by plugging the vacancies. However, helium formed near a surface has an opportunity to defuse out of the metal lattice, freeing up the vacancies in the same region to continue the LENR effect. Hence even the deuterium fusion theory can fit with the observed phenomena that high surface area contributes to the production of excess heat."

 

[catsmate]

Rossi was imprisoned unjustly and has had the conviction thrown out or he would not have the US visa he has. So much for that issue.

You're absolutely right!! And as you can see the fraud illusionists are getting really frantic to discredit our posts even to the point of talking such nonsense as role reversal and not having made any claims. Its a good thing I came back on here. Now they have a life again.

And, like cold fusion itself, I take it you won't be providing any evidence for your assertions?

 

[catsmate]

A history of the charges made against Rossi may be found in New Energy Times at http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/Ros...cial-and-Environmental-Criminal-History.shtml

You can blame Jimmy Carter for his US visa, he granted him a permanent entry visa in '74 based on his "waste to oil" claims.
The ones that turned out to be a fraud..................

 

[catsmate]

Whoa, guys. There's been Ponzi schemes, but that doesn't mean all investment is a scam. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Don't write off cold fusion, not when there's no such thing as heat at the subatomic level. A "hot" particle is a fast-moving particle, that's all. The important thing is pressure. Go look at cold welding.

Sigh. Cold fusions type claims date back about a century without any proof.

Should be embrace Rossi just in case he turns out to be another Columbus Joiner?

 

[Dancing David]

Don't get me wrong, I also feel Rossi is a somewhat shady character. But as far as evidence, he has satisfactorily demonstrated his machine to a number of people highly (perhaps the highest) qualified to evaluate his machine.

Nope, he did not use a still water bath and did not allow anyone to measure his power use. His method of steam generation is not standard calorimetry.

Appeal to authority.

 

[Farsight]

Sigh. Cold fusions type claims date back about a century without any proof.

Got a reference for that? And so what anyway? Hawking radiation claims date back forty years without any proof. And read this paper - the graviton has been going for nearly seventy years without any proof.

Should be embrace Rossi just in case he turns out to be another Columbus Joiner?

No. Don't embrace Rossi. But don't dismiss cold fusion either.

 

[attaboy]

Nope, he did not use a still water bath and did not allow anyone to measure his power use. His method of steam generation is not standard calorimetry.

Oh! - - Are you back on that again kick again, David. You just don't get it, do you?

 

[Kid Eager]

Oh! - - Are you back on that again kick again, David. You just don't get it, do you?

What, the absence of experimental controls, or the evidence of the demo not matching the claim?

Sounds like extremely good grounds for not accepting a claim.

 

[phunk]

Got a reference for that? And so what anyway? Hawking radiation claims date back forty years without any proof. And read this paper - the graviton has been going for nearly seventy years without any proof.

No. Don't embrace Rossi. But don't dismiss cold fusion either.

How many people are trying to scam investors out of money with technology based on hawking radiation or gravitons?

 

[catsmate]

Oh! - - Are you back on that again kick again, David. You just don't get it, do you?

No I suspect he "gets it" quite well, alas Rossi and his cheerleaders don't have anything to give......

What, the absence of experimental controls, or the evidence of the demo not matching the claim?

Sounds like extremely good grounds for not accepting a claim.

For rational people, yes.

Got a reference for that?

Paneth and Peters, back in the twenties, covered in this thread if you bothered to look.

And so what anyway? Hawking radiation claims date back forty years without any proof. And read this paper - the graviton has been going for nearly seventy years without any proof.

Is this supposed to be relevant to cold fusion claims in any way? Rossi et al are making a claim of a physical effect, and attempting to obtain money on the strength of these claims; however they're signally failing to demonstrate their purported effect actually exists.
No-one has managed to consistently demonstrate room temperature fusion in an independently monitored experiment.

No. Don't embrace Rossi. But don't dismiss cold fusion either.

I suspect you don't understand the reference.
However cold fusion enthusiasts, despite many years (and quite a lot of money in the past) have failed to show that there is anything happening.

How many people are trying to scam investors out of money with technology based on hawking radiation or gravitons?

Well there have been a number of gravity based perpetual motion scams in the past.

 

[Farsight]

How many people are trying to scam investors out of money with technology based on hawking radiation or gravitons?

None. There's no technology involved, and no investors. But people believe in these things even though there's been no evidence for decades. And some people keep on getting their grants. Paid for by the public. The public aren't paying Rossi.

Paneth and Peters, back in the twenties, covered in this thread if you bothered to look.

OK noted. It's a big thread.

Is this supposed to be relevant to cold fusion claims in any way?

Yes. You used the "no proof in decades" argument. One could use this argument against a lot of things in physics. Some of which are accepted as a given.

Rossi et al are making a claim of a physical effect, and attempting to obtain money on the strength of these claims; however they're signally failing to demonstrate their purported effect actually exists.

I'm not defending Rossi.

No-one has managed to consistently demonstrate room temperature fusion in an independently monitored experiment.

And nobody has shown you a free quark either.

I suspect you don't understand the reference.
However cold fusion enthusiasts, despite many years (and quite a lot of money in the past) have failed to show that there is anything happening.

There isn't much happening in the LHC either. That was ten billion. ITER is sixteen billion and rising. Fusion is something that might be of save-the-planet importance, so if the US Navy and others want to try and make it happen on a benchtop that's fine by me. It ought to be fine with you too.

 

[dafydd]

How many people are trying to scam investors out of money with technology based on hawking radiation or gravitons?

There is a tachyon scam.

http://www.luisprada.com/Protected/tachyon_energy.htm

http://www.tachyonau.com/page8.php?view=W03&IDpartner=mirtech