Focus Fusion?

[Myriad]

You expect the laws of physics to be repealed?

"Technically over unity yield," in the context of fusion R&D, refers to energy released via fusion that exceeds the energy input required to fire the reactor. It's not "over unity" in the usual free energy sense.

It's only "technically" over unity (or "technical break-even") until the useful energy (e.g. electricity) coming out of the reactor exceeds the useful energy input required to operate it. At that point you have "real" break-even.

("Economic break-even" is a yet higher bar still. Even though the fuel for fusion is ample, fusion power plants would still have to be financed, maintained, operated, secured, and eventually replaced just like any other kind.)

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

You expect the laws of physics to be repealed?

That seems a rather odd thing to say to what you quoted. What laws do you think would need to be repealed?

ETA: Hopefully Myriad has explained your confusion?

 

[Eric L]

more detailed way to get info on Focus Fusion

More detailed route to information on Focus Fusion: go the LPPFusion.com website. Go to “about”. For an introduction watch Oxford University presentation or read an older presentation’s illustrated transcript. For more detailed information, go to the “news” section. Or click the top tab “fusion”. Or read peer-reviewed published papers, linked at bottom of “about section”.

Craig B seems to think it is OK to accuse us of crimes--scams-- because he does not like the writing style of our Indiegogo campaign. It is not.

Just a note on the unfounded comparisons of our work and Rossi’s: Rossi has published nothing in peer-reviewed journals, we have published a lot. Rossi’s device requires new laws of physics to work, ours is based on physics laws discovered and abundantly confirmed during the period 1800-1940. No one except Rossi and his team have worked on the type of machine he used. The dense plasma focus device we are working with has been studied by hundreds of researchers with thousands of papers published.

 

[Craig B]

Craig B seems to think it is OK to accuse us of crimes--scams-- because he does not like the writing style of our Indiegogo campaign. It is not.

No I don't. I say that this looks like a scam.

Scientific Immortality! Your name acknowledged as a funder in the scientific papers announcing our breakthroughs, including achieving net energy. Where else can you get immortality this cheap? You'll also receive: -Your Name on a Plaque -Your Name Added in the Monthly Reports -Video Tour of the Lab -emPOWERtheWORLD T-Shirt -Limited Edition emPOWERtheWORLD Poster -Personalized Plasma Portrait -emPOWERtheWORLD Sticker -Personal Shout Out -LPP Reports​

You're saying it's not a scam. Very well. My advice to you is to change the tone of such fundraising appeals so that people won't think it is one. Whether I "like" the style of that funding appeal (in fact I don't) is neither here nor there.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

No I don't. I say that this looks like a scam.

You called them crooks. Why?

 

[Eric L]

What Craig B actually wrote

A bunch of crooks.

This is what you wrote. Not "looks likes a scam." Your only"proof" was your racist jibes at Kazakhstan.

 

[ben m]

“a reputation for wrongness.” Hard to find the physics in this argument either. Where are your examples of physics errors, Ben m?

Surely it is no surprise to you that "The Big Bang Never Happened" has a reputation for wrongness? And that most physicists disagree with it? I figured the existence of such a disagreement almost went without saying. (We've had plenty of plasma-cosmology enthusiasts on these boards over the years, although it has been a while IIRC since BBNH came up.) Anyway, the details don't belong on this thread.

If you were a physicist, especially a plasma physicist, as you anonymously pretend on the internet to be,

That's an odd way to a reply to a post where I explicitly say that I am not a plasma physicist.

you would not need someone to “walk you through” our publications, videos and presentations. You would be able, like any other physicist, to read them and judge the theoretical derivations and experimental results for yourself. And if you can’t judge them for yourself, how in the world do you dare accuse us of being scammers? Seems like the height of irresponsibility to me.

You seem to miss an important point---and the fact that you miss it makes you look more, not less, like a crackpot. Fusion plasma physics is a very very specialized domain of knowledge. Imagine walking into the office of (say) an accretion disk MHD expert, or a NIF inertial confinement expert, or nuclear weaponse expert: asked them to predict whether an ideal spheromak should have better confinement than an ideal tokamak---that's a matter of years of study to catch up on the details. "Like any other physicist" I could have chosen to make a career out of study of these particular details, but I didn't. I am a physicist, with considerable plasma experience in several domains, but I am far from being a fusion plasma physicist.

So: why are you so concerned, or concerned at all, with getting me or people like me, to "judge the theoretical derivations" for myself? I would think that if the derivations are in fact correct, then ... well, take that to the actual experts, convince those experts, and let them sell me on the idea. I believe in (say) the existence of the Higgs boson, the truth of Fermat's Last Theorem, and the helioseismological evidence for the Standard Solar Model, etc., because experts I know and trust have gone through the evidence and checked for errors in a way I cannot.

Maybe---I'm not saying this is known, but it has happened in a million other cases---maybe the trustworthy-experts have (in fact) applied their detailed knowledge to your work, and think you're wrong? In which case you decided to pitch directly to less-expert audiences, like me or (worse) Kickstarter? I repeat: it's happened before. I am open to being convinced. In fact, I told you exactly what sort of evidence and argument I would take most seriously: arguments made my financially-disinterested experts whose science/engineering reputation is more mainstream than crackpotty.

 

[ben m]

"Technically over unity yield," in the context of fusion R&D, refers to energy released via fusion that exceeds the energy input required to fire the reactor. It's not "over unity" in the usual free energy sense.

There's also the "over unity yield if you ignore all the losses" definition that NIF ginned up to try to get an interesting press release out of their final ignition campaign shots.

 

[Eric L]

want to retract, Ben m?

So, Ben m, you don’t understand the physics evidence and arguments in our papers, yet you are willing to say on the Internet that we are scammers and crooks? Or would you like to retract that accusation, since you have now admitted you don’t know what you are talking about?

 

[Craig B]

This is what you wrote. Not "looks likes a scam." Your only"proof" was your racist jibes at Kazakhstan.

What "racist jibes at Kazhakstan"? In fact as recently as 7 January this year - in an entirely separate context - I posted some comments on Kazhakstan and its people. Here is what I wrote.

 

[Craig B]

Or does your "proof " consist of saying over and over ”this is just a scam, scam, scam?” Lots of physics in that argument, right? Oh yeah, I forgot, you guys also make racist remarks about Kazakhstan—another great physics argument.

What guys? What racist remarks?

 

[ben m]

So, Ben m, you don’t understand the physics evidence and arguments in our papers, yet you are willing to say on the Internet that we are scammers and crooks? Or would you like to retract that accusation, since you have now admitted you don’t know what you are talking about?

Wow, you're going 100% black-and-white on this for some reason. You think there are two categories of people:

a) People with enough fusion machine experience to do front-to-back independent analysis of fusor designs and scaling laws, rigorously enough to catch other peoples' mistakes.

b) People who should just shut up and believe you.

Do you pitch your Kickstarter campaigns at category (a) or (b)?

 

[Craig B]

Wow, you're going 100% black-and-white on this for some reason. You think there are two categories of people:

a) People with enough fusion machine experience to do front-to-back independent analysis of fusor designs and scaling laws, rigorously enough to catch other peoples' mistakes.

b) People who should just shut up and believe you.

Do you pitch your Kickstarter campaigns at category (a) or (b)?

No, there's a third category (c): people who should believe, but not shut up. They should spread the word as loud as they can.

There must be at least fifty ways to further fusion. Here are 30+:

Realize you have a role to play in the pursuit of fusion, and that it’s important! Scientists do the science and run the experiments which may liberate fusion energy. Other human beings (That’s us!) fund, fundraise, support, network, promote, advocate, question, provide insights, translate, explain, validate, celebrate, inspire and enjoy this work, letting the scientists focus on their job. It’s up to us to create an environment that supports the research process (with its ups and downs). It’s up to us to create a pro-fusion culture.​

http://lppfusion.com/get-involved/

See also http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/353/

 

[Eric L]

Read the post—I’m not talking about other people. I’m talking just about you, Ben m and Craig B. I don’t give a hoot in a holler whether you believe fusion energy can work or how. I’m only concerned that you called us criminals with what you admit is absolutely no evidence. So my question is only to you, not to other people: you want to retract your accusation? Or just continue to be anonymous Internet trolls who can say anything they like because no one knows who they are?

 

[Craig B]

Read the post—

Which post?

 

[Eric L]

So, Ben m, you don’t understand the physics evidence and arguments in our papers, yet you are willing to say on the Internet that we are scammers and crooks? Or would you like to retract that accusation, since you have now admitted you don’t know what you are talking about?

This post--it applies to you, too, Craig B

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Which post?

You called him a crook in post 18. I already asked you why. Why are you dodging now?

 

[BenBurch]

You expect the laws of physics to be repealed?

No, more energy produced by fusion than put into the making and heating and containing of the plasma.

 

[ben m]

So, Ben m, you don’t understand the physics evidence and arguments in our papers, yet you are willing to say on the Internet that we are scammers and crooks? Or would you like to retract that accusation, since you have now admitted you don’t know what you are talking about?

Also: I didn't call you a scammer or a crook.

a) On the first page of this thread I looked at your papers and found what appear to be overblown and misleading-referenced claims. (Any comment, by the way? On actual physics issues?) I also point out that you are best known as an astrophysics crackpot, and that this might be relevant to an assessment of your competence as a plasma physicist. I did not call you a scammer or a crook or any synonym thereof.

b) On the second page of this thread, you showed up and claimed that a mention in a Nature editorial should immunize you from any accusation of being a "crackpot scam". I disagree with that claim of immunity. My disagreement there the only place that I post the word "scam"; that word is only there because I'm quoting/echoing your words. I did not call you a scammer or a crook or any synonym thereof.

c) I did call you a crackpot, but that's different.

 

[JeanTate]

Jean Tate, I appreciate your effort to raise the level of debate here.

Thanks.

What I am responding to is accusations by various people on this list that LPPFusion is a scam, taking investors money fraudulently. That’s a crime, not a scientific error.

OK.

But that's not all the only thing various ISF members have been saying, here. And it seems to me that that's not the only thing you have been writing about, in your posts here.

Also, as ben_m (among others) has pointed out, you seem to be very black-and-white about this. Even if your critics are, for you to write so much that seems like the logical fallacy of 'false dichotomy' is yet another example of digging the hole you're in deeper.

And yes, when people are accused of a crime, it is up to the accusers to prove it—at least here in the US that’s the case.

Maybe so.

But also, in the US, there is extraordinary latitude given to 'freedom of expression'.

In any case, aren't you missing the bigger, and much more important, picture? Don't you want what you write here to present the Focus Fusion in the best possible light, for this particular audience?

Why do I, who am in no awe of authority, raise an authority like Nature? Because, again, I am responding to an accusation not of a scientific error, but fraud. And yes, Nature owes its large prestige in part to the fact that they don’t fall for frauds. I think one would have to go back many decades to find a fraud they publicized as genuine science.

And this is an almost textbook-perfect example of why you should stop digging!

Here in ISF, words like "one would have to go back many decades to find a fraud they publicized as genuine science" gets the intense interest of many a member! Did you actually research your answer before posting it? Did you consider what damage to your reputation (for honesty, veracity, etc) would be done if your "I think" turned out to be wrong?

As indeed happened:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_(journal)#Controversies

And these were peer reviewed papers, not an editorial.

Peer review is the minimum hurdle new science has to clear to start being taken seriously; there are plenty more hurdles after that.

More detailed route to information on Focus Fusion: go the LPPFusion.com website. Go to “about”.

OK, did that.

For an introduction watch Oxford University presentation or read an older presentation’s illustrated transcript. For more detailed information, go to the “news” section. Or click the top tab “fusion”. Or read peer-reviewed published papers, linked at bottom of “about section”.

It gets confusing here ... the navigation isn't as clear as you state, but you can persevere, and find links to some papers. Some of them seem to be behind paywalls; short of getting institutional access (or paying $$), how can one verify that the 'unofficial preprint' matches the peer-reviewed paper?

Here's another: under the Fusion -> Peer Reviews page, there just one cited paper ... behind a paywall! And no link to any 'unofficial preprint', or 'email us for a copy' either.

.... there's quite a bit more about you digging yourself even deeper into a hole, but that's enough for now.

EricL, you come across is being super-intelligent, and really knowing your stuff re plasma physics. Myself, I think this has led you to be blind to the collective wisdom of people who know their stuff re sales, marketing, advertising, brand-awareness, etc, etc, etc.

An example of how ignoring this collective wisdom just shoots yourself in the foot, so to speak: on the home page of LPPFusion is a panel with five images+text; one can move from one to the other by clicking on the arrows. One of the five is entitled "New Evidence that the Universe is NOT Expanding". Yes, you seem quite passionate about this; but no, it has NO direct bearing on your Focus Fusion project.

Including this in your project website will surely lead many a visitor, with sufficient knowledge of astronomy and cosmology, to conclude that you are a crackpot ... and that your Focus Fusion project is equally cranky. And if they bothered to click through the various links, they'd read this, from the abstract of your paper:

We do not claim that the consistency of the adopted model with SB data is sufficient by itself to confirm what would be a radical transformation in our understanding of the cosmos. However, we believe this result is more than sufficient reason to examine this combination of hypotheses further.

Rather more nuanced than "the Universe is NOT Expanding", wouldn't you say?