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Focus Fusion?

BenBurch said:
We shall see. There would have been no reason to go ahead and buy the Be if they had intended a scam. They could have simply found an "error" in their equations and declare a hiatus to go off and research that.
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They want to keep it going. Notice how long it will take to machine this Be - from Kazhakstan! - and meanwhile they're collecting money to make videos. This is a SCAM.

For an earlier "fusion" scam, see the immensely long thread started here several years ago on the "cold fusion" device called an "energy catalyser" created by an Italian swindler Andrea Rossi. He kept that one going for several years. It generated heat by transmuting nickel to copper - or so he claimed.
 
Craig B said:
They want to keep it going. Notice how long it will take to machine this Be - from Kazhakstan! - and meanwhile they're collecting money to make videos. This is a SCAM.

For an earlier "fusion" scam, see the immensely long thread started here several years ago on the "cold fusion" device called an "energy catalyser" created by an Italian swindler Andrea Rossi. He kept that one going for several years. It generated heat by transmuting nickel to copper - or so he claimed.
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Machining Be is difficult; http://americanmachinist.com/machining-cutting/understanding-beryllium
 
BenBurch said:
Machining Be is difficult; http://americanmachinist.com/machining-cutting/understanding-beryllium
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Let me repeat the passage I cited from the newsletter you linked.
The cylinders, weighing together 35 kg, are to be machined over the next five months into two anodes and a cathode for experiments in the second half of 2016. They were fabricated from 97.8% pure beryllium at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Kazakhstan ... The purchase of the beryllium was made possible by money that LPPFusion raised in an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in 2014. However, Focus Fusion still needs contributions. The Focus Fusion Society, in cooperation with LPPFusion, Inc. is making a set of new videos explaining the physics behind Focus Fusion. Everyone can help fund these videos (and be credited in them if you donate $75 or more) with a tax-deductible donation to Focus Fusion Society. Please do it here.​
I imagine making videos "credited to people donating $75 or more" is less technically demanding than machining Be from Kazakhstan. Probably more lucrative too.
 
I see the machining of the Be being an excellent excuse for lack of progress. Roll forward a few months, and expect to see something like:

"O noes! The machining of the Be has gone wrong and we have {casting flaws and/or known machining issue with Be} in the anodes and they couldn't possibly work now. Please send more money so that we can redo this step."
 
Kid Eager said:
I see the machining of the Be being an excellent excuse for lack of progress. Roll forward a few months, and expect to see something like:

"O noes! The machining of the Be has gone wrong and we have {casting flaws and/or known machining issue with Be} in the anodes and they couldn't possibly work now. Please send more money so that we can redo this step."
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Well, they contracted it out to a reliable shop. Not many places can do this sort of work. Inhale Be dust and you're **********.
 
BenBurch said:
Well, they contracted it out to a reliable shop. Not many places can do this sort of work. Inhale Be dust and you're **********.
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I was going to mention this the other day. If they actually machined some Be or contracted out for it, that's probably a hefty chuck of change. No dog in this fight just an observation ...
 
BenBurch said:
Well, they contracted it out to a reliable shop. Not many places can do this sort of work. Inhale Be dust and you're **********.
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Did they though? Or are they just saying they did?

On a completely unrelated note, I have a method of proudicing lead from pencils, gold from lead and platinum from gold. All I need is for you to fund my videos about my machine which is going to be made in a factory in Taiwan. Honest.
 
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Hungry81 said:
Did they though? Or are they just saying they did?

On a completely unrelated note, I have a method of proudicing lead from pencils, gold from lead and platinum from gold. All I need is for you to fund my videos about my machine which is going to be made in a factory in Taiwan. Honest.
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Taiwan? Try Kazakhstan, of all places. That's where the Be was cast, we're told. Now, where is the machining going to take place? Have we been informed? Kyrgyzstan? Tajikistan? Turkmenistan? Uzbekistan? I think we should be told.
 
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Why would Nature editors be fooled by a scam

If this were a crackpot scam, why would Nature magazine (Fusion Furore, 23 July 2014) have cited us as one of two independent fusion efforts worth funding? Why would our results not only be published in Physics of Plasmas, the leading peer-reviewed journal in our field, but be the journals’ most-read article in 2012? You really think physicists have time to waste on scams? Of course, maybe you guys know a lot more science than the editors of Nature or the readers of Physics of Plasmas.
 
Eric L said:
If this were a crackpot scam, why would Nature magazine (Fusion Furore, 23 July 2014) have cited us as one of two independent fusion efforts worth funding? Why would our results not only be published in Physics of Plasmas, the leading peer-reviewed journal in our field, but be the journals’ most-read article in 2012? You really think physicists have time to waste on scams? Of course, maybe you guys know a lot more science than the editors of Nature or the readers of Physics of Plasmas.
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Here's a hint. Many of the people here ARE scientists and experts in various fields, some of which have to do with exactly what is being claimed. Rather than acting like an angry child, how about discussing it with them and convincing them this isn't like every... single... scam that came before it claiming the same thing?


Or you can just continue as you are and that'll REALLY convince them.
 
Eric L said:
If this were a crackpot scam, why would Nature magazine (Fusion Furore, 23 July 2014) have cited us as one of two independent fusion efforts worth funding?
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It's an anonymously-authored policy editorial, focused on the the cost and project management of ITER. It includes the sentence "And among the small fusion start-up companies worth considering for a federal small-business grant is ..." which mentions LPP. Do you take that as a big endorsement? Are you suggesting that behind the scenes at Nature, someone has done a quiet merit review of alternative-plasma-physics work, and ranks LPP highly in that review? As opposed to: this news/policy editorial was written, not by their nonexistent plasma-physics staff, by their actually-existing news and policy staff? One of whom Googled around for fusion startups, and chose the well-publicized one that came up first?

Why would our results not only be published in Physics of Plasmas, the leading peer-reviewed journal in our field, but be the journals’ most-read article in 2012?
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On the first point: Bad articles pass peer review all the time. That's old news here, my friend.

Second point: Easy: Because most of the content of "Physics of Plasmas" is detailed technical articles, only discussed among a small community of specialists, whereas Lawrenceville Plasma Physics is in the crowdfunding and press-release business. Tell me: how many other 2012 PoP articles do you think were ever mentioned in press releases?

You really think physicists have time to waste on scams?
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Funny you should ask! On this bulletin board we are experts on watching physicists (or people calling themselves physicists) waste their time on crackpottery, scams, and every possible half-crackpot-half-scam in between. "Plasma cosmology", perhaps you've heard of it, is (on the crackpot end) one of the time-wastingest examples of all time, and nowadays indeed involves people trying to crowdfund the construction of plasma experiments.
 
Even if I had an idea or business concept, i would be afraid to get kickstart money for fear the tax people come after me after it fails.
 
testing hypoteheses--1

One of whom Googled around for fusion startups, and chose the well-publicized one that came up first?
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Hmm… Interesting hypothesis. Let’s test it—what comes up first when you Google fusion start ups? LPPF? (I wish!) No, it’s the fusion companies that have been funded by billionaires. Scratch that hypothesis.

Different hypothesis: Maybe, Nature employs people who, unlike you guys, have actual physics knowledge, who dig around, interview lots of fusion scientists, read scientific papers (and actually can understand them) and draw conclusions as to what projects are worth using as examples.
 
testing hypotheses-2

Second point: Easy: Because most of the content of "Physics of Plasmas" is detailed technical articles, only discussed among a small community of specialists, whereas Lawrenceville Plasma Physics is in the crowdfunding and press-release business. Tell me: how many other 2012 PoP articles do you think were ever mentioned in press releases?
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Hmm… another interesting hypothesis: LPPF press releases generate reams of press coverage (I wish!) which lead thousands of physicists to download our paper, even though they have no interest in the paper. Let’s test it. How many mass media actually covered our little press release in 2012? Oh, too bad--none. Scratch that hypothesis.

Alternative hypothesis. Physicists were pretty excited about our results—so they downloaded the paper to judge it for themselves.

Sure, none of this proves that we'll get net fusion energy. Only experiments will prove that. But a scam is something backed by no real science. Neither Nature nor hundreds of my plasma physicist colleagues will waste time on something that is backed by no science.

You “experts”, (who have, I would guess, not published a single plasma physics paper among you)—can’t give a single physics argument to prove what we are saying is impossible (and thus a scam). So you just name-call and label something that you don’t understand a scam. In the process, you mislead people who might be interested in actually learning something. They can do that from our website--which explains the physics in some detail. But learning something takes a bit more effort than name-calling.
 
Eric L said:
Hmm… Interesting hypothesis. Let’s test it—what comes up first when you Google fusion start ups? LPPF? (I wish!) No, it’s the fusion companies that have been funded by billionaires. Scratch that hypothesis.

Different hypothesis: Maybe, Nature employs people who, unlike you guys, have actual physics knowledge, who dig around, interview lots of fusion scientists, read scientific papers (and actually can understand them) and draw conclusions as to what projects are worth using as examples.
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Re your "different hypothesis": how would you suggest an interested ISF member test this hypothesis?

Also, it's easy to generate lots more hypotheses, most of them equally untestable (or not easily testable).

Here's one: you have a close personal relationship to/with one of the key people in Nature's news and policy team, and you, um, leveraged that relationship to obtain the mention. How would you suggest an ordinary ISF member could test that hypothesis?
 
On an expedition to the focus fusion experiments, we transited the Taurus Mountains where thousands of mustangs were at the edge of the ford attempting to escape the raptors that were just doing their super duty before the fiesta.
 
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