At 09:50 PM 10/29/2009, you wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
So ... I don't expect it, but suppose I figure out how to get
serious excess heat, my cat pees in the tube and, damn, it works,
and I can reproduce it with some uric acid or whatever, sheer luck.
I shouldn't publish? But, sure, publication of sloppy work that
makes big claims, that's lousy.
That is unlikely. I have seen photos of cathodes with cat hairs
galvanized onto them, but they did not work.
Too late. The cat already peed in the cell. It better work!
Historical note: coal saturated in cat piss was used in the mid 17th
century to demonstrate the first non-polluting furnaces with
afterburners, a clever and reliable technique. The cats probably did
not like being shut in the coal locker . . .
Told you!
On the other hand, what that makes me think of is the amateurs at
Caltech and MIT in 1989, eh? What made them think they could do
accurate calorimetry and get this miserable solid palladium
electrolytic mess to work?
These two were completely different. At MIT they were somewhat
amateur. They said later the experiment was very difficult and the
results meaningless. Many people agree. They should have retracted
on that basis alone, never mind the fact that they diddled with the data.
Other people just don't behave, do they?
Lewis, at Caltech, is an accomplished electrochemist. As you see in
the NSF proceedings, he knew a great deal about the subject. He was
quite capable. He did the experiment correctly and confirmed
Fleischmann and Pons. His only problem was that he misinterpreted
the results. He used the wrong equations. I find this inexplicable.
Even if he honestly believed the calibration constant was
inconstant, that can only mean the instruments malfunctioned and the
experiment should have been done over again. I doubt he thinks that
all calorimeters of this design are inherently unreliable. (Or maybe
he does -- who knows?!?) Anyway, there is tons of data going back to
the mid-19th century showing that this type of calorimeter is reliable.
My point: "professional scientists" screwed up. Anyone can make
mistakes, Jed. Some amateurs might make fewer than some
professionals. As an amateur, I delivered thirty babies, didn't lose
any. Doesn't prove much, I'm sure, but the people I helped train
didn't lose any, either. Some of them became professionals.
