At 02:50 PM 12/15/2009, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
On 12/15/2009 02:04 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
I'm not going to reject Steorn just because it flies in the face of
solidly established theory, and it certainly does that far more than
cold fusion -- which really just contradicted a poverty of imagination,
not actual conservation of mass/energy or momentum -- but that doesn't
mean that I'll dump these theories because of the publicity-generating
behavior of some seemingly slick characters.
CF violates numerous RULES OF THUMB regarding circumstances in which
fusion could be expected to occur; some people have confused those
rules with laws of physics. CF claims violate no actual laws of physics.
In order to determine this fully, one would have to have access to a
mechanism. Some mechanisms could be said to violate the known laws of
physics, perhaps, but the actual experimental result does not, in
itself. One of the errors was, indeed, in assuming "fusion." That was
merely one proposed mechanism. With hindsight and much later
experimental result, we can say rather definitively that the *result*
is probably fusion, but that fusion, the kind understood and expected
to display specific signatures, isn't the mechanism.
It's highly likely that it's deuterium into this Cold Fusion Black
Box, and helium out, because of the experimental Q factor, 25+/-5
MeV/He4, per Storms, which is quite a decent match for the
theoretical 23.8 MeV for deuterium fusion. As long as the fuel is
deuterium and the ash is helium (at least preponderantly), that would
be the Q factor. What's in the Black Box, we have only competing
theories, at this time.
Steorn's claims, on the other hand, flatly violate physical law as
currently understood in the context of electromagnetic theory.
Yes. And they are quite open about that, it's part of their
publicity. Quite clever, actually, advertising judo. Use it.
When a poorly supported claim, for which no clear evidence and no
independent verification exists, seems to disprove conclusions which
are based, quite literally, on centuries of experimental evidence,
well... let's just say that, based on prior experience, the odds in
favor of it being "for real" are not large.
Tiny indeed. The error of the general science community in 1989 was
in ignoring the support and simply assuming error, as well as in
assuming that the results had been conclusively refuted when, in
fact, that never happened in general, it only happened with certain
results and errors.
The correct comparison here might actually be to compare Steorn with
one (hypothetical) researcher who claims that all of the positive CF
results can be explained away by the results of one experiment he's
done, and the theory he constructed based on it. Would you believe
him, or would you continue to believe the results obtained by the
other scientists?
Ah. Kirk Shanahan. You are so transparent, Jed.... :-)
Okay, maybe it wasn't Kirk, did he do any experiments at all?
Personally, "belief" is a Bad Word when it comes to science. I trust
experimental results as what they are, reports. Actual fabrications
are rare, and, indeed, are so reprehensible precisely because they
are properly trusted. I look for theories that confirm *all* the
results, if possible. It's rarely completely possible, but it should
be the goal.
Eventually, as a recent study of CF experiments, including the
"negative replications," the conditions for CF came to be better
understood and all those negative replications can now be understood
as controls. If you don't show concern about the loading ratio being
above, what, 80-90%?, you are likely to fail to find heat. What did
Lewis have? What did MIT have as loading ratio? Do I remember 70% correctly?
In the case of Steorn, one company is claiming that all physicists
for the past century or so have been befuddled over the way magnets
work; only the folks at Steorn really understand it, and we should
believe them (and send money), even though they have no conclusive
proof of their claims, and have in fact published no coherent theory
explaining what their claims really are.
Is this really a no-brainer? It looks like it to me.
Yeah, my thoughts. But fascinating all the same. The sheer chutzpah of it.
They aren't soliciting funds from the general public, if I'm correct.
Just from more sophisticated suckers who should know better. There is
some level of justice in that, perhaps....
Look, I'd love to be wrong, I'd love it for there to be a way to get
free energy. I'd like the same for free money, free food, free rent,
free sex ... never mind. None of it is ever reliably free.
It impressed me that the Arata gas-loading method, roughly
extrapolated to a home cold fusion hot water heater, could supply me
with hot water, with a mere investment of $100,000 worth of
palladium, for ... how long again? Sure, the palladium could be
re-used. At what cost to "refurbish" it?
It is quite conceivable that someone will figure out how to generate
enough heat, or enough something, to make CF practical, but that has
*nothing* to do with the reality of the science. That's why Garwin's
cup of tea demand is so offensive. Nobody demands that cup of tea for
muon-catalyzed fusion, which isn't controversial at all. Just
impractical for power generation. Probably.
CF for power generation? You know the problem, Jed, very well.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been tossed at the problem
without finding the magic CF beans. What it's probably going to take
is a good theory that makes good predictions, then the real
engineering can start. Until then trying to amplify the effect and
make it, at the same time, safe and reliable, is way too dependent on
sheer luck. Bad bet. That's why I actually agree with that conclusion
of the DoE in 2004. If only the DoE had followed the recommendations!
Same as in 1989!
Instead, the report was viewed as a continued rejection, when, in
2004, it was *almost* the opposite.
The lack of recommendation for a major focused program, tossing
hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem, is actually sensible.
What's needed is something more modest, to explore the science. In my
view, it's still a better bet than hot fusion, and look at what is
tossed in that money sink? I think I know why cold fusion was
rejected: that rejection preserved the funding for the careers of
many particle or plasma physicists, CF was "disruptive." The recent
DIA report is accurate. It could be especially disruptive to
physicists, who won't get the bulk of the new research money, and yet
hot fusion research may suffer greatly. And if many hot fusion
physicists are out of a job, it will depress the market for all physicists.
Most scientists would never consciously react based on that, but the
pressure, I'm sure, had its effects. They were actually worried, back
in 1989, that maybe Fleischmann was right, and so, in the fashion of
human beings from time immemorial, when they found excuses to deny
the danger, they did. "Why, this incompetent fraud didn't even
recognize that his gamma ray spectrum was bogus." Gave them a perfect
excuse, eh? Never mind that he was among the world's foremost
electrochemists, and measuring excess heat was his expertise. All
worthless, to physicists, who generally don't know beans about the
technical problems of calorimetry, but they knew about neutrons.
Well, you know all this very well, Jed. I'm just reviewing it,
perhaps for others, at some time and some place.
