On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 8:52 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote:
> Joshua Cude wrote: > > What I know doesn't matter, but it is very clear that most people who know >> as much about tritium as your stars, don't believe the measurements, or at >> least don't believe they come from cold fusion. >> > > That is incorrect. There is no published papers from experts in tritium > pointing out errors, or even expressing doubt (except Clarke). > The second sentence does not support the first. Scientists don't waste time publishing papers to point out errors or express doubt in a phenomenon only a fringe group takes seriously. Once they are satisfied there is nothing to see, they move on. They would have no time for anything else if they had to find errors in every latest fringe experiment, that looks pretty much like all the other fringe experiments. > > Perhaps if you find some expert in tritium, stop him in the hallway and ask > "is the tritium from cold fusion real?" he might say "no." That does not > count. > Well, it is the nature of scientists to keep up with things that might be interesting in their field, and seize upon new and unusual results that might lead to breakthroughs, or at least progress. The most famous and respected scientists are those who do this. Einstein's revolutionary paper on relativity was not ignored; it was read, referenced, extended, and praised. Likewise all the revolutionary ideas in quantum mechanics. Cold fusion would be a revolution on that scale, and I can't believe scientists would ignore the possibility of fame and glory and eternal legacy if they felt there was something to it. In fact, the mad rush to replicate P&F in 1989 proves scientists are hungry for new breakthroughs like cold fusion represents. Maybe not all of the experts now are intimately familiar with all the CF data, but I'm confident that enough of them know enough about it to reject it with authority. > > The same is true of the calorimetry and chemistry. Apart from people like > Huizenga, Close and half of the anonymous DoE review board, every signed, > published review by experts who have looked closely and actually read the > literature agrees with Gerisher: "In spite of my earlier conclusion, -- and > that of the majority of scientists, -- that the phenomena reported by > Fleischmann and Pons in 1989 depended either on measurement errors or were > of chemical origin, there is now undoubtedly overwhelming indications that > nuclear processes take place in the metal alloys." > Not true. Close to half the DOE panel said there was suggestive or compelling evidence for excess heat, but 17 of 18 said evidence for nuclear processes was not conclusive. Again, if the report from that panel was as kind to cold fusion as some of you like to think, it is impossible to believe it would not persuade other scientists to get involved, to get their slice of the fame when it becomes accepted, to say nothing of the panel members themselves. For panel members, it would be almost scientifically criminal to be convinced of nuclear effects and not drop everything to work in the field, let alone recommend special funding for the field, which not a single one did. Not even the French judge who said he was convinced of a nuclear effect. The thing is, if definitive data came along, it would take an expert little more than a glance to recognize it. When the data remains marginal (as you put it in your essay on toast) for so long, when it takes so much study and argument to see an effect that is monumental -- nuclear reactions on a table producing macroscopic heat -- it fits better with pathological science. > > The experts say the evidence is "undoubtedly overwhelming." Some do. Others (like you) admit it is marginal (or at least it was in 2001). And most others say it is absent. > You say it is noise and error but as far as anyone knows you have not > published any papers or pointed out any actual errors, so I do not think you > have any credibility. > > The world has moved past pointing out errors in cold fusion until some new results come along. If the effect were real, it would not stall at the marginal level. The world is saying, I may not be able to explain all the details of all the cold fusion experiments, and I don't have the time or inclination to try, but if what you say is happening is happening, how come you can't set up an isolated device palpably warmer than its surroundings for long enough to unequivocally exceed the heat output (or better 10 or 100 times the heat output) of an equivalent weight in chemical fuel? It's got a million times the energy density, and heat has already been claimed, what's holding it back?
