At 11:58 AM 8/3/2011, Charles Hope wrote:
At 11:58 AM 8/3/2011, you wrote:
Consider how futile it should be to make a prediction six months
out, as Rossi did regarding October, if reliability was still being
addressed the entire time. That does not smell right. One can only
predict confidently about well controlled processes. Why arbitrarily
box oneself in like that?
It's just one more example of how Rossi's behavior doesn't make
sense, if we assume him to be rational. However, human beings are
often not rational. Some will, for example, boast of what they
haven't actually got in hand, believing that they *will* have it in hand.
This is the picture as it has developed, with some extrapolations by
me. Aspects of this could be completely wrong.
Focardi is aging, and wanted a public demonstration.
Rossi wasn't ready, but wanted to please Focardi.
So he held a demo. The demo was of a device that wasn't working
really reliably, and the demonstration method left a great deal to be
desired. Criticism started to appear.
Bottom line, though, Rossi wasn't ready. He had, or at least believed
he had, occasional results that were large. Was he fooling himself? I
don't know. I do know that the assumption of full vaporization was
seductive, and could be very wrong.
Rossi was divided. Part of him wished he'd never done a demo. The
demo tipped off competition and fired it up. It also drew a great
deal of attention to his checkered past. But he did respond to
requests for more demonstrations, but he needed to cover up the
problems. He'd managed to create an *impression* of a lot of heat,
and he absolutely wasn't interested in negating that. So he dismissed
all criticisms with his standard refrain, "I'll be ready in October."
October seemed, then, so far away. Surely he could solve the problems by then!
And he manipulated the demos to make them more impressive.
He was trapped by his secrecy and by his ego. He could have simply
said, "no comment." He could have stopped all demos after the first.
Or he could have allowed a conclusive demo. However, a conclusive
demo risks the E-cat involved being a dud.
And Rossi, again, has mixed motives.
