Posted on 12/21/2011 4:56:03 AM PST by Kevmo
Mass media exposure kills SPAWAR cold fusion research
Jed Rothwell Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:46:07 -0800
I am sorry to report that the authorities have finally closed down cold
fusion research at SAPWAR. After Frank Gordon left, the project was on life
support. Recent reports on Fox News and elsewhere mentioned it, bringing
about the inevitable coup de grace.
Like most cold fusion projects, this was a shoestring or "bootlegged"
operation. It was done by retired researchers such as Szpak, and others
working nights and weekends. The equipment was scavenged or bought by
private individuals. But, as we all know, people opposed to cold fusion
will not tolerate any project, even if it costs essentially nothing.
Academic freedom means nothing to them. It never occurs to them they might
be wrong, because -- Like Park and Yugo -- they have read nothing and they
know nothing. They make no distinction between cold fusion and a perpetual
motion machines or water memory. Any research they disagree with *must not
be allowed*, period.
Whenever cold fusion appears in the mass media I shudder, because I know it
will trigger a backlash. Cold fusion researchers keep a low profile for a
good reason. They know perfectly well that when some nitwit such as Krivit
reveals there may be a source of funding, or a project being organized,
that will trigger opposition. Robert Park will pull strings. Others will
organize letter-writing campaigns. Mary Yugo will publish unfounded
accusations of fraud and guilt by association. You can see the dynamic at
work in this article, where someone is trying to shut down NASA interest in
cold fusion:
"Why is NASA Langley Wasting Time on Cold Fusion Research?"
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2011/12/why-is-nasa-lan.html
The people in charge of the Navy and the DoE know nothing about cold
fusion, and they do not care about it. When they get letters from
scientists or members of the public saying "someone in your organization is
committing fraud" they do not ask questions. They close it down, whatever
it is. Their main concern is their public image with the taxpayers. The
last thing they need is to be accused of countenancing academic fraud or
crazy research.
This has been happening for 22 years. Given this environment, it is
surprising that cold fusion survived at all. Dozens of projects such as
this one and the one at MIT were crushed, mostly without ever being allowed
to publish anything, and without any knowledge by the public. I knew about
the MIT project described by Stolper because Gene Mallove was involved, and
he was reporting to me. I was helping to fund things like this. No one else
ever learned about it because it worked. Any time positive results are
achieved, the opposition will pull out the stops to have the researchers
fired or pushed into final retirement. That's how it works. That is why I
and others gave up even trying to establish projects at major institutions
years ago. We know how it will end. That is why I think there no hope of
funding Miley et al., and no point. Sure it would be important work. But it
is not worth getting some poor grad student in trouble, or ruining her
career prospects. The results will be bottled up, the grad student's
reputation torn to shreds by nitwits, and the mass media will report only
lies and distortions. Yeah, I may get another informal positive result I
can upload to LENR-CANR.org, but that is not worth destroying someone's
career. It won't change anything.
Fortunately, Rossi and Defkalion are privately funded and immune to
interference. Rossi is well aware of how academic politics work in the U.S.
That is one of the reasons he has not made much of an effort to work with
universities and national labs. Even if they get positive results, it will
be reported as a failure and fraud. That is what happened to the National
Cold Fusion Institute, and the Japanese NEDO project. When Miles
demonstrated heat at the NEDO over a few weeks, the scientifically
trained bureaucrats in charge, who were in the same building, *refused to
get up, walk down the hall, and look*. Talk about willful ignorance! Mary
Yugo has nothing on them. They were busy writing a report saying that no
positive results were achieved. They published that in Japanese soon after
Miles left and the project was shut down. Perhaps they hoped Miles would
not read it. Miles, being no fool, sent it to me, and I translated it. He
was pretty upset but not surprised. As someone remarked "the fix was in
from the start." It could not be more blatant. Their job was to lie, stick
the knife into the project, and prevent any other research. In his book,
Huizenga bragged that was his assignment, and he was proud of how well he
did it. The 2004 DoE review was also a charade. It was clear beforehand it
would be a joke, or parlor trick, not a serious review. That is why Storms
refused to participate, and why I told the participants beforehand, "beware
of what you wish for."
- Jed
LOL! Ditto!
Why don't Jed and all the other weepy cold fusion fan boys all contribute $5 via Paypal? If the research costs "almost nothing," then that should get it going again.
Why don't Jed and all the other weepy cold fusion fan boys all contribute $5 via Paypal? If the research costs "almost nothing," then that should get it going again.Rossi has supposedly sold over $20 million worth of E-Cats in the last couple of months just to one (secret) customer. Maybe he should toss a few bucks that way.
For that matter, since Rossi has reneged on his promise to pay the University of Bologna to test his device (for which he supposedly sold his house to pay), he could use some of that money as well.
I don’t know but something, I can’t name it, but something makes me think you’re not serious.
I think that’s a boffo idea!
It should if the anomaly is due to something more than bad experiments or fraud. It's over 20 years later and cold fusion is still, at best, an anomaly. It only took a year to figure out muon catalyzed cold fusion and that was over 50 years ago.
the Rossi fanboys have been strongly suggesting that SPAWAR was Rossi’s “secret customer”
***I don’t know how many times I need to remind pathoskeps (or better, skeptopaths) like yourself, I’m not a Rossi fan I’m a LENR fan. Your whole argument is based upon this “strongly suggesting” that others MAY have indulged in which means you’re arguing against something that even in its best light is obviously not proof, so it amounts to a straw argument.
It is incidents such as this that reveal how deep the bowlsheet goes with guys like you. You claim to support LENR but not Rossi, and when LENR gets a bad shake you jump all over it.
Why is it that almost none of you guys can put together more than 2 posts without classic logical fallacies being invoked? Did you never make it past high school critical thinking classes?
***I don’t know how many times I need to remind pathoskeps (or better, skeptopaths) like yourself, I’m not a Rossi fan I’m a LENR fan.You are both, which is unfortunate since your desperate support of LENR is blinding you to Rossi's obvious scam.
The fact remains that after 20 years, there still isn't any there there.
My support of LENR is not blinding me to the possibility that it is a scam. I have considered the possibility. I have looked at the angles, how Rossi could have done some magician’s trick to fool skeptics like Levi who went into it looking for exactly such tricks.
How to Prove that the Rossi/Focardi eCAT LENR is Real (or Fake)
LENR.QUMBO.com ^ | April 6, 2011 | Alan Fletcher
Posted on Sunday, June 05, 2011 7:52:15 PM by Kevmo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2730401/posts
It is blind skeptopaths such as yourself who will not look at the science behind these developments.
For instance, almost all of you seem to be slackjawed for a response to the fact that the Pons-Fleishmann effect has been replicated more than 14,700 times.
Jing-tang He
• Nuclear fusion inside condense matters
• Frontiers of Physics in China
Volume 2, Number 1, 96-102, DOI: 10.1007/s11467-007-0005-8
This article describes in detail the nuclear fusion inside condense matters—the Fleischmann-Pons effect, the reproducibility of cold fusions, self-consistency of cold fusions and the possible applications
http://www.boliven.com/publication/10.1007~s11467-007-0005-8?q=(%22David%20J.%20Nagel%22)
Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=when-scientists-sin
1. Jed Rothwell
11:52 AM 6/20/10
Shermer says that Goodstein concluded that cold fusion was most likely a case of scientists who “convince themselves that they are in the possession of knowledge that does not in fact exist.”
Cold fusion has been replicated in over 180 major laboratories, by roughly 1,500 professional scientists. These replications have been published in roughly 800 papers in mainstream, peer reviewed journals such as J. Electroanal. Chem. and Japanese J. of Applied Physcis. J. He of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates that the effect has been observed in roughly 14,000 experimental runs (Front. Phys. China (2007) 1: 96 102).
Many of the results were at low signal to noise ratio, but others were high, such as heat from 10 to 100 W, and tritium at 50 times background (Los Alamos, Texas A&M) up to several million times (BARC).
Most of the researchers who have reported positive results are senior, distinguished experts, such as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, government of India, and the experts at Los Alamos in charge of the Tritium Systems Test Assembly and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at Princton. Only senior researchers can get funding because of academic politics.
When a result has been widely replicated at high signal to noise ratios and reported in the literature, that result is real, by definition. There is no other standard of reality in science. If it were possible for hundreds of scientists in hundreds of laboratories to be wrong, the experimental method would not work, and no result would be meaningful, and science itself would not work. If Shermer and Goodstein would substitute some other standard of truth, and ignore replication and peer-review, they are engaged in some form of faith-based religion or a popularity contest, not science.
For instance, almost all of you seem to be slackjawed for a response to the fact that the Pons-Fleishmann effect has been replicated more than 14,700 times.After seeing how uncritically willing the field has been to accept every ridiculous claim by Rossi, I have serious doubts about the basic competence of the entire field. After devoting their careers to such a dead-end field, I suspect they will grasp at any straw, no matter how dubious.
After devoting their careers to such a dead-end field, I suspect they will grasp at any straw, no matter how dubious.
***Your posts are almost perfect examples of a skeptopath.
***Your posts are almost perfect examples of a skeptopath.We'll see. What you call "skeptopath" has been the most reasonable position to take for the last 20 years. I suspect it will serve me well for the next 20 years.
“I’d like to know all about MIT’s role in this. They are a preeminent school, in the top five and they’re going to risk their considerable reputation over this?”
“I hope the whole sordid truth comes out.”
http://www.infinite-energy.com/images/pdfs/mitcfreport.pdf
“How much funding if any do they receive for hot fusion?”
A lot. At the time Mallove wrote his critique, ~$250,000,000.
Conveniently, Mallove was killed in “an attempted burglary”.
Never mind that 95% of the spam you put on FR is about Rossi, although it does seem that over the past couple of weeks, your puppy love for Rossi may be fading. Are you finally convinced that he's nothing more than a con artist?
You remind me of a guy who goes through the phone book, calling women to tell them he wouldn't go out with them.
How many times was the energy output accurately predicted, or were they all anomalous like Pons-Fleishmann?
Unlike you who goes through the phone book, calling women to tell them he will go out with them.
According to a post by Sterling Allan, Levi is a Rossi employee, not a skeptic.
Your response is duly noted and filed.
Your posting of that Scientific American article and then Jed Rothwell strongly suggests he wrote the SA article when all he did was comment on it. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way.
Replicated 14,700 times, so, where's my Mr. Fusion?
That's a lot of, um, incentive...
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