Posted on 07/30/2011 1:44:23 PM PDT by Liberty1970
Brian Josephson, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, asked a question on Andrea Rossi’s blog about the quality of the 1MW demonstration in October. He has been a defender of true research in the LENR field, frequently challenging debunkers to back up their objections with logic instead of repeating the same one-sided attacks so often a signature of pseudosceptics. In answer, Rossi invited him to the test. I am assuming that the question did come from Josephson but there is no doubt that the invite is real:
Brian Josephson July 30th, 2011 at 4:17 AM
October demo Andrea,
You’ve said the 1MW E-cat due in October will be the real test, but in what way will it be more convincing than the ones done so far? Will it be done in such a way that people are sure about the amount of water/steam coming out of the reactor, and how dry the steam is (which affects the heat content)?
Andrea Rossi July 30th, 2011 at 6:11 AM
Dear Prof. Brian Josephson (Nobel Prize), First of all, thank you for your very important attention. Please read very carefully what I am writing to you: 1-The 1 MW plant that we will start up in October will be tested, on behalf of our Customer, by very, very high level world class scientists. You are in the list, so please, if you want and you can, take free the last week of October. 2- The test will be witnessed by several very, very high level world class scientific journalists 3- The E-Cats we are working with now in our factories, which will be the modules of the 1 MW plant, are producing perfectly dry steam, mostly without energy input, as you will see yourself if you will honour us with your presence. Very Warm Regards, Andrea Rossi
Done properly (and it will have to be), this public launch should provide enough proof for potential customers. At that point, and not before (no matter who calls for it) we will have some certainty about what happens next. If the launch is also attended by senior science correspondents, this is also the time we should see the story break – one way or another, depending on results. As so many people have said before, proving such a beast will not be hard and the time for preparation should help arm those like Brian Josephson (assuming he accepts) to be ready to give us a definitive ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Because science is complex and we mere mortals still don’t even know what we don’t know, people tune out. As a scientist it is extremely frustrating to watch people every single day tune out to very simple technical details because “That sounds technical.” Start talking about cold fusion and watch their eyeballs roll into the back of their heads. Now toss in people that have no real scientific background and they can easily be taken by mumbo-jumbo talk. They don’t ask how does fusion work, what is it, what are the properties, and what would be expected. They simply say something even a simpleton can understand: That thing generates energy. After that, that is all they need to know; everything else is “technical”.
Having looked at the awards for the last 20 years for each it all looks like solid and important work. If folks abuse their prizes by jumping on political bandwagons that is on them, but has nothing to do with the work for which they were awarded the prize.
They stopped calling it cold fusion when that became ridiculed and started calling it LENR instead. It is the same scam. It is all well and good that someone proposes a pathway that releases neutrons. These guys claim to rely on a pathway that releases no neutrons, which they have to, because no [statistically signficant number above background of] neutrons have been measured to date.
What is my field is finance/markets/economics, and to me what we have here is a drop-dead date of October, and from a business angle he will either succeed or fail spectacularly.
If that were all I would not care a wit, bt that is not true. They are trying to sign up investors, get government grants and otherwise clog up the scientific process with their junk. In order to keep their junk science going they have to deride good science. It is like global warming, except there is a model for how global warming would work if it were true. There isn't even a model for this junk.
And the snake oil cures cancer and rheumatism or at least you will feel better. But it doesn't and you don't.
Those are the non-professional cons.
Professional Cons don’t work that way.
Look at Madoff, people tried to give him money all the time, he would refuse 99% of them.
I’m not aware of them shilling for grants, but the investor part is deals between consenting adults so that doesn’t bother me. It’s their choice to take that risk.
As far as the scientific process, that’s not my sandbox. I’m strictly applicational here and whether this thing will work or not to scale and profitably, and the resulting economic effects.
He has four basic hurdles to overcome here to be a viable project:
1. The theory and science behind his idea. Does it even work? So far it seems to in a lab. Will it to scale?
2. Engineering and design. Can he design and build something that will both function and generate similar output at scale?
3. Logistics. Does it keep working at a high degree of consistency when he turns it on and lets it run?
4. Is it profitable? Are the value of the outputs greater than the value of the inputs?
He has semi-proven #1. He has a long ways to go to prove the other 3.
My point is, one of the narratives is he doesn’t need investment or approval from anyone, yet he comes out weekly with blog posts and outreach.
He destroys his own creditability because his actions don’t match his words.
When someone is engaging in hard sell tactics...yes I think I can accuse them of that.
The pathologic defense of this scam could be the mental ramblings of a mark that can’t admit they have been suckered, true.
But no one has admitted given him money, so they must be getting paid.
Rossi does have enablers in the US. Some of them are likely people that are both marks and party to the con unknowingly.
Like this guy that is on the business license in New Hampshire, I would bet money that he gave Rossi money so that he could get shares of that now defunct corporation.
This guy isn’t coming forward because he is embarrassed. All too common in the con game.
How can you not look at that and call that a scam.
Was Enron a scam?
What about Madoff?
If he had done these in the US, he would still be in prison today. He went to prison twice but if he had done these in the US, he would have done 40 years.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2756365/posts?page=115#115
This corporation is the one that is supposed to supply the greek company with the main component. Going to be a little hard since the company only exists on paper.
?no?
We’re not dealing with Madoff, we’re dealing with the alternative energy world. Whole different ballgame. The only time they won’t take money is if they lose the control of the tech in a way that they can’t leverage it to take in more money later.
I’ll give you an example. We had a group that had a gasifier down in southern Illinois. We went down to look at it and talked turkey. They wanted us to put in money, we flipped the tables and called their bluff. We said: ‘we need X number of units to handle X quantity flow of waste and how soon can you build them?’
That pretty much ended it right there. They wanted our money to invest to ‘develop’ their tech and were willing to take it as long as they didn’t have to produce something, or at least give no more than vague promises of something down the road. Until we flipped the tables on them that is. We were in a long line of others before us who’d they’d gotten to ‘invest’ in them.
That’s a pretty typical example. That’s why I’m not ruling out Rossi out yet. He is at least trying to to a relatively at-scale project and putting something on the line here. We shall see shortly if he succeeds or fails.
“He has semi-proven #1”
Proven is binary function, it is yes or no
Semi-proven means he failed, in other words no
The only people that have proven anything are other scientists doing their own independent work which they have been doing for years that yield only a tiny fraction of what Rossi claims.
Rossi did the same thing with the Army, told them he had come up with a Thermo-coupler design that was orders of magnitude better. Only problem was, it didn’t exist.
This story mimics this con so well. Taking something that is known to be true and stretching it so that it is believable to people yet incredibly at the same time.
He has already done this caper before, he is doing it again now. Same story, different device.
Did you read what he did to the Army?
It is exactly the same as this con.
No, he isn’t going to take anyone’s money.
He wants to make sure that you are a worthy payoff for the work.
A good con artist doesn’t take just anyone’s money. He is going to take money based on:
1. How traceable is it?
2. How does it raise his legal jeopardy?
3. Is it likely to reveal the con to others?
4. Is he going to be able to cow you into keeping quiet?
5. Are you easy to push around, are you a person easy to string along?
etc....
In the Army Scam, Rossi relied on the same thing.
There wasn’t anything theoretically impossible about his claims.
When it came time to deliver, the lab burned down mysteriously.
You can make any claim on paper leveraging other peoples work to make your claim look more legit.
Semi-proven means he’s proven it to the limits of what he feels is proprietary knowledge. That’s not uncommon in this situation. He’s not trying to get published and get recognition for a theory by injecting himself into the scientific process, he’s actually trying to get a profitable project working with an industrial partner. I don’t expect him to give away the store.
What I do expect him to do is get a working and profitable project on line. He’s said he’s going to that by October and he’s held to it. If he fails the whole world will know it, not alot of wiggle room for him here.
What are you going to say when that doesn’t happen and he comes up with his excuse?
His lab burns down again?
This guy has already done this exact freaking scam before and people still keep saying “Wait till October, you will see, it is true”
Actually he has not, and that is why the scientfic community is apoplectic that this garbage is even out there. These folks are trying to draw the sceintific community in as co-conspirators. Not only have they not shown anything does work, if it were to work it would violate most of the laws of physics that have become sacred and dear to practicing physicists. You can modify laws of physics. You can prove them wrong and propose something new.Provided you have the experimental data to support the claims. But you cannot just run roughshod over them and expect anything except howls of derision.
I’m going to say ‘he didn’t deliver the goods’ and put him on the shelf with the rest of those who failed. He has till October 31 to get it done and no longer.
Friend, I’m not interested in following your opposition research against Rossi, the man. I’m just an interested bystander, who’s waiting to see if the E-cat turns out to be a game changing technology.
Do you want to talk about the technology? That’s what I’m interested in.
But frankly I don’t care about the scientific community. As I said that’s not my sandbox. They work in theory, I work in application. If it works it works, it wouldn’t be the first time something worked profitably without knowing the exactly. I’m interested in changing economics here, not to show it works in theory.
To give another anecdote, there was a gentleman one time a relative knew who was working for a company as a consultant or some related position. This company had been doing X for a number of years, successfully.
This consultant guy was an egghead who had dealt in theory most of his life. He literally told one of the engineers, ‘Well I know it works in the real world, but does it work in theory?’ And he was serious. The engineer nearly fell off his chair with incredulity.
I am content to wait till October.
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