Final Report of Cold Fusion 101 Class at MIT: The NANOR Emerges

Final Report of Cold Fusion 101 Class at MIT: The NANOR Emerges Posted on February 1, 2014 by admin • 43 Comments

Many thanks to Barry Simon for submitting the following report about the 2014 Short Course 101 on Cold Fusion at MIT.

In a word, Cold Fusion 101 at MIT was inspiring. The lectures started off with Peter Hagelstein discussing the early days of Pons and Fleischmann and why their first experiments were not successfully replicated. (Conspiracy theorists will be disappointed.) He also covered the most widely accepted CF theories, including his own, and went into a lot of scientific detail.

Unless you have the mathematical language to understand formulas (which I don’t), a lot of Prof. Hagelstein’s info will fly over your head (which it did mine). His lectures are surely for heavyweights. Ruby Carat via Jeremy Rys has already put up some of the lectures on Cold Fusion Now. http://coldfusionnow.org/2014-cold-fusion-101-video-lectures/

He started each lecture with the warning that the field of Cold Fusion can be a career killer. In that statement you can sense his struggle, and how ending up as the lone Cold Fusion wolf at MIT after 25 years has taken a toll on his spirit. He didn’t go into the politics and spoke with respect about his CF adversaries, even calling for a moment of silence for John Huizenga on the last day of class. I would challenge any physicist to explain to him why CF can’t work. By the way, MIT just got $22 million for Hot Fusion research, for Cold Fusion $0.

Peter Hagelstein’s approach was Einsteinian, whereas Mitchell Swartz was more like Edison. PH is trying to figure out how and why CF works, while MS spends much of his time in the workshop, working on improving his CF devices. His lectures were easier on a layman such as myself, and the evolution of the NANOR Cold Fusion device is fascinating.

Mitchell Swartz has started a new company called Nanortech where they will be selling or leasing NANORS. If anyone seriously wants one, I recommend you act now before the waiting list grows. He showed an early experiment of a Phusor (name before NANOR) running a Stirling engine (an engine that runs from heat rather than chemical fuel). The latest NANOR series, for there have been many, will efficiently work with 1 watt input. People have criticized the NANORs for being low-milliwatt devices. This is a myth. NANORs can also be chained together. In 2012 the NANOR ran at MIT for 4 months, left MIT and ran for another 8 months of testing (though the actual running time would have been 10% or 1.2 months), reaching a peak of 14 COP (14 times more energy than (electrical) input power). In 2013 a NANOR reached 80 COP for 30 minutes. In 2014 the NANOR Series 8 has reached new efficiencies that are soon to be reported and are now on the market. Dr. Swartz, like Edison, prefers to spend his time in the workshop rather than yakking about his findings on the internet. He is willing to openly share his data and methods to the community at large. He is very thorough in his research, wanting to test and retest x20 to be on the safe side, and his findings almost have to be dragged out of him. Like–who knew a Stirling engine has already been hooked up to a CF device? By the way, he tried to patent it, but the US Patent Office refuses all things “Cold Fusion.” Can’t wait to show it. It looks like something that will someday have a place in the Museum of Science.

Just wanted to give a fresh report. As I write if feel the weight of how large these statements and figures are and ask for a chance to triple check them. Then I’ll be making a new video.

"Wake me as soon as someone builds a NANOR/FUSOR/E-TECH/WTFEVER that actually generates excess energy in front of skeptical scientists and investigators."

The Nanor does precisely that. The short course is completely open to any attendees (as was the one last year).

No one is preventing "skeptical scientists and investigors" from showing up and critiquing the data collection used during the demonstrations. In fact, "Lab 101" is precisely that....the attendees get to make the measurements and reduce the data for themselves.

Thus far, NO "skeptical scientists and investigators" have shown up.

One can lead an ass to fodder, but you can't make him eat.

Wake me as soon as someone builds a NANOR/FUSOR/E-TECH/WTFEVER that actually generates excess energy in front of skeptical scientists and investigators.
***Levi was skeptical of Rossi.

http://coldfusion3.com/blog/giuseppe-levi-goes-on-record-to-discuss-e-cat

• He has worked with Focardi on other projects and respects him.

• Levi has been following Rossi and Focardi’s work for three years but only examined the e-cat itself on December 16, 2010. He did extensive testing of the e-cat and apparently believes Rossi’s claims.

• Levi is a member of the US group the Skeptic’s Society and he applied their “baloney detector kit.” (A set of parameters for the detection of fraud developed by the late Carl Sagan) to the e-cat and found it was not baloney.

• Levi said he investigated the e-cat because it is his duty as a scientist. He also wanted to protect the University of Bologna’s reputation from a possible fraud.

• Levi did admit that the e-cat was developed in what he called an “industrial” and not a research environment.

• The January e-cat news conference and demonstration by Rossi and Focardi was done in order to show the scientific community the validity of the e-cat and protect Focardi’s reputation.

• Levi seems to be concerned about Focardi’s reputation and is trying to protect it.

• Levi said other scientists including chemists have examined the e-cat and verified some of the results.

Levi also gave some interesting quotes in response to Krivit’s questions.

When asked why he investigated the e-cat, Levi said: “You must go and look by yourself. It is one of my duties I am a researcher I am paid by public money. Something very important was going on with the name of the University of Bologna. It was my duty to know if it was something real. If it is something real we must make research on it.”

When asked if the e-cat represents a new physics or not, Levi said: “There is not a new quantum mechanics but some new phenomenon.”

Persons who want to make up their mind should definitely take a look at all five parts of Levi’s interview. Skeptics and those interested in the science will find it a real eye opener (source Rossifocardifusion.com).

And then there were the 6 other independent scientists. It was good enough to attract Venture Capital, that’s all Rossi was trying for. He’s not all that great a scientist. He’s an engineer with black boxes to sell.

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