Replies

So is it a scam, or could cold fusion actually become worthwhile at some point in the future??

As usual, I like what Jed Rothwell has to say on Vortex-L
Re: [Vo]:ECAT.com lunch new website in association with andrea rossi.
Jed Rothwell Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:06:58 -0800
Peter Heckert wrote:

> Could be a scam to collect high valued commercial email adresses,
> but only naive persons will send their official company adress to them.
> Such a scam was some weeks ago and it was disauthorized by Rossi himself
> soon.
>

What site do you mean? Which site was "disauthorized" by Rossi? Do you mean
Allan's site?

I do not think that was a scam. Do you know of any evidence showing it was
a scam, such as a police report, or complaints from users?

If you do not have any evidence that something is a scam, please do make
this as an unqualified assertion. You can say, "I suppose it is a scam" or
"in my opinion it may be a scam . . ."

People have been throwing around the word "scam" here a lot lately. As far
as I can tell, none of these people have any evidence that a scam or other
crime has been committed. In my opinion, it is highly inappropriate to make
such baseless accusations here. Go write a message on Krivit's site, which
seems to be devoted these days to the notion that Rossi is committing
crimes.

- Jed

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Re: [Vo]:Detailed exposed of the e-cat scam.
Jed Rothwell Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:00:29 -0800
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:

> The trouble is that H2(gas)+Ni(powder) reacts exothermically, as the
> hydrogen is adsorbed onto the nickel. This means that a blank run using,
> say, nitrogen in place of hydrogen can be expected to produce *less*
> *measured* *heat* than the H2 run . . .

Yup. There is another huge practical problem with doing a blank run.
Injecting nitrogen, air or some other gas into the powder will probably
contaminate and destroy the powder. This is a problem because of powder is
expensive and difficult to fabricate. It is also a problem because after
you contaminate it, you could not produce heat from it. You would have to
produce heat first, then do your destructive blank run.

This is like demanding that Mr. Ford first demonstrate that his Model T can
drive at 40 mph, then he must demonstrate that when you crash it into a
brick wall at 40 mph, it is destroyed and cannot drive at any speed after
that.

As Valconen pointed out, there is no technical justification for a blank
run, and it would be "trivial to falsify. It does not improve the
reliability or reduce the probability of a hoax."

Regarding the title of this thread, Krivit (and Yugo too, I think) claim it
is possible to commit fraud with an escrow agreement in which the customer
can do any amount of testing before final acceptance, and the customer is
free to return the goods for any reason without executing the escrow
agreement. (I assume there is some reasonable time restriction, such as 4
months.) Apparently, these people do not know an escrow agreement is, or
what "final acceptance" means. This is business 101. Fraud is impossible
with these arrangements, unless the customer defrauds himself.

- Jed

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Re: [Vo]:Detailed exposed of the e-cat scam.
Jed Rothwell Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:56:49 -0800
Mary Yugo wrote:

If so, the entire scientific community must be incredibly obstinate or the proof for cold fusion isn't very good or some combination of both.

It is entirely the first. That is true of all other examples in which the scientific establishment rejected claims for years or decades. You can find hundreds of examples; this sort of thing happens all the time. The quality of the proof is never an issue. The proof of cold fusion is better than the proof of countless other claims that were instantly accepted. As I said, the only metric that counts is money. Academic funding: money and power. People oppose cold fusion because their salaries depend upon opposing it. This is Upton Sinclair's dictum: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Others oppose it because they oppose everything.

Or maybe cold fusion has yet to be properly demonstrated and the sincere researchers are looking at errors and noise.

You can only believe that if you refuse to look at the data, or if you do not understand the concepts of errors and noise. You have convince yourself that experts cannot measure 20 W output with no input. That's a lot like saying a doctor cannot be sure if a decapitated a patient is alive or dead.

As I've said before, I have no way to choose personally between those options. My interest is focused only on Rossi because of the robustness of the claims . . .

The cold fusion claims are equally robust, from a scientific point of view. You have no way of judging that because you refuse to look at them. You also have no way of knowing whether you could understand them if you looked at them. No doubt that is why you refuse to look: it gives you "plausible deniability."

Experts such as Heinz Gerischer who looked that the results in 1990 were instantly convinced. They did not have the slightest doubt the results are real.

We agree that 20 years is a long time to wait for acceptance if cold fusion is real and if it was truly identified by P&F 20 years ago.

Every expert who has looked at these results carefully says it is real, except Britz. Some of the 2004 DoE panel members who spent a few hours looking at it in parlor game style review were not convinced, but the reasons they gave for doubting it were ludicrous.

- Jed

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Muon catalyzed cold fusion has been known and accepted by science for over 50 years. If they can figure out a way to get the muons to catalyze about 250 reactions rather than the current 100 it will be a great success.

Rossi and ecat on the other hand is a scam.

Here's an impressive picture of a few hours worth of ecat corrosion.

Scam on the order of global warming.

There’s no peak oil crisis, there’s an Obama-in-the-White-House crisis.