1995.01.03 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: Kunich versus Rothwell
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Kunich versus Rothwell
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 95 15:33:56 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

Richard Schultz <schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu> writes:
 
>If I read papers from several different authors, and they all claim excess
>heat output but agree on nothing else, what am I supposed to conclude?
 
If you find nothing wrong with the calorimetry, and you see they are
measuring power levels as high as 80 to 200 watts (which are so high they
are impossible to miss) then you must conclude the excess heat they measure
is real. Since the heat continues for weeks or even months, and the CF
devices weigh only a few grams at most, you must conclude the heat is not
caused by a chemical reaction.
 
The second part of your question is purely hypothetical. The authors do, in
fact, agree on many other aspects of the phonomenon. Graphs of power output
versus current density, methods of doing blank experiments and many other
aspects of CF are widely agreed upon. There is no point in speculating about
"what you might think" if "they agreed on nothing else" because they do agree
on a great deal else. In any case, why speculate on what you might or might
not think. Read the scientific literature first and then form an opinion
about it. Do not prejudge it or try to determine in advance what you will think
if you find A, B or C.
 
>his own protocols.  Have any of them tried to repeat another scientist's
>experiment?  If so, what results did they get?
 
Yes of course they have tried that. Read McKubre, Storms, Okamoto, and
Kunimatsu. It is very difficult to make conditions exactly the same, but
when loading and current density are the same, they get very similar results.
 
>Last Theorem, and yet the error existed.  My field is not calorimetry,
>and given the historical unwillingness of CF workers to provide enough
>experimental detail to let the uninitiated know what is going on, I
 
This is nonsense. It is pure, unadulterated, nonsense. First you tell us you
have not read the papers or looked at the conference proceedings, then you
say "they have not provided enough experimental detail." What you mean is
"I have not bothered to look at any experimental detail, I am spouting off
about something I know nothing about." In point of fact, if you look at the
scientific papers and the patents, you will find TONS of detail, more than
enough to replicate (if you are a "person skilled in the art" -- in patent
terminology). Furthermore, if the information in the papers and patents is
not sufficient, most of the CF scientists will be glad to provide you with
a great deal more information. They have sent me photographs, schematics,
sample data sets, and detailed, step-by-step instructions for things like
cathode preparation. AND IF THAT IS NOT ENOUGH, you can always go visit a
scientist and spend a few weeks in the lab learning the techniques first
hand.
 
The claim that CF scientists do not provide enough detail is the worst kind
of outrageous crap you "skeptics" come up with. You deliberately, wilfully
refuse to look at published, freely available data, and then you have the
chutzpah to claim that it does not exist!
 
- Jed
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------------------------------
1995.01.04 / Richard Milton /  Re: Who claims o/u for Griggs device?
     
Originally-From: richard@milton.win-uk.net (Richard Milton)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Who claims o/u for Griggs device?
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 1995 03:18:54 GMT

 
In article <9501021629.AA50027@pilot1.cl.msu.edu>,
 Richard A Blue (blue@pilot.msu.edu) writes:

[Cuts]
  
>I am more than curious to know precisely who as ever made
>any claims that the Griggs device provides output energy in
>excess to the input. 

[Cuts]


I and three colleagues filmed an interview with Jim Griggs
at Cody, Wyoming in September 1994 for a TV programme.  He
told us, on camera, that the hydrosonic pump produces
around 30 per cent more energy than is input and that
customer sites have reduced their electricity bills by 30
per cent.  I intend visiting these customer sites to
verify the claims.  However, the answer to your question
is: Jim Griggs.





--
*****************************&********************************
Richard Milton               & 
10 Pembury Road              & "Nothing is too wonderful to be  
Tonbridge, Kent TN9 2HX      &  true if it be consistent with 
United Kingdom               &  the laws of nature."
Tel/Fax: 0732 353427         &
richard@milton.win-uk.net    &             Michael Faraday
============================================================== 

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1995.01.03 / j witkowski /  Re: Free Energy Device - leave it out of sci.bio
     
Originally-From: witkowsk@cshl.org (j a witkowski)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories,sci.bio,sci.energy,sci.energy.h
drogen,sci.environment,sci.materials,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion,sci.
hysics.particle
Subject: Re: Free Energy Device - leave it out of sci.bio
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 95 22:03:57 GMT
Organization: Cold Spring Harbor Lab

Are there any other biologists out there who feel that this is an
inappropriate thread for sci.bio?

Please new theory physicists; energy renewable engineers; ufologists;
plutonium physicists and chemists; energy scientists of various sorts;
environmental scientists; materials scientists; and physicists in general,
stop crossposting this discussion to sci.bio.


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------------------------------
1995.01.03 /  jedrothwell@de /  Calorimetry easier than Fermat's Last Theorem proof
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Calorimetry easier than Fermat's Last Theorem proof
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 95 17:11:45 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

Richard Schultz <schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu> writes:
 
     "Just because I cannot find an error [in calorimetry] does not mean that
     there are no errors.  To give a more obvious example, I certainly would
     never have been able to find the error in Wiles's original "proof" of
     Fermat's Last Theorem, and yet the error existed.  My field is not
     calorimetry. . ."
 
Mr. Shultz:
 
This is a very bad "obvious example." You could not have picked a worse one.
The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (FLT) is as different from CF as anything
in science can be, for a number of reasons:
 
CF is based on simple laboratory experiments. The proof that the CF effect is
real is breathtakingly obvious. Anyone with a junior high school grasp of
physics can understand it. The proof of FLT is based on complex mathematics,
and it is highly obscure. Even the world's best mathematicians have trouble
understanding the FTL proof.
 
CF is physical phenomenon with a mechanism and physical manifestation that
register on instruments. FLT does not have "mechanism;" it is a pure thought
experiment. You cannot measure FLT output with a thermometer, or with any
other instrument. You cannot perform a physical demonstration of an FLT proof.
 
CF experiments are performed with thermometers, flowmeters and other
instruments which have been in common use in laboratories, factories,
hospitals and schools since the time of the French Revolution. Millions of
people have mastered the calorimetric techniques used to measure heat levels
of 1 watt, 80 watts or 200 watts, because these techniques are very simple and
vital to our civilization. In contrast, only a handful of people can
understand the proof of FLT, and FLT has no immediate, society-wide impact on
our daily lives.
 
In order to disprove CF, you would have to show conclusively that calorimetry
does not work, and 1 one calorie does not equal 4.2 joules. You would have to
overthrow every important physics breakthrough and toss out all of the
textbooks going back to the time of J.P. Joule (1840's). If the proof of FLT
is found incorrect, that does not call into question every experiment in
calorimetry performed during the last 150 years.
 
The proof of FLT is far beyond the scientific training that ordinary people
(like me) get in high school and college, whereas the fundamentals of
calorimetry and the relationship between heat, temperature and electricity
were covered in my daughter's third grade science textbook. You claim that you
do not understand calorimetry well enough to evaluate CF work, but I simply
refuse to believe this is true. I cannot imagine that *any* competent, trained
scientist would have any difficulty understanding Arata's calorimetry. It is
extraordinarily simple. As I explained to Steve Jones, Arata inputs 47 watts
direct current. That's 671 calories/minute. His flow rate is 440 ml per
minute. Therefore, when the calibration heater is off and when there was no
excess heat (during start up, or with a dummy cathode), the Delta T
temperature should be 1.5 deg C. Lo and behold that is what it is; that proves
the cell is well insulated. When the CF effect turns on, the Delta T
temperature rises to around 3 deg C, indicating an excess of about 50 watts,
and sometimes it goes far higher than that. During the 17 hour burst it rose
to 6.5 deg C and held there for a while: the excess heat caused a 5 deg
increase in the Delta T. That's: 5 deg C * 440 ml = 2200 calories = 9240
joules/min. Subtract input, that equals 6420 joules/min which equals 107 watts
excess.
 
Unless you think 1 calorie equals 8 or 9 joules, or you imagine it is
impossible to measure a flow rate to within +/- 200 ml/min or so, you have to
admit Arata is measuring massive, easily detected levels of excess heat that
continue for months.
 
You will note that Jones and other "skeptics" have never called into question
any specific details of Arata's calorimetry, nor have they ever questioned the
calorimetry of Storms, Celani, Stringham & George, Kunimatsu, Mizuno, Lee,
Appleby, Oriani, or anyone else except Pons and Fleischmann. Their critiques
of Pons and Fleischmann have no scientific merit. Jones, for example, claims
that a power supply set for a half amp with a 100 V rail voltage can produce
180 watt for as long as you like. They have never attempted to disprove any of
these other papers because they know they cannot. That is why Jones has
weaseled and evaded all these years -- he will talk about neutrons and
theories, but he will never, ever attempt to prove that 1 calorie does not
equal 4.2 joules, or that the methods of measuring heat developed by Joule,
Watt, Black and Priestly do not work. Calorimetry is the key issue. It is the
essential proof of CF. That is why no "skeptic" ever dares to challenge the
calorimetry. Only a few of the very stupidest "skeptics" ever address the
issue at all, and when they do, they claim that refrigerators work by
condensing water or that you can burn 0.004 moles of hydrogen to get 86,700
joules. The smarter ones (including you) refuse to comment on it, or they
pretend that it is too complicated and that it requires too much advanced
knowledge. They compare it to Fermat's Last Theorem, for example.
 
- Jed
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Richard Clark /  Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
     
Originally-From: richard@tis.com (Richard Clark)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.materials,sci.physics
sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.particle
Subject: Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
Date: 3 Jan 1995 22:18:25 GMT
Organization: Trusted Information Systems, Inc.

In article <3ecaet$5eu@post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Dan_Schwarcz@ccmail.gsfc.nasa
gov (Dan Schwarcz) writes:
>>
>>Perhaps the experimenters are not claiming anything so radical as a violation
>>of any fundamental law, but rather a new way to use one. For instance,
>>rather than simply generating energy from "nowhere", perhaps it turns out
>>that their peizo is sucking up elecrons from the surrounding air and
>>converting
>>these to energy. No laws broken. 
>
>WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!
>
>It is exactly this simplistic, ignorant type of post, where someone with a
>high-
>school science education declares that "no laws are broken" when spouting 
>nonsense that violates the most fundamental building blocks of our
>technological
>society, that drives the rest of us nuts!
> [snip]

This ranting brought to you by the same people who still believe that a photon
is a point particle... The same people who can't find most of the "missing"
mass in the universe... The same people still looking for a "gravitron"...

I personally don't know *how* their device works, if it actually does. What I
was trying to do is explain that there are plenty of odd ways to utilize
existing "laws" wherein useful things can be done without violating any said
"laws".

Tell me, how *does* superconductivity really work anyway... If we even knew
that, we'd be well on our way to simply designing the appropriate structures
instead of searching blindly for room temp...

>>I don't agree with dismissing
>>it on the grounds that it violates any known "laws". We certainly don't
>>know *everything* yet, and one must keep an open mind...
>
>Clearly, some of us know more than others.

Quite! 

>
>There's a big difference between an open mind and an empty one.
> While we don't 
>know *everything*, that doesn't mean that we don't know *anything*.

Bet you were one of the folks out telling the Wright Bros. that it was
physicaly impossible to build anything heavier than air that would fly.
Probably sat there wondering how a bird could change its weight when it took
off...

>
>Dr. Dan Schwarcz
>Getting depressed about our educational system.

Then encourage questioning of our thought processes instead of spewing
"facts" to our youngsters... I too, dislike the system.



Later,

Richard "Laws? Oh, LAWS! Yeah, those restrictions for *other* people." Clark

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------------------------------
1995.01.03 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: Calorimetry easier than Fermat's Last Theorem proof
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Calorimetry easier than Fermat's Last Theorem proof
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 95 17:46:43 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

OOPS! I wrote:
 
"During the 17 hour burst it rose to 6.5 deg C and held there for a
while: the excess heat caused a 5 deg increase in the Delta T. That's: 5
deg C * 440 ml = 2200 calories = 9240 joules/min. Subtract input, that
equals 6420 joules/min which equals 107 watts excess."
 
That's a double subtraction; I deleted the 43 watt input twice. The total
Delta T temperature was 6.5 deg (not 5). That should be 9240 joules/min
*excess* which comes to 154 watts.
 
Well, even Oriani makes careless mistakes.
 
- Jed
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 /  prasad /  Prasad's theorem!  was Re: Conservation violation...
     
Originally-From: c1prasad@watson.ibm.com (prasad)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics
Subject: Prasad's theorem!  was Re: Conservation violation...
Date: 3 Jan 1995 16:41:04 GMT
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <1995Jan2.080713.27241@driftwood.cray.com>, logajan@cray.com
(John M. Logajan) writes:
|> 
|> QM is nice, but as Marshall Dudley has keenly pointed out, the big
|> bang seems to put a wrinkle or two into the purity of the QM.
|> 
|> So if nature doesn't even always obey QM, why should humans?  :-)

We can be even more skeptical of theory:  QM is a computational/modelling
means invented by humans. All "laws of nature" are views of human beings,
nature doesn't have to obey our "laws" at all, rather, we have to fit our
laws to model nature.  Ie. IN EVERY MODEL HUMANS PUT UP, THERE'S BOUND TO
BE SOME NATURAL PHENOMENON THAT WILL BREAK THE MODEL.

I'm sure someone will yell "Goedel", but this is simply an informational
constraint.  There's no way anyone can encode infinite information of the
structure of the universe (this universe, not a statistical view that cannot
distinguish from the "alternate universes"!) in a finite sentence of symbols,
be they mathematical, english or greek.  Feynman gives the example of
"div U = 0", which can be fitted to any physical situation, but doesn't
carry the information to select a particular eigenstate of nature.

From this perspective, "laws of nature" that must stand for all t must be
self-consistent logical expressions, such as "div U = 0" (ie. you pick premise
definitions to suit).  If not, ie. if they have purely empirical basis that
cannot be derived from theory alone, like the 2nd law, then they are guaranteed
to break under new data at some t.  The empirical dependence is vaguely related
to the working limitation of a Maxwell demon.

I'm not too good at expressing my law yet (as you can see!), but I've had
a proof for quite some time (c.'85).  We might be close to an application!

====================================== ======================================

#!/bin/physics.sh
fgrep flame > /dev/null &
(
I claim:
1. 20 * 18 crackpot points on John Baez's scale for highlighting text with
block caps.
2. All offbeat opinions I state, with copyleft restriction.
3. I've some sense of humor.  (8-)  -- smiley with balding pate.
)

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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / J Swinnea /  Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
     
Originally-From: swinnea@weiss.che.utexas.edu (J. Steven Swinnea)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories,alt.energy.renewable,alt.parane
.science,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.bio,sci.energy,sc
.energy.hydrogen,sci.environment,sci.materials,sci.physics,sci.physics.f
sion,sci.physics.particle
Subject: Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
Date: 3 Jan 1995 16:57:52 GMT
Organization: UT Department of Chemical Engineering

In article <3ebnfs$lbb@news.xs4all.nl>,
Marco Nelissen <marcone@xs1.xs4all.nl> wrote:
>What if this (or any other) device worked by converting heat (*any* amount
>of heat, no matter how small), into the form of energy you want, say

That's the way most electricity is generated.

>Would this not create a TRUE perpetual motion machine? I mean, all energy
>eventually ends up as heat, so basically such a machine would run on its

Yep, it all ends up as heat, but the second law of thermodynamics
says:

   It is impossible for a device operating in a cyclic manner ( i.e.
running on its by products ) to completely convert heat into an equal
amount of work.

Steve Swinnea
swinnea@che.utexas.edu
Department of Chemical Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: Who claims o/u for Griggs device?
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Who claims o/u for Griggs device?
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 95 12:11:44 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

blue@pilot.msu.edu (Richard A Blue) asks:
 
     "Please tell us, Jed.  Have you ever seen a written description of the
     Griggs device that could be taken as a claim that the Hydrosonic Pump is
     more than 100% efficient?
 
Yes, I have seen several: I wrote an authoritative description myself; I have
several sets of sample data from his customers; and Griggs wrote the one I
listed in my paper:
 
J. L. Griggs, "A Brief Introduction to the Hydrosonic Pump and the Associated
'Excess Energy' Phenomenon," Proc. Fourth International Conference on Cold
Fusion, Lahaina, Maui, Dec. 6-9, 1993, EPRI TR-104188-V4 (1994), p. 43
 
- Jed
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / John Logajan /  Re: What is your opinion?
     
Originally-From: jlogajan@skypoint.com (John Logajan)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: What is your opinion?
Date: 3 Jan 1995 17:35:49 GMT
Organization: SkyPoint Communications, Inc.

Cameron Randale Bass (crb7q@watt.seas.Virginia.EDU) wrote:
: John M. Logajan <logajan@cray.com> wrote:
: >:      Funny.  That's the same argument used by people who think UFO's
: >:      are aliens from other planets.
: >This is not a proper logical construct.
:      Certainly it is.  Jed's assertion that 'the probability is zero that
:      all of them are wrong' is goofy.

To find whether Jed's assertion is goofy, we study the assertion for its
logical and empirical merits.  All else is irrelevent.  Whether UFO's exist
or not, or whether ufologists are loopy is beside the point.

: An example is far more effective than just stating the case.

How can an illogical inference be considered "effective?"

--
 - John Logajan -- jlogajan@skypoint.com  --  612-633-0345 -
 - 4248 Hamline Ave; Arden Hills, Minnesota (MN) 55112 USA -
 - WWW URL =  http://www.skypoint.com/subscribers/jlogajan -
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1995.01.03 / Matthew Wiener /  Re: Prasad's theorem!  was Re: Conservation violation...
     
Originally-From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Prasad's theorem!  was Re: Conservation violation...
Date: 3 Jan 1995 17:57:04 GMT
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology

In article <3ebun0$g3o@watnews1.watson.ibm.com>, c1prasad@watson (prasad) writes:
>means invented by humans. All "laws of nature" are views of human beings,
>nature doesn't have to obey our "laws" at all, rather, we have to fit our
>laws to model nature.  Ie. IN EVERY MODEL HUMANS PUT UP, THERE'S BOUND TO
>BE SOME NATURAL PHENOMENON THAT WILL BREAK THE MODEL.

Let's see.

>I'm sure someone will yell "Goedel", but this is simply an
>informational constraint.  There's no way anyone can encode infinite
>information of the structure of the universe (this universe, not a
>statistical view that cannot distinguish from the "alternate
>universes"!) in a finite sentence of symbols, be they mathematical,
>english or greek.

Let's see--if our universe happens to have a finite amount of information
in it, then Prasad's theorem breaks down.

Hmmm.

Prasad's theorem is valid iff Prasad's theorem is invalid.  Sounds right.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Greg Kuperberg /  When is the Nice conference?
     
Originally-From: gk00@quads.uchicago.edu (Greg Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: When is the Nice conference?
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 18:19:17 GMT
Organization: University of Chicago

When is the Nice conference supposed to be?  If a date has not yet been
set, there is always the possibility that Pons and Fleischmann will
just leave everyone hanging.
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Jorge Stolfi /  Re: John Bockris' 4-body reaction
     
Originally-From: stolfi@stack.dcc.unicamp.br (Jorge Stolfi)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: John Bockris' 4-body reaction
Date: 3 Jan 1995 19:44:17 GMT
Organization: DCC - UNICAMP - Campinas, SP, Brazil


    > [S.E.Jones, quoting Bockris:] "Spectroscopically pure carbon rods
    > were subjected to a carbon arc in highly purified water...  The
    > original carbon contained ~2 ppm iron, and the detritus
    > contained up to 286 ppm of iron...

I wonder how the rods were determined to be "spectroscopically pure"? 

Would the analysis have detected occasional iron contamination, 
say one iron carbide grain every two or three rods?
 
Colud some of the rods have been contaminated (by, say, contact with 
tools) between the analysis and the experiment proper?

    > [S.E.Jones, quoting Bockris:]   When dissolved O2, was replaced
    > by N2 in the solution, no iron was formed.  
    > Hence, the mechanism  2 C-12 + 2 O-18 --> Fe-56 + He-4
    > was suggested as the origin of the iron.

    > [M.Dudley:] O18 is only .2% of the oxygen of the atmosphere.
    
Bockris's guess could be checked by increasing the O18 concentration
in the water to, say, 2%.  If that is what is happening one should get
10 to 100 times more iron.
    
--stolfi

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jorge Stolfi | http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi | stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br 
Computer Science Dept. (DCC-IMECC)               | Tel +55 (192) 39-8442
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)      |     +55 (192) 39-3115 
Campinas, SP -- Brazil                           | Fax +55 (192) 39-7470
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Please do not copy this .signature virus into your .signature file!
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Dan Schwarcz /  Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
     
Originally-From: Dan_Schwarcz@ccmail.gsfc.nasa.gov (Dan Schwarcz)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.energy,sci.energy.hydrogen,sci.environment,sci.m
terials,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.particle
Subject: Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
Date: 3 Jan 1995 20:01:33 GMT
Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA

In article <3e1hkp$rt2@shemesh.tis.com>, richard@tis.com (Richard Clark) says:
>
>> [various parts snipped]
>>
>>Harry Conover is correct.  Being correct is not being bigoted.
>>Every time a new energy realm is opened people test for the conservation 
>>of matter and energy, as well as other supposedly 'fundamental' laws.
>>
>
>Perhaps the experimenters are not claiming anything so radical as a violation
>of any fundamental law, but rather a new way to use one. For instance,
>rather than simply generating energy from "nowhere", perhaps it turns out
>that their peizo is sucking up elecrons from the surrounding air and converting
>these to energy. No laws broken. 

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!

It is exactly this simplistic, ignorant type of post, where someone with a high-
school science education declares that "no laws are broken" when spouting 
nonsense that violates the most fundamental building blocks of our technological
society, that drives the rest of us nuts!

The proposed "mechanism" here is so profoundly absurd, so totally in violation
of everything that science has established about the way that the universe
works, that if there were even an iota of a hint of a possibility that it would
be anything more than nonsense, the entire structure of all science would have
to be scrapped and all the technology mankind has developed would have to be
assumed to have been built by sheer accident, without the builders having a 
clue as to what they were doing.  A design by a fourth-grade kid who learns
to draw diagrams would be as valid as anything produced by a team of engineers.

>I don't agree with dismissing
>it on the grounds that it violates any known "laws". We certainly don't
>know *everything* yet, and one must keep an open mind...

Clearly, some of us know more than others.

There's a big difference between an open mind and an empty one.  While we don't 
know *everything*, that doesn't mean that we don't know *anything*.

Dr. Dan Schwarcz
Getting depressed about our educational system.
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: When is the Nice conference?
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: When is the Nice conference?
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 95 15:13:21 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

Greg Kuperberg <gk00@quads.uchicago.edu> writes:
 
>When is the Nice conference supposed to be?  If a date has not yet been
>set, there is always the possibility that Pons and Fleischmann will
>just leave everyone hanging.
 
The date of ICCF-5 is 9 - 13 April 1995. The location is Monte Carlo, Monaco.
This was decided in the Spring of 1994 and announced here, in this forum,
many times. The final announcement was also posted in this forum. Here it
is again:
 
 
The FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE on COLD FUSION -- ICCF-5,  9-13 April
1995  Monte Carlo, Monaco
 
We are pleased to announce that the Fifth International Conference on Cold
Fusion (ICCF-5) will be held from 9 April (Sunday evening) - 13 April
(Thursday) in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
 
Five years of intensive investigation have uncovered a wide variety of
unexpected phenomena occurring in reactions of deuterium in condensed
matter under ambient conditions. Further progress has been made in many
laboratories during the last few months in experiment design, reliability
and reproductivity.
 
The purpose of this conference is to provide a forum for scientists
engaged in active research on the subject to interchange ideas, present
recent results and consider the significance of these new results,
demonstrations and developments in the theory. We would like to extend our
warmest invitation to all of you to join together in this discussion of
the research.
 
Format of the conference: 9-13 April 1995
 
9 April, Sunday - Registration and Welcome Reception
10 April, Monday - 13 April, Thursday - Presentations in the following
subject areas:
 
* Demonstration Devices and their Characterization
* Calorimetry
* Improved Precision Calormetric Techniques
* Excess Power Generation
* Materials and Fundamentals
* Electrochemical Studies of Deuterated Metal Systems
* Nuclear Measurements
* Solid State Theory
* Solid-State Physics of Metal Matrices
* Behavior of Gas-Metal Systems
* Safety Issues
* Coherent Processes
* Scientific Equipment and Supply Exhibition
 
Call for Abstracts
 
One page abstract due: 1 January 1995
 
Accepted contributions will be presented either as poster sessions and/or
oral presentations. The authors will be notified by the Advisory Committee
as soon as the abstracts have been reviewed.
 
Submit three copies of a one page abstract in English giving the title of
the presentation, contact author, and affiliation to:
 
Mr. Jaques Payet, ICCF-5
c/o IMRA EUROPE  S.A., Centre Scientifique
B.P. 213 - 220, rue Albert Caquot
06904 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
Tel: (33) 93 95 73 37  Fax: (33) 93 95 73 30
 
The registration fee for conference participants is 2.600 French Francs
which is due along with the abstract(s) for presentations and hotel
reservation requests. The registration fee includes a copy of the
conference proceedings, coffee breaks, the Conference banquet and the
welcome reception.
 
The registration fee for accompanying persons is 1.000 French Francs which
includes the welcome reception, coffee breaks, the Conference banquet and
a sightseeing tour.
cudkeys:
cuddy3 cudenjedrothwell cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Alan M /  Re: Kunich versus Rothwell
     
Originally-From: Alan@moonrake.demon.co.uk ("Alan M. Dunsmuir")
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Kunich versus Rothwell
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 07:25:12 +0000
Organization: Home

In article: <MATT.94Dec31140445@physics7.berkeley.edu>  matt@physics7.be
keley.edu (Matt Austern) 
writes:
> Either Pons was mistaken and thought that he had
> a working, practical cold fusion water heater when he really just had
> a useless lump of glass and metal, or else his press conference was
> fraudulent, or else he really did have a device in his lab that could
> use cold fusion to produce enough hot water to heat a home.
> 
I think you were seeing there one consequence of the philosophy (of 
which Jed is an ardent supporter) which says, "if it works, who gives a 
f*** about the theory". I suspect Pons _thought_ he had a working model; 
had no idea how it worked, but assumed that he'd get it all sorted out 
within the year.

It's as eloquent a claim as is possible for the alternative paradigm: 
"Let's get the theory sorted out before we make claims about 
practicality."

Alan M. Dunsmuir [@ his wits end]     (Can't even quote poetry right)

         I am his Highness' dog at Kew
         Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you?
			      [Alexander Pope]

PGP Public Key available on request.


cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Craig DeForest /  cmsg cancel <ZOWIE.95Jan2203034@daedalus.stanford.edu>
     
Originally-From: zowie@daedalus.stanford.edu (Craig "Physicist" DeForest)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories,alt.energy.renewable,alt.parane
.science,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.bio,sci.energy,sc
.energy.hydrogen,sci.environment,sci.materials,sci.physics,sci.physics.f
sion,sci.physics.particle
Subject: cmsg cancel <ZOWIE.95Jan2203034@daedalus.stanford.edu>
Date: 3 Jan 95 01:35:12
Organization: Stanford Center for Space Science and Astrophysics

cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Richard Schultz /  Re: Kunich versus Rothwell
     
Originally-From: schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Kunich versus Rothwell
Date: 3 Jan 1995 12:27:03 GMT
Organization: Philosophers of the Dangerous Maybe

In article <ZE0aAtC.jedrothwell@delphi.com>,  <jedrothwell@delphi.com> wrote:

>2. Now, while you are in that willful state of pretend amnesia, go to the
>library and read several good papers on cold fusion, from people like Storms,
>McKubre, Miles, Miley or Mizuno (we have a lot of good "M" scientists).
>Read about the tritium experiments underway at Los Alamos, or read the Canon
>patent. Pick any paper you -- there are hundreds to choose from. Many of them
>will reference P&F, but pretend you had not read those footnotes.
 
If I read papers from several different authors, and they all claim excess
heat output but agree on nothing else, what am I supposed to conclude?
As I posted elsewhere, "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence."
That several people agree that they are getting excess heat is a necessary
but not a sufficient condition to show that they are measuring anything
other than a delusion.  If one author reports 3He (but no neutrons!), and
another reports 4He, and another reports 56Fe (!), then I have to 
suspect that there is a problem somewhere.  I get the impression from
what I have read here that each SCCF scientist has his own experiment with
his own protocols.  Have any of them tried to repeat another scientist's
experiment?  If so, what results did they get?

>3. Having done that, try judging CF as a field of science. Forget all about
>your personal judgments of the personality or competance of Pons and
>concentrate instead on *objective, peer reviewed, replicated, experimental
>data*. 
 
Since I work for a living as a scientist, I can assure you that plenty
of junk gets into the literature.  It is a problem with the peer review
system that people tend to say "fine, print it" rather than "this is junk"
because the latter response demands a lot more effort on the part of the
referee.  I could point you at plenty of *objective, peer reviewed, replicated,
experimental data* that is -- wrong.  Starting with N-Rays, but also in
many much less controversial areas.

>4. Report back if you find any mistakes in the calorimetry. If you do not
>find any mistake, then you must admit that I am right: CF *does* produce
>heat beyond the limits of chemistry. It does produce thousands of electron
>volts of energy per atom, with no known upper limit. You will not find any
>errors I am sure; you will see that I am right. The trick is for you to
>FORGET EVERYTHING ELSE and concentrate on that one scientifically proven
>fact, and its implications for science and mankind.
 
I believe that this is called "the fallacy of the excluded middle."
The choice is not simply (1) I find a mistake or (2) you must be
right.  Just because I cannot find an error does not mean that there are
no errors.  To give a more obvious example, I certainly would never have 
been able to find the error in Wiles's original "proof" of Fermat's
Last Theorem, and yet the error existed.  My field is not calorimetry,
and given the historical unwillingness of CF workers to provide enough
experimental detail to let the uninitiated know what is going on, I
probably would not find the errors.  On the other hand, I do have some
experience in mass spectrometry and most of the MS work done by CF
scientists seems to have been done in a completely incompetent fashion.

I do not claim that CF is impossible, only that it is extremely unlikely.
Given its unlikeliness, I will stick by "extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence."  For example, Professor Jones has repeatedly
offered the use of his X-Ray Spectrometer to any CF scientist who wants
to use it.  Has anyone taken him up on the offer?  Despite Mitch Swartz's
best efforts, I am unconvinced by the claim that there won't be any
energetic radiation from any of the putative CF mechanisms -- I prefer
to stick with old fashioned notions like conservation of momentum.

>As I see it, your problem is that you are focussed exclusively on your
>perception of the personality of Pons -- who is merely one CF scientist
>out of many hundreds. You should forget about personalities and look at
>scientific data instead. Also, for goodness sake, forget about theories.
>No theory can ever disprove what experiments show is truth.

It has nothing to do with the personality of Pons.  I was simply pointing
out that my introduction to the field was observation of someone who
had clearly gone beyond the limits of his competence.  As I recall, at
the time, you were one of the strongest "drum beaters" (to use your
term) for Pons and Fleischman.  No doubt Professor Jones will be able
to dig out of his archives the nice things you had to say about Frank 
Close who actually took the trouble of analyzing their "objective
peer reviewed" data and found it wanting.  What happened to your
enthusiasm for them?

As for your contention that "no theory can ever disprove what experiments
show is truth":  does this mean that I have to accept the reality of 
N-Rays?  When an experiment purports to overturn a strongly established
theory, that experiment must receive considerably more scrutiny than an
experiment that does not.  In my estimation, the CF experimenters have
not yet shown any compelling reason to throw out not just current
nuclear theory (which, despite your ignorance, is well established) but
also *other low-energy nuclear experiment* which the CF true believers
find it most convenient to ignore.  The question is not experiment vs.
theory:  it is *competent* experiment and *competent* theory, and so
far, I think that they both point toward the nonexistence of CF as a
real phenomenon.
--
				Richard Schultz

"It is terrible to die of thirst in the ocean.  Do you have to salt your
truth so heavily that it does not even quench thirst any more?"
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Eugene Mallove /  Britz Abandons Science
     
Originally-From: 76570.2270@compuserve.com (Eugene Mallove)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Britz Abandons Science
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 14:22:05 GMT
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway

A perfect statement from Britz, a True (Dis)Believer who has abandoned science
for his pseudo-scientific religion:


>Thank you, Tom, but no thank you. I have a full program and no time to spare;
>and I really am a skeptic, you know, and I wouldn't attend a conference 
>devoted to something I don't believe in, when I can't get to all those 
>that I do believe in.
>
>-- Dieter  alias britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk

"Something I don't believe in," indeed.

What a Fool you are, Britz. May we have no more blabbliographies from you in 
1995!

Gene Mallove
Cold Fusion Technology
Box 2816
Concord, NH 03302-2816
 

cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Marco Nelissen /  Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
     
Originally-From: marcone@xs1.xs4all.nl (Marco Nelissen)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories,alt.energy.renewable,alt.parane
.science,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.bio,sci.energy,sc
.energy.hydrogen,sci.environment,sci.materials,sci.physics,sci.physics.f
sion,sci.physics.particle
Subject: Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
Date: 3 Jan 1995 14:37:48 GMT
Organization: XS4ALL, networking for the masses

What if this (or any other) device worked by converting heat (*any* amount
of heat, no matter how small), into the form of energy you want, say
electricity, or movement of a car?
Would this not create a TRUE perpetual motion machine? I mean, all energy
eventually ends up as heat, so basically such a machine would run on its
own waste-products. And it wouldn't create anything out of nothing, it
would just keep running, giving energy in some useable form, and later
get it back as heat.
Just a theory, I don't claim such a machine exists.

Marco
cudkeys:
cuddy3 cudenmarcone cudfnMarco cudlnNelissen cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Dieter Britz /  Re: Britz Abandons Science
     
Originally-From: Dieter Britz <britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Britz Abandons Science
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 16:49:24 +0100
Organization: DAIMI, Computer Science Dept. at Aarhus University

On Tue, 3 Jan 1995, Eugene Mallove wrote:

> A perfect statement from Britz, a True (Dis)Believer who has abandoned science
> for his pseudo-scientific religion:
> 
> 
> >Thank you, Tom, but no thank you. I have a full program and no time to spare;
> >and I really am a skeptic, you know, and I wouldn't attend a conference 
> >devoted to something I don't believe in, when I can't get to all those 
> >that I do believe in.
> >
> >-- Dieter  alias britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk
> 
> "Something I don't believe in," indeed.
> 
> What a Fool you are, Britz. May we have no more blabbliographies from you in 
> 1995!
> 
> Gene Mallove
> Cold Fusion Technology
> Box 2816
> Concord, NH 03302-2816
>  

No, you may not have no more blabbliographies, they are coming as soon as I
work out how to do it from this machine. So brace yourself, dear Gene.
Will you be going to the crop circles symposium? I am sure there must be one
on somewhere.

-- Dieter Britz  alias  britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk

cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Cameron Bass /  Re: What is your opinion?
     
Originally-From: crb7q@watt.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: What is your opinion?
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 15:39:00 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <1995Jan2.223127.7823@driftwood.cray.com>,
John M. Logajan <logajan@cray.com> wrote:
>Cameron Randale Bass (crb7q@watt.seas.Virginia.EDU) wrote:
>:      Funny.  That's the same argument used by people who think UFO's
>:      are aliens from other planets.
>
>This is not a proper logical construct.

     Certainly it is.  Jed's assertion that 'the probability is zero that
     all of them are wrong' is goofy.  An example is far more effective than
     just stating the case.

>For instance, Adolph Hitler believed that 2+2=4, therefore if you believe
>that 2+2=4 you are (not) tainted with all the sins of Hitler.

     In this case, however, it is not sharing the belief that is the problem.
     It is the nature of the belief.  The nature of Jed's argument is shared
     across very many 'fringe' and loony pursuits, and it is the nature
     of that argument that is damning.  In your terms, sharing with Hitler
     the desire to exterminate various subgroups of people certainly
     damns one with that particular sin.

     In any case, you should know better.
     
>I'm picking on Cameron Randale Bass here because there have been a flurry
>of less than optimal logical contructs asserted by people who should
>know better.

     I'd hope that the logic police would better learn the rules of the
     road.

>Remember people, the more sweeping your assertions, the more likely they
>will be prone to unanticipated exceptions.

     But make sure that the exception holds before pointing it out...

                               dale bass
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Richard Schultz /  Re: Kunich versus Rothwell
     
Originally-From: schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Kunich versus Rothwell
Date: 3 Jan 1995 23:10:48 GMT
Organization: Philosophers of the Dangerous Maybe

In article <p63aQzM.jedrothwell@delphi.com>,  <jedrothwell@delphi.com> wrote:

>If you find nothing wrong with the calorimetry, and you see they are
>measuring power levels as high as 80 to 200 watts (which are so high they
>are impossible to miss) then you must conclude the excess heat they measure
>is real. 
 
What part of my explanation of "The Fallacy of the Excluded Middle" did
you not understand?

BTW, the reason that many of the skeptics like to ask about the water
heater is given in your sentence above:  if measuring 200 watts is so
easy, surely it must be even easier to determine whether one has a
working water heater or not.

And you seem to have slid by my other point:  I do not know much about
electrochemistry, but I do know about mass spectrometry.  Why should I
assume that the CF scientists are any more competent at the former than
they are at the latter?

>This is nonsense. It is pure, unadulterated, nonsense. First you tell us you
>have not read the papers or looked at the conference proceedings, then you
>say "they have not provided enough experimental detail." What you mean is

I will confess that I read the two big Pons and Fleischmann papers and
then gave up the exercise as a pointless one.  Perhaps I am not
sufficiently patient.  I will point out to you that in general, if
a scientist never publishes his data outside of a conference proceedings,
that's usually not a good sign for the quality that *he* ascribes to the
data.
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Richard Schultz /  Re: Calorimetry easier than Fermat's Last Theorem proof
     
Originally-From: schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Calorimetry easier than Fermat's Last Theorem proof
Date: 3 Jan 1995 23:23:06 GMT
Organization: Philosophers of the Dangerous Maybe

In article <5Cy7YpB.jedrothwell@delphi.com>,  <jedrothwell@delphi.com> wrote:
 
>Mr. Shultz:
 
It's spelled "Schultz", btw.

>This is a very bad "obvious example." You could not have picked a worse one.
>The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (FLT) is as different from CF as anything
>in science can be, for a number of reasons:

Do you go to a special school to practice missing the point completely?
I ask because you do it so well.  The point was not that Fermat's Last
Theorem per se is "the same" as SCCF.  The point was that I am not competent
to find errors in a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, so just because I
fail to find an error does not mean that there are none.  Similarly, I
have no particular experience in electrochemistry.  So just because I
cannot find an error in the report of a particular experiment does not
mean that there are none.  Especially if the error is a subtle one.

If you still don't understand why your challenge that if *I* can't find an
error then I must concede there are none is meaningless, please let me
know, and I will try to explain it again (for what will then be the
fourth time).
--
					Richard Schultz

"You don't even have a clue as to which clue you're missing." -- Miss Manners

cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Tom Droege /  Re: When is the Nice conference?
     
Originally-From: Droege@fnal.fnal.gov (Tom Droege)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: When is the Nice conference?
Date: 3 Jan 1995 23:26:15 GMT
Organization: fermilab

In article <1995Jan3.181917.9873@midway.uchicago.edu>, gk00@quads.uchica
o.edu (Greg Kuperberg) says:
>
>When is the Nice conference supposed to be?  If a date has not yet been
>set, there is always the possibility that Pons and Fleischmann will
>just leave everyone hanging.

I would like to ask everyone here who has previously attended any of
the cold fusion conferences, did you get the announcement of ICCF5?

I did not.  The usual practice for conferences is to at least invite 
everyone who has attended previous conferences.  I attended the first,
and fourth, and paid registration for the second.  So I should be on
the mailing list.  

It seems to me that there is list editing going on here.  In particular
the January 1 paper deadline, and the lack of mailing to at least me,
seem to indicate to me that the conference sponsers are trying to make
sure that skeptics do not show up.  It seems to me that the two papers
I have published in cold fusion conference proceedings should not have
earned me the label of "flaming" skeptic.  They were factual papers and
mostly emphasized good measurement technique.  They were both open to
the possibility of the effect.  

So why have I been left off the list???

Possibly if all who have attended the conferences respond, we can 
spot a pattern?

Possibly they just dropped the D's on the floor or something.  Wonder 
if someone else can comment on the M's and the J's?

I need not point out (but do) that editing an invitation list is 
somewhat beyond the standard practice for scientific meetings.  Perhaps
the conference sponsers would like to explain their mailing selection
proceedure.  

Tom Droege
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / K Jonsson /  Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
     
Originally-From: kvj@rhi.hi.is (Kristjan Valur Jonsson)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.energy,sci.energy.hydrogen,sci.environment,sci.m
terials,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.particle
Subject: Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
Date: 3 Jan 1995 23:16:51 GMT
Organization: University of Iceland

In <3ecaet$5eu@post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Dan_Schwarcz@ccmail.gsfc.nasa.gov
(Dan Schwarcz) writes:

>In article <3e1hkp$rt2@shemesh.tis.com>, richard@tis.com (Richard Clark) says:
>>
>>Perhaps the experimenters are not claiming anything so radical as a violation
>>of any fundamental law, but rather a new way to use one. For instance,
>>rather than simply generating energy from "nowhere", perhaps it turns out
>>that their peizo is sucking up elecrons from the surrounding air and converting
>>these to energy. No laws broken. 

>WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!

>It is exactly this simplistic, ignorant type of post, where someone with a high-
>school science education declares that "no laws are broken" when spouting 
>nonsense that violates the most fundamental building blocks of our technological
>society, that drives the rest of us nuts!

Please Sir, calm theeself.
Perhaps  the explanation offered above is nonsense, but it appears to be
offered logical argument, not a physics law.

I stand firmly in my opinion that there may still be some undiscovered
sources some undiscovered mechanisms, to extract energy.  It's that simple,
whether the MRA has any merit to it or not.  It has absolutely nothing to
do with the MRA.

Kristjan
(if my sig appears doubly again, I'll hang my sysop)


-- 
Kristjan Valur Jonsson               |    The individual does not qualify for
Student of mechanical engineering,   |         making decisions regarding the
University of Iceland                |                 activities of the many.
Exclaimer: Yess!                     |                         (Helmut, 1993)
-- 
Kristjan Valur Jonsson               |    The individual does not qualify for
Student of mechanical engineering,   |         making decisions regarding the
University of Iceland                |                 activities of the many.
Exclaimer: Yess!                     |                         (Helmut, 1993)
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 / Dan Schwarcz /  Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
     
Originally-From: Dan_Schwarcz@ccmail.gsfc.nasa.gov (Dan Schwarcz)
Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.materials,sci.physics,sci.phy
ics.fusion,sci.physics.particle
Subject: Re: Free Energy Device (Magnetic Resonance Amp)
Date: 3 Jan 1995 23:29:04 GMT
Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA

In article <3ecifh$q2b@shemesh.tis.com>, richard@tis.com (Richard Clark) says:
>
>In article <3ecaet$5eu@post.gsfc.nasa.gov> Dan_Schwarcz@ccmail.gsfc.nas
.gov (Dan Schwarcz) writes:
>>>
>>>Perhaps the experimenters are not claiming anything so radical as a violation
>>>of any fundamental law, but rather a new way to use one. For instance,
>>>rather than simply generating energy from "nowhere", perhaps it turns out
>>>that their peizo is sucking up elecrons from the surrounding air and
>>>converting
>>>these to energy. No laws broken. 
>>
>>WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!
>>
>>It is exactly this simplistic, ignorant type of post, where someone with a
>>high-
>>school science education declares that "no laws are broken" when spouting 
>>nonsense that violates the most fundamental building blocks of our
>>technological
>>society, that drives the rest of us nuts!
>> [snip]
>
>This ranting brought to you by the same people who still believe that a photon
>is a point particle... The same people who can't find most of the "missing"
>mass in the universe... The same people still looking for a "gravitron"...

No, actually.  I'm none of those guys.

>I personally don't know *how* their device works, if it actually does. What I
>was trying to do is explain that there are plenty of odd ways to utilize
>existing "laws" wherein useful things can be done without violating any said
>"laws".

If that was your post, it showed an astonishing lack of understanding of those
"laws", and so undermined the credibility of your message.  It was like saying
"sure, gravity will always push down, but if you lie on your back while you
jump off a building, then it'll push sideways because that's where your feet 
are pointing.  See?  You can fly, and the law of gravity isn't broken, just
used differently."  To someone who doesn't know how gravity works, this seems
reasonable.  To anyone familiar with gravity, it is a stupid joke.  Most of
what's been written about this MRA falls into the same category.  The writings
of that Joel character about superconductivity in his house wiring caused by
virtual particles popping his 60 watt light bulbs - well, I can hardly believe
that *anyone* could write something like that and actually believe it.  It reads
like a classic case of someone using technobabble to baffle the suckers with
bullshit.

There are indeed lots of ways to utilize the laws of physics, and some will
work and others will not.  The field of science which studies whether or not
a given device will work is called "thermodynamics."  It has been tested
literally millions of times, by people in all branches of science and 
engineering, and continues to be tested daily in laboratories, classrooms
and in industry.  It has always, repeat, ALWAYS been 100% accurate in
predicting whether a device can work.  Not whether it *will* work, because
that's often a design issue, but whether it *can* work, whatever the design
(given its operating parameters.)  The number of people who have claimed to 
find some device like this silly MRA thing are in the untold thousands, and
each and every one of them has ultimately been shown to be either mistaken
or simply a scam.  I designed one when I was about 12, by the way, and refused
to believe my father when he said it wouldn't work.  This wasn't because I
was an openminded genius who was expanding the frontiers of mankind's 
knowledge, as you seem to believe, but because I was a 12 year old kid without
the slightest understanding of science or basic engineering.

The three laws of thermodynamics are not negotiable.  They are not silly little
ideas that we've decided to believe for political reasons.  They are ironclad
rules that govern the nature of the universe, and every generation of scientists
wrestles with them and tries to find exceptions to them and tries to work
around them, and ultimately accepts that they are what they seem - basic,
fundamental rules that are as reliable, if not more so, than gravity.

Perpetual motion machines do not, and cannot, work.  Anyone who believes 
otherwise will either lose money building one or lose it investing in one.

It doesn't matter where you think the energy "comes from" or what the mechanism
is to "capture" it.  The first and second law of thermodynamics are the most
fundamental, basic, absolute conditions of the universe, and this statement,
while appearing "extreme" to those who don't know much about it, is in fact
the basic building block to our entire technological civilization.  Your
computer wouldn't have been designed, much less work, if we got this one thing
wrong.  Virtually EVERYTHING in science and technology follows from these
laws, at some level.  Just to make a silicon chip requires dozens of processes
that use the laws of thermodynamics in excruciating and complex detail, and
if they didn't work, neither would the processes used to make the chips!

Do you know anything about chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or molecular beam
epitaxy (MBE)?  I'm not dropping names to sound erudite, these are simply
essential manufacturing processes for electronic devices that use thermodynamics
*every day* in order to work properly.

>Tell me, how *does* superconductivity really work anyway... If we even knew
>that, we'd be well on our way to simply designing the appropriate structures
>instead of searching blindly for room temp...

Read some of the literature on superconductivity, and you'll find that it's a
lot better understood than you think.  What makes you think anyone is "searching
blindly for room temp?"  It's this comic-book understanding of science which
is fine for young people interested in learning more, but obnoxious in loud
people who insist that those who are better informed don't know what they're
talking about.

>>There's a big difference between an open mind and an empty one.
>> While we don't 
>>know *everything*, that doesn't mean that we don't know *anything*.

>Bet you were one of the folks out telling the Wright Bros. that it was
>physicaly impossible to build anything heavier than air that would fly.
>Probably sat there wondering how a bird could change its weight when it took
>off...

Nah.  That was some other guy.  Probably not a scientist, though.  Certainly
not a good one.

>>Dr. Dan Schwarcz
>>Getting depressed about our educational system.
>
>Then encourage questioning of our thought processes instead of spewing
>"facts" to our youngsters... I too, dislike the system.

In the classroom, where I've spent a lot of time with kids from 6 years up to
graduate school, I've always encouraged questions and *never* "spewed facts" 
to them.  Rather, I encourage the student to work through the problem, giving
help as needed, so that they see how the solution is arrived at and I give
everyday, common examples to anchor the solution in the real world.  For
example, I've used paper clips to illustrate work hardening, rubber bands to
demonstrate entropy, and seltzer bottles to illustrate the Gibbs Phase rule.

In these posts I didn't see any youngsters asking questions or actually trying
to learn anything, but rather the loud, aggresive insistence that all ideas
are equivalent, all "theories" and claims should get equal attention because
"science" doesn't know everything.  In fact, the people posting this are really
just advertising what *they themselves* don't know, and projecting this onto
"science".  Of course there are unanswered questions and mysteries in science
- that's what makes it fun!  But there are also *answered* questions in 
science, and these tend to *stay* answered, period.  Nothing Einstein said
changed the fact that if you jump off of a building you will go *splat*, and
nothing in quantum physics changes this either.  Newton was right, and his 
laws simply needed to be expanded to account for other situations.

Dan Schwarcz

Followups trimmed of sci.bio, as requested.
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------------------------------
1995.01.03 /  jonesse@acoust /  Re: Dr. Pons' water heater
     
Originally-From: jonesse@acoust.byu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Dr. Pons' water heater
Date: 3 Jan 95 16:08:36 -0700
Organization: Brigham Young University

In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.950102102234.6737B-100000@alpha.kemi.aau.dk>,
Dieter Britz <britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk> writes:
> On 31 Dec 1994, Matt Austern wrote:
> 
>> In article <D1otKC.Ep9@park.uvsc.edu> mmm@park.uvsc.edu (Mark Muhlestein) writes:
>> 
>> > The following article appeared in the Salt Lake City Deseret News, Saturday,
>> > July 8, 1989:
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> > A device the size of a thermos that could satisfy the hot-water requirements
>> > of an average home is already percolating in the lab of B. Stanley Pons.
>> > 
> [...]
>> As far as I'm concerned, actually, the story of that gizmo is the one
>> crucial question about "cold fusion".  I'm reminded of C .S. Lewis's
>> famous trichotomy about Jesus: Jesus, said Lewis, was either mad, or a
>> liar, or genuinely divine.  
> 
> The way I remember the book, which I read about 35 years ago, is that CSL
> left out the liar possibility; had me wondering... Any relevance to CNF, I
> wonder?
> 
> I think the CNF TB's will at some stage have to admit that this little water
> heater was a false front PR device, and therefore not to be taken seriously.
> This will, of course, leave us wondering what else has been in that 
> category...
> 
> -- Dieter Britz  alias  britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk
> 

There is reason to doubt that CF TB's will ever admit this, however.

At the CF meeting in Salt Lake (U. Utah) in March 1990 (about one year since
CF hit the fan at the press conference), Pons spoke about CF without
mentioning this water heater claim.  I stood and displayed an overhead
transparency taken from the newspaper article posted by Mark Muhlestein.
I quoted parts where Pons made the claim of having a working demonstration
water heater, and asked what the status of this was.

He declined to answer my question.  Tom Droege was at the meeting, I think,
and may remember the interchange.  I still have the newspaper article (yellowed
by now).  Psychologists might want to follow the water heater thread as it
has reappeared in Pons' remarks -- e.g., a claim he made on Canadian TV about
two years ago of having a water heater working within the year probably.
And claims of boiling water cells, etc.

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------------------------------
1995.01.03 /  jonesse@acoust /  RE:  Dr. Bockris 4-body reaction/further experiments
     
Originally-From: jonesse@acoust.byu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: RE:  Dr. Bockris 4-body reaction/further experiments
Date: 3 Jan 95 16:23:48 -0700
Organization: Brigham Young University

To review:  John Bockris and R. Sundaresan "suggested as the origin of the 
iron" in carbon-arc-in-water experiments, the following four-body nuclear
reaction:

  12C +12C +18O +18O --> 56Fe + 4He.

A recent paper in Fusion Technology cites this paper and carries on further
experiments of this type.  [M. Singh et al., Fusion Tech. Nov. 1994. p. 266.]
These researchers at BARC (cleverly) tested the ratio of 57Fe/56Fe in the
"iron recovered from the graphite residue" along with analysis of natural
iron.  If Bockris is right, one would expect more 56Fe one supposes -- in
any case, a nuclear reaction would be unlikely to produce the *same*
57Fe/56Fe ratio as found on earth.  But contamination would yield the same
ratio in the carbon detritus, of course.  The result:

Natural iron, 57Fe/56Fe   0.0230 +- 0.0002
Carbon arc      "         0.0231 +- 0.0007
                          0.0230 +- 0.0002 (another expermental run)
                          0.0232 +- 0.0002 (yet another run).

The 54Fe/56Fe ratio was also found, in the carbon residue, to correspond to
the ratio found in nature:
              54Fe/56Fe   0.0638 +- 0.005 (natural iron), 
                          0.0635 +- 0.0010 (in carbon residue)

Also,
"It appears that in the first few experiments when iron was found to be high,
other elements like silicon, chromium, and nickel were also high and 
dropped to lower values in the subsequent experiments [as did iron]."

These results imply that the iron found in the carbon residue at the bottom
of the cell comes from contamination, not from a wild 4-body nuclear reaction!

--Steven Jones 
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------------------------------
1995.01.04 / Carlos Antunes /  Re: Prasad's theorem!  was Re: Conservation violation...
     
Originally-From: cmsa@individual.puug.pt (Carlos Antunes)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Prasad's theorem!  was Re: Conservation violation...
Date: 4 Jan 1995 01:05:00 GMT
Organization: PUUG (individual services)

In article <3ebun0$g3o@watnews1.watson.ibm.com>, c1prasad@watson.ibm.com (prasad) says:
>
>constraint.  There's no way anyone can encode infinite information of the
>structure of the universe (this universe, not a statistical view that cannot
>distinguish from the "alternate universes"!) in a finite sentence of symbols,
>be they mathematical, english or greek.  Feynman gives the example of
>

This is simply not correct! For instance, N is the set of all naturals and
they are infinite in number. But dispite the fact that they are infinite
in number doesn't mean they can't be "explained" in terms of a simple rule
made from a finite set of symbols. In this case, all natural numbers
can be built given the first and specifying a rule to build the next. The
process can be repeated ad infinitum (induction).

There is also other question too: if the Universe is made of a finite
number (in type) of particles, how come the information is infinite?

Regards,
Carlos Antunes.

 ======================================================================
|  Carlos Antunes @ Lisbon/Portugal/European Union     Developing for  |
|    Phone: +351-1-3975303   Fax: +351-1-3975889         Windows NT    |
 ======================================================================
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