1995.03.27 / mitchell swartz /  Bottom line?  - and more info
     
Originally-From: mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Bottom line?  - and more info
Subject: Re: Bottom line?
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 07:31:37 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

  In Message-ID: <3l5gkr$qc9@sundog.tiac.net>
Subject: Re: Bottom line?
Harry H Conover (conover@max.tiac.net) wrote:
  
  :>experiment.If it had worked, it certainly would have been.But none
  :>of us could make it work.  Sigh!!  [Tom Droege <Droege@fnal.fnal.gov>]
 :This is nonsense. None of us? Who are us? I know dozens of people who have
 :made it work: McKubre, Storms, Arata, Miles, Kunimatsu, Ikegami . . .
 :*You* were not able to make it work. Unless you have worms, I think you should
 :refer to yourself in the first person singular and say "I could not make it
 :work.":Others made it work but you did not. That is because your cells were not
 :kept sufficiently clean, loading was uneven, and the Pd materials were not
 :tested sufficiently in advance, among other reasons.[jedrothwell@delphi.com ]
=[zip - another one of Harry's well meaning but ill-informed pontifications!]
=With this deep rooted insight into why the CF experiments of others have
=failed, you obviously must have the esoteric knowedge required to produce
=reproducible CF.  Why haven't you reported these successes?

  He did. Harry.  McKubre, Storms, Arata, Miles, Kunimatsu, Ikegami 
and more.         ;-)X
  You might try to read more of the recent literature and 
comment upon it with specificity.  You seem to be projecting your
own feelings in your attacks on Jed.   Enjoy your posts but do
not be misled by failing to read the literature

  Best wishes.
          Mitchell
      ==============================
   COLD FUSION TIMES
  for more info on cold fusion material science
phenomena.   reply with e-mail  
             subject "info-spf"





cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenmica cudfnmitchell cudlnswartz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / I Johnston /  Re: Solar -VS- Fusion
     
Originally-From: ianj@castle.ed.ac.uk (I Johnston)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Solar -VS- Fusion
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 07:55:34 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

jedrothwell@delphi.com wrote:
: MARSHALL DUDLEY <mdudley@brbbs.brbbs.com> writes:
:  
: >Interesting comment.  According to Webster's New World Dictionary Corn is:
: >A cultivated American cereal plant of the grass family.
:  
: "Corn" also means grain of any kind. In the U.K. the word is often used in
: that sense. To avoid confusion, biologists generally call it "maize."
:  

Corn generally means "the-most-common-crop-grown-round-here" - so in the
US it's maize, in England it's wheat and it Scotland it's rye.

Ian
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenianj cudfnI cudlnJohnston cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Dieter Britz /  Re: Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
     
Originally-From: Dieter Britz <britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 11:22:34 +0200
Organization: DAIMI, Computer Science Dept. at Aarhus University

On Fri, 17 Mar 1995, Robert F. Heeter wrote:

[...] 
> Note to Dieter:  Where's that MODERATED group when you need it?
> 

Good question. I tried to get the voting going last Monday, was given an
email address, emailed that but so far, no response. I'm trying to find out
what to do. Hang in there, something must happen soon.

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

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenbritz cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Dieter Britz /  Re: Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
     
Originally-From: Dieter Britz <britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 11:29:42 +0200
Organization: DAIMI, Computer Science Dept. at Aarhus University

On Sun, 19 Mar 1995, mitchell swartz wrote:

>   In Message-ID: <1995Mar17.043517.564@Princeton.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
> Robert F. Heeter <rfheeter@princeton.edu> writes:
> 
[...]
>   = "Note to Dieter: 
>   =   Where's that MODERATED group when you need it?"
> 
>  Isn't it interesting that your need for censorship to remove the competition
> against your hot fusion project at Princeton is always backed up
> by people in the UK, Germany, Denmark, and Canada.  
> How nice and ironic for them to use the US-generated Internet and 
> yet try to keep Americans from using the Internet.
> Glad you posted this on alt.conspiracy, seems quite fitting, doesn't it?
>                   

Isn't it interesting how logic can get tied into knots? Mitch, you are
aware of the fact that for some of us to retreat into a moderated group,
so that we can discuss stuff that interests us without the interference
from cranks, nuts and snake oil peddlers, is NOT keeping Americans
(or anyone else) from using the Internet, are you not? I take it you are
aware, so the above is just a bit of rhetoric, nyet?

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

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenbritz cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Dieter Britz /  Re: Griggs Report
     
Originally-From: Dieter Britz <britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Griggs Report
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 11:39:35 +0200
Organization: DAIMI, Computer Science Dept. at Aarhus University

On Wed, 22 Mar 1995, Cameron Randale Bass wrote:

> In article <3kfcub$leb@fnnews.fnal.gov>,
> Tom Droege <Droege@fnal.fnal.gov> wrote:
> >In article <3keuc9$kg3@msunews.cl.msu.edu>, schamber@egr.msu.edu (Alter ) says:
> >
> >Hay!  Who said their is any claim to prove?  Not Griggs.  He says he
> >does not claim over unity operation.  See his letter.  So what are 
> >we all debating about?
> >
> >Tom Droege
> 
>      I agree.  If he is not even willing to make such a claim,
>      why should we infer any such claim?  That seems to be the primary
>      result of the trip, that is, the specific lack of a claim of 
>      'over unity' operation by the 'inventor'.
> 
>      Without such a claim, or even a reasonable scientific case
>      that such a claim can be inferred, the case seems closed.
> 
>                            dale bass

... and that is how I feel about the Griggs debate. I see no evidence
whatever that, even if Griggs is getting free-lunch energy (which Tom
now has thrown strong doubts on, if there were not enough in the first
place) - that this has anything whatsoever to do with fusion, the focus
for this group. We have had a lack of focus here, to put it mildly. The
group is obviously seen as THE place to post your crank theory or bogus
claim for any kind of "energy". Let's forget the Griggs gadget, please,
I don't care about a good water heater, at least here.
Case closed, please?

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

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenbritz cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Paul Koloc /  Re: Solar -VS- Fusion
     
Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Solar -VS- Fusion
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 09:17:57 GMT
Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd.

In article <3kpijv$bts@curly.cc.utexas.edu> johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu
(John W. Cobb) writes:
>In article <D5tu11.7C3@prometheus.UUCP>,
>Paul M. Koloc <pmk@promethe.UUCP> wrote:

>>Japan???  They have little or no on site resources but do have a 
>>strong alternative concepts program. 

>Well, yes Japan does have a strong alternative concepts program. They have
>pinches, FRC's, and some really heavy-duty stellerators. In terms of
>site resources, though, Paul, I think you're a little mistaken. Have you
>seen the LHD site. It is huge. In terms of land area and in terms of the
>size of the experimental bays. I think they are probably big enough to
>stuff ITER into (maybe) although I don't know if there is a nearby water 
>source to use for cooling.

I meant energy resources... other than some junk that passes as a very
low grade coal.  Of course, they have paper from every japanese house that
re-paper the walls each year, (which is produced from trees gleened from
all the world's rain forests as well as the USA.)  Seems like Japan as a 
nation runs a close second to termites when it comes to wood consumption. 

And they get LNG from Indonesia and a bit of oil from here and there
including Alaska...  But consider if they could get fusion working, their
balance of payment surplus could become something other than "paltry".  
Lucky Billy Clinton is helping them out with his sink-the-buck-policy.  
Since, Japan (only) make many items that "America needs", then WE will 
buy them at any price.  Well, back to to the next question. .. heh! heh!

>So how do the Japanese do it? I was talking to one person, from LHD I 
>believe, who stated that the construction budget alone in the Japanese fusion
>program is larger than the entire U.S. program. Do they know something
>our congressional leaders don't?

Yep,  net POSITIVE cash flow.  Lowest Capital Gains Tax in the World.   

>Oh and by the way, Japan also has a tokamak Paul may have forgotten
>about, it's called JT-60U. It is on the scale of JET and TFTR, but a
>little younger in its life cycle. And man, it has some of the beefiest
>neutral beams going. It's big and it is muscular. Look for some good physics
>results from there in the next few years

They still won't get the Noble Prize
Gee, do the Japanese have problem with "lockstepping and follow the
other guy"?  Guess they know how to play fish school too -- when one
turns the next one turns and so on and so on .. . etc.  

>So I guess that Japan has a better balanced program than the U.S. in that
>it is a leader both in mainline approaches and in alternates. It is also
>a leader in auxilliary technologies like beams. So I guess it really supports
>Barry's point about a 50/50 mix. Paul it's time to kick in another dollar
>to match the one you already kick in for fusion. Then you will be
>happier. At least that is the conclusion if you are looking at Japan as
>a good example.

WOW!  only a buck ... Seems I've been dumping a few 10's of k$ each
year (at least).   Hmmm!   Where can I sign up for this cheapee group
plan? 

>>This plan has been neither suggested, nor worked out by DoE Germantown 
>>or DoE downtown DC.    --    nor will it likely be..

>I agree there. Although they do appear to be scrambling to avoid the 0/0
>mix that now seems popular based upon house whip-counts of fusion support.

I've even heard DoE is panicking it's employees into thinking that 
Congress is going to deep six the DoE Agency.   Hmmm!  If they go,
I won't have much to complain about, well ...    Look's like
I'll have to switch over to 99.9% fusion work.  
Not a bad scenario.  

>John W. Cobb	Quietly Making Noise, Pissing off the old Kill-Joys
>		-Jimmy Buffett

                           Who is Jimmy Buffett?? 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Paul M. Koloc, Bx 1037 Prometheus II Ltd, College Park MD 20741-1037    |
| mimsy!promethe!pmk; pmk%prometheus@mimsy.umd.edu   FAX (301) 434-6737   |
| VOICE (301) 445-1075   *****  Commercial FUSION in the Nineties *****   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Richard Schultz /  Re: Bottom line?
     
Originally-From: schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Bottom line?
Date: 27 Mar 1995 12:22:30 GMT
Organization: Philosophers of the Dangerous Maybe

In article <xk46fwg.jedrothwell@delphi.com>,  <jedrothwell@delphi.com> wrote:

>This experiments requires a high level of diligence and some expertise. It
>is not quite as difficult as manufacturing sarin poison gas -- judging by
>the Japanese news accounts of that job, and it is nowhere near as difficult
>as manufacturing a working semicondtor chip. But it does take a fair measure
>of hard work, attention to detail and cleanliness, and perhaps a year or two
>of practice. 

You mean that Nathan Lewis (well, actually I think it was a postdoc and
some grad students who actually built the thing), who according to the
reports I read built his cells from a *photograph* of the P&F apparatus,
just managed to get lucky somehow?
--
					Richard Schultz

"You don't even have a clue as to which clue you're missing." -- Miss Manners
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenschultz cudfnRichard cudlnSchultz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 /  csmsl@dc.wcape /  Re: Calculating Caloric Content
     
Originally-From: csmsl@dc.wcape.school.za
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Calculating Caloric Content
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 13:41:47 GMT
Organization: Diocesan College, Cape Town

In article <3kpho8$m8f@agate.berkeley.edu> schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu
(Richard Schultz) writes:
>From: schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz)
>Subject: Calculating Caloric Content
>Date: 22 Mar 1995 16:03:20 GMT

>In article <5e3Z2H0.jedrothwell@delphi.com>,  <jedrothwell@delphi.com> wrote:

>>The fact that cold
>>fusion device produce *thousands of times* more energy than the best chemical
>>fuels proves beyond any shadow of doubt that cold fusion cannot be a chemical
>>process.

>As I recall, you have said that no chemical reaction can produce more than
>18 eV/atom.  You also reported a claim that a cold fusion reaction has
>produced (after correction for your unit conversion error) 520 eV/atom.
>Stop me if I'm wrong, but my first guess would have been that 520/18 is
>less than 2000.

>I have also pointed out that it seems only fair that given (a) you made
>a factor of 10 error in your unit conversion and (b) you have never shown
>any understanding of error analysis, one can reasonably question your
>ability to do and understand the significance of the intermediate
>calculations that led you to accept the 520 eV/atom claim in the first 
>place.

>You also have not yet answered my other question, which is that if you
>think that empirical observation is so much more important than theory,
>why is Coulomb's Law (an empirical observation that has been confirmed
>experimentally to something like nin decimal places) not a concern?
>--
>                                        Richard Schultz

>"_Cro_, the Children's Television Workshop's attempt at a commercially
>appealing science cartoon show, will be cancelled in September by
>ABC TV. . . . In _Cro_'s time slot will go _Dumb and Dumber_, a cartoon
>about two moronic louts, derived from the movie of the same name."
>                                -- _Science_, 3 March 1995
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudencsmsl cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Harry Conover /  Re: Bottom line?  - and more info
     
Originally-From: conover@max.tiac.net (Harry H Conover)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Bottom line?  - and more info
Date: 27 Mar 1995 13:59:26 GMT
Organization: The Internet Access Company

mitchell swartz (mica@world.std.com) wrote:
:   In Message-ID: <3l5gkr$qc9@sundog.tiac.net>
: Subject: Re: Bottom line?
: Harry H Conover (conover@max.tiac.net) wrote:
:   
[snip, snip]

: =[zip - another one of Harry's well meaning but ill-informed 
pontifications!]
: =With this deep rooted insight into why the CF experiments of others have
: =failed, you obviously must have the esoteric knowedge required to produce
: =reproducible CF.  Why haven't you reported these successes?

:   He did. Harry.  McKubre, Storms, Arata, Miles, Kunimatsu, Ikegami 
: and more.         ;-)X

Read the post again Mitchell.  You miss the point entirely.

:   You might try to read more of the recent literature and 
: comment upon it with specificity. 

Seriously Mitchell, do you honestly believe that any of these represent 
CF successes, at least as measured by any reasonably scientific standards.
After reading the first 10-15 papers, all with quite obvious scientific 
shortcomings, I (and most other physicists) pretty much dismissed the 
entire CF concept as somewhat wishful thinking combined with physics 
performed by non-physicists.  Until the situation changes and allows the 
replication of work by compentent scientists, I see little reason to read 
unsubstantiated findings published in obscure, laregly unrecognized 
journals by those with very questionable credibility.

Don't you agree?

                                        Harry C.

ps. There is no REAL literature!


cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenconover cudfnHarry cudlnConover cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Ieromnimon F /  Re: Take Tom Droege Seriously?
     
Originally-From: ierof@csc2.essex.ac.uk (Ieromnimon F)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Take Tom Droege Seriously?
Date: 27 Mar 1995 14:29:40 GMT
Organization: University of Essex, Colchester, UK

In article <3k9rjl$4lu@paperboy.osf.org> condict@ziti.osf.org (Michael Condict) writes:
>In article <3k9pjt$6tb@stratus.skypoint.net>, jlogajan@skypoint.com
(John Logajan) writes: 
>> It has been experimentally demonstrated that H2O2 decomposes spontaneously
>> in the presence of Pt, all the way from 0C to 100C.  Tests were conducted
>> using standard 3% grade H2O2.  Decomposition rates increase with temperature.
>
>Many contact-lens wearers could have told you that without the experiment.
>There is a popular lens-sterilizing procedure which consists of sterilizing
>your lenses in peroxide, then putting them in a container with a small
>platinum-coated disk at the bottom of it.  Within 6 hours, the H2O2 is
>H2O and you can put the lenses directly into your eyes.  But note that
>the platinum disk has to be replaced every couple of months, because it
>becomes ineffective (presumably because it has sucked up as much hydrogen
>as it wants from a 3% peroxide solution).
						catalyst
Peroxide decomposition goes like this: 2 H2O2 ------------> 2 H2O + O2 + Q. No
free H2 anywhere. If the catalyst becomes ineffective, it could be due to muck
from the lenses gumming-up the catalyst and preventing the aforementioned
reaction.

>
>So there is no reason to expect H2O2 to decompose in the presence of
>fully loaded Pt.  Maybe this explanation needs further analysis.
>

Your refutation of the chemical explanation is bogus, if based on the premise
of H2 absorption by Pt while catalysing peroxide decomposition.

>-- 
>Michael Condict			condict@osf.org
>OSF Research Inst.		(617) 621-7349
>1 Cambridge Center
>Cambridge, MA 02142

Frank Ieromnimon,
ierof@essex.ac.uk.
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenierof cudfnIeromnimon cudlnF cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.26 / Bryan Wallace /  Re: The Farce of Physics
     
Originally-From: wallace@acasun.eckerd.edu (Bryan Wallace)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.philosophy.objectivis
,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,misc.books.technical,sci.astro,sci.energy,
ci.logic,sci.physics,sci.physics.electromag,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physi
s.particle,sci.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The Farce of Physics
Date: 26 Mar 1995 14:18:18 -0500
Organization: Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida

   In Chapter 5 of my book "The Farce of Physics" I wrote of my visit with
Lowell M. Hollingsworth, Technical Advisor for Electronics, Department of the
Air Force, who came to my hotel room to discuss the Venus radar evidence
against Einstein's relativity theories.  My principle reason for going to
Boston was to attend the December 26-31 1969 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE Meeting that included a symposium on "Unidentified
Flying Objects."  Thornton Page, who had been a major help in my relative
velocity of light research, was Chairman of the symposium, and the program
included just about all the major scientists that had been involved in UFO
research.  Page introduced me to Carl Sagan, and we had several interesting
conversations of the subject.  Sagan and Page edited a 1974 Norton book titled
"UFO's--A SCIENTIFIC DEBATE" that included most of the papers that were
presented at the symposium.  In Sagan's paper titled "UFO's: The
Extraterrestrial and Other Hypotheses" starting on page 267 he wrote:

  ... If we put in a number like 10^7 years for the average lifetime of
  advanced technical civilizations, we come out with a number for such
  technical civilizations in the galaxy of about a million: ... There are
  serious problems in interstellar flight, principally because the space
  between the stars is enormous. ... To travel very close to the speed of
  light is difficult.  There is a literature on the subject of relativistic
  interstellar flight, maybe thirty of forty papers in various scientific
  journals.^3 ... What I've learned from the Bussard idea is that is possible
  even at the present time to think of methods of running between the stars.
  ... What is critical is that there are conceivable ways of doing it without
  bumping into fundamental physical constraints. ...

On page 4 of the September 19, 1993 issue of the Sunday Newspaper PARADE
MAGAZINE in an article titled "The Search For Signals From Space" Sagan wrote:

     "It would be demoralizing to learn that our science is medieval."  But by
the standards of the next few centuries, at least some of our present science
will be considered medieval, extraterrestrials or no extraterrestrials. ...
"All through history, advanced civilizations ruin slightly more backward
civilizations."  Certainly.  But malevolent aliens, should they exist, will
not discover our existence from the fact that we listen.  The search programs
only receive; they do not send. ...

It is very possible that the survival of the human race will ultimately depend
on the level of our science and technology.  If we run into a malevolent
advanced alien civilization it could be the end of us!  We now have
observational evidence from 1982 to 1993 of gas clouds in a jet squirting from
the giant elliptical galaxy M87 at 2.5 times the standard speed of light, and
conventional relativity theory can not explain it.(Sky and Telescope Jan.
1995, page 15)  As I've shown in my book, the solar system radio and radar
data show that light in space can move faster than the standard earth lab
speed, now it appears that matter in space can also move faster than the
standard earth lab light speed limit!  One must realize that in 1905 when
Einstein wrote his first published paper on relativity, it was long before we
knew the true nature of galaxies or had any evidence of the background
radiation.  It was before the age of modern electronic technology and space
flight, and our ability to send light signals through empty space over large
distances from fast moving spacecraft.  In Chapter 3 of my book we find that
near the end of his life in 1954, Einstein wrote to his dear friend M. Besso:

  I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field
  concept,i.e., on continuous structures.  In that case, nothing remains of
  my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest
  of modern physics.

   Modern physics is largely a farce due to the fact that for pathological or
political reasons most modern physicists refuse to objectively evaluate the
modern observational evidence.  Richard Feynman was one of a small number of
physicists that have had the intelligence and courage to behave like
legitimate scientists on this matter.(James Gleick, GENIUS, THE LIFE AND
SCIENCE OF RICHARD FEYNMAN, Vintage Books, NY 1992)  As I've shown in Chapter
7 of my book, my research has only scratched the surface of the full potential
of the logical advance from the stationary ether/vacuum/space of Einstein with
its mystic infinite mass and energy properties, to the dynamic ether of
Feynman with its complete conservation of mass, momentum, and energy.(R. P.
Feynman, QED, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1985)  The computer
simulation of the mass dynamics showed the proper magnitudes for the
gravitational, electromagnetic, and nuclear forces using simple reasonable
algorithms, and it was also possible to make the heavier particles from
positive and negative electrons, just as John A. Wheeler suspected.  I expect
that some time in the future, man will discover some cute technological trick
that will upset the balance of the positrons and electrons and mass
annihilation will be man's principle energy source, perhaps even leading to
very powerful weapons and space travel at light speeds.  We have already sent
4 spacecraft out of the Solar System using chemical energy, but it will take
around 40,000 years for them to reach the nearest star systems.  Mass
annihilation will produce about 2 billion times more energy then chemical
reactions, giving us a more realistic source of power for space travel.  It
may be that Cold Fusion energy comes from annihilation and not fusion.  The
particle physicists should concentrate on creating energy from protons, and
not making useless unstable particles.  Of the many interesting comments on
the book that I've received to date, the most important one was by Wheeler who
wrote:

    "A dynamic ether, a compressible fluid that could move at the speed of
  light." I am delighted you take such a deep interest in a subject so
  important.

   In Chapter 4 of my book I give an example of the open arrogance and lack of
objectivity and integrity of the modern physics politicians that tend to
resist change to more realistic theories, I quote from the published
retirement address of the particle physicist Robert R. Wilson, the 1985
president of the American Physical Society:

    Just suppose, even though it is probably a logical impossibility, some
  smart aleck came up with a simple, self-evident, closed theory of
  everything.  I--and so many others--have had a perfectly wonderful life
  pursuing the will-o'-the-wisp of unification.  I have dreamed of my
  children, their children and their children's children all having this
  same beautiful experience.
    All that would end.
    APS membership would drop precipitously.  Fellow members, could we
  afford this catastrophe?  We must prepare a crisis-management plan for
  this eventuality, however remote.  First we must voice a hearty denial. 
  Then we should ostracize the culprit and hold up for years any
  publication by the use of our well-practiced referees.[28 p.30]

   My book is now archived in many Internet libraries and can be found by
using Gopher and World Wide Web and will be available from Project Gutenberg
archives and on their CDROM's.  The free standard 311KB ASCII version can be
obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.germany.eu.net in the directory
/pub/books/wallace by using "get farce.txt".  The file in the directory is in
a compressed form and called farce.txt.gz but if you leave off the .gz the
system will send you the uncompressed text.  Unix computer systems have a
command called "gunzip" that will uncompress the .gz format.  The
HTML/World-Wide Web Hypertext version of the book is available via

URL:http://www.Germany.EU.net/books/farce/farce.html

If one prefers to obtain a copy of the ASCII version by email they can send
the request to my wallace@eckerd.edu address, and if their system has a size
limit for email I can send the book in segments, with the largest being 55KB
for Chapter 3.

Bryan




cudkeys:
cuddy26 cudenwallace cudfnBryan cudlnWallace cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / mitchell swartz /  Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
     
Originally-From: mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
Subject: Re: Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 14:41:12 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

  In Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.950327112422.9484C-100000@alpha.kemi.aau.dk>
Subject: Re: Take Cold Fusion Seriously - more info sources
 Dieter Britz <britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk> writes:

 >Isn't it interesting that your need for censorship to remove the competition
 > against your hot fusion project at Princeton is always backed up
 > by people in the UK, Germany, Denmark, and Canada.  
 > How nice and ironic for them to use the US-generated Internet and 
 > yet try to keep Americans from using the Internet.
 > Glad you posted this on alt.conspiracy, seems quite fitting, doesn't it?
=Isn't it interesting how logic can get tied into knots? Mitch, you are
= aware of the fact that for some of us to retreat into a moderated group,
= so that we can discuss stuff that interests us without the interference
= from cranks, nuts and snake oil peddlers, is NOT keeping Americans
= (or anyone else) from using the Internet, are you not? I take it you are
=aware, so the above is just a bit of rhetoric, nyet?
= - Dieter Britz  alias  britz@kemi.aau.dk

You should get your moderated group:   sci.physics.fusion.moderated
The over-unity group ought get theirs: sci.physics.over-unity
The rest of us want information of fusion:  sci.physics.fusion
  and NOT attacks on people, posters, students, researchers;
including those who have taken the time to post other researchers'
findings on the net for the rest of us, and in
some cases have even translated the articles and then posted them.
To call such magnanimous people "snake oil salesman" has more
than the appearance of projection when it is done by "hot fusioneers"
and others determined to maintain the status quo.

   We need sensors, not censors.  Right?
   Take care, Dieter.   - Mitchell

================================================
 "Precedents are dangerous things"  George Washington,
    letter to Henry Lee   10/31/1786



cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenmica cudfnmitchell cudlnswartz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / mitchell swartz /  Bottom line? -- and more info
     
Originally-From: mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Bottom line? -- and more info
Subject: Re: Bottom line?  - and more info
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 14:42:33 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

  In Message-ID: <3l6gbu$d5a@sundog.tiac.net>
Subject: Re: Bottom line?  - and more info
Harry H Conover (conover@max.tiac.net) wrote:

 : =With this deep rooted insight into why the CF experiments of others have
 : =failed, you obviously must have the esoteric knowedge required to produce
 : =reproducible CF.  Why haven't you reported these successes?
 :   He did. Harry.  McKubre, Storms, Arata, Miles, Kunimatsu, Ikegami 
 : and more.         ;-)X
= "Read the post again Mitchell.  You miss the point entirely."

  Did so.  It is unscientific sniping, probably inappropriate for
your education level.


 :   You might try to read more of the recent literature and 
 : comment upon it with specificity. 
= "Seriously Mitchell, do you honestly believe that any of these represent 
= CF successes, at least as measured by any reasonably scientific standards.
= After reading the first 10-15 papers, all with quite obvious scientific 
= shortcomings, I (and most other physicists) pretty much dismissed the 
= entire CF concept as somewhat wishful thinking combined with physics 
=performed by non-physicists." 

Harry, the first 10-15 papers were published in April 1989. 
 Seems a long time ago. do you agree?
Six years have passed, with a substantial literature now.
You make the point clearly against censorship.

 Best wishes.
          Mitchell Swartz (mica@world.std.com)



cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenmica cudfnmitchell cudlnswartz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: Thermocouple positioning
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Thermocouple positioning
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 10:05:02 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

I wrote that our target in the Griggs experiment is accuracy (and precision)
to within 1 deg F. jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) asks:
 
     "Are you a partner in the Griggs enterprise?"
 
You know perfectly well that I am not. I have stated this dozens of times. The
phrase "our target" is a figure of speech.
 
 
     "Are you part of the experimental team?"
 
No, I did my own experiments. Unlike Tom Droege I never take anyone's word for
anything, I check things out with my own instruments.
 
 
     "From Tom's report, it seemed that Griggs had hired a person
     specifically to introduce a more scientific approach to the study of
     this phenomenon, and your role never came up.  What is your role in this
     project?"
 
Griggs hired more than one person to improve the experiment, and to his credit
he took some good free advice from other people, including me. The fact that
my role never came up in Tom's report is irrelevant; his report is a farce. He
did not just leave out my role (a trivial point), he did not even bother to
tell you: what temperatures he observed; what the water flow was; what type of
power meter Griggs uses; what types of thermocouples he uses; where the
thermocouples are placed; what his patent number is; or where, exactly, Griggs
published. I have seldom seen such content-less verbiage masquerading as a
report on a scientific experiment. You will find more hard facts in my
Abstract than in Tom's entire report. I will grant, however, that I did not
offer any fatuous judgments about the corporation or the people so my report
is not as much fun to read.
 
I have no role in the project, I am an independent, outside observer.
 
- Jed
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenjedrothwell cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: Peroxide hypothesis
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Peroxide hypothesis
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 10:06:14 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

I pointed out that many experiments have yeilded far more energy than 4 MJ per
liter of electrolyte (or gas). rvanspaa@ozemail.com.au (Robin van Spaandonk)
asks:
 
     "Could you please give a precise reference to one such example?"
 
Sure, there are dozens. See:
 
M. Fleischmann (Univ. Southampton), S. Pons (IMRA Europe), "Calorimetry of the
Pd-D2O system: from simplicity via complications to simplicity," Physics
Letters A, 176 (1993) 118-129
 
S. Pons, M. Fleischmann, "Heat after Death," Trans. Fusion Technology, No. 26,
Vol. 4T, Part 2, p. 87
 
M. McKubre et al., "Isothermal flow calorimetric investigations of the D/Pd
and H/Pd systems,"  J. Electroanal. Chem. 368 (1994) 55
 
S. Focardi (Bologna U.), R. Habel (Cagliari U.), F. Piantelli (Siena U.),
"Anomalous Heat Production in Ni-H Systems," Il Nuovo Cimento, Vol 107 A, Feb.
1994, p. 163 - 167
 
Y. Arata, Y-C. Zhang, "A New Energy caused by 'Spillover-Deuterium'," Proc.
Japan Acad., 70, Ser. B (1994)
 
T. Aoki et al., "Study of Concentrations of Helium and Tritium in Electrolytic
Cells with Excess Heat Generations," Proc. ICCF4, vol. 2, paper # 24.
 
Do your homework, read the literature, and you will find plenty more. Bear in
mind that most cells do not have much electrolyte. I suppose 50 ml would be
about average, maybe less. So any cell that produces more than 200 KJ is above
the 4 MJ/ l limit. Cells that produce a megajoules are wa-a-a-y above it. Gas
loaded cells and heat-after-death cells contain only a milligrams of hydrogen,
so they get even more energy per liter of water.
 
There are some other problems with this peroxide theory. As John Logajan
pointed out, it does not produce any excess. Also, it is a little difficult to
see how you can get hydrogen peroxide in gas loaded cell with no oxygen. But,
hey, it is better than most "skeptical" theories!
 
- Jed
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenjedrothwell cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: Bottom line?
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Bottom line?
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 10:09:49 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

conover@max.tiac.net (Harry H Conover) writes:
 
     "Sigh...  Another one of Jed's well meaning but ill-informed
     pontifications! Trust me, if Tom D. and company couldn't make it work,
     it simply isn't real.  While this may not fit Jed's commercial
     interests, it is the world of reality!"
 
Don't be ridiculous. Trust you?!? Trust what? I trust you have never read a
single scientific paper about cold fusion and that you do not have the
foggiest idea what you are talking about. Tom D. and company used filthy
electrolyte and got twisted cathodes. That's not an experiment, it is a farce.
You cannot begin to compare his work to that of McKubre, Storms, Arata, Miles,
Kunimatsu, Oriani et al. Tom is a bumbling amateur, Arata is a professional
who was making fusion reactors back in 1958. They named an institute after
Arata on the campus of a national university, and they established an annual
prize in his name. Compared to that, who the hell is Tom Droege, and what does
he know?
 
 
     "Correct me if I'm wrong on this Jed, but I simply cannot recall any
     time when either Texas A&M or Amaco (sic) (Amoco?) took a public
     position that presented CF as a reality."
 
Okay, I correct you. You are wrong. See: Amoco Production Company, Research
Departent, T. V. Lautzenhiser, D. W. Phelps, Report T-90-E-02, 90081ART0082,
19 March 1995, "Cold Fusion: Report on a Recent Amoco Experiment."
 
- Jed
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenjedrothwell cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Thomas Clarke /  Re: The Farce of Physics
     
Originally-From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.philosophy.objectivis
,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,misc.books.technical,sci.astro,sci.energy,
ci.logic,sci.physics,sci.physics.electromag,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physi
s.particle,sci.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The Farce of Physics
Date: 27 Mar 1995 15:12:00 GMT
Organization: Institute for Simulation and Training, Orlando, Fl.

You should heed Feynman's advice:

"Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it
'But how can it be like that?' because you will 'down the drain'
into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped.
Nobody knows how it can be like that."

(Richard Feynman quoted in Elemental Mind by Nick Herbert)

Tom Clarke
 

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenclarke cudfnThomas cudlnClarke cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Tom Droege /  Re: Now what to do with $700
     
Originally-From: Droege@fnal.fnal.gov (Tom Droege)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Now what to do with $700
Date: 27 Mar 1995 16:24:03 GMT
Organization: fermilab

In article <D60sM6.941@world.std.com>, mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz) says:
>
>   In Message-ID: <3l1uf2$436@fnnews.fnal.gov>
>Subject: Re: Now what to do with $700
>Tom Droege (Droege@fnal.fnal.gov) writes:
>
>= I guess you have not been reading this group very long.  About the only 
>= thing really easy is charged particles above 10 Mev or so.  Anything else
>= has many problems.  You can get a positive helium result because someone
>= next door got baloons for their birthday.
>
>  Since those in the field who perform the helium generation measurements
>often measure the leakage rate, frequently maintain metallic
>containers, and on occasion also control with argon, as well as use other controls,
>and since helium is in the ambient anyway, do you have a single reference
>to confirm this conjectured baloon (sic) hypothesis?
>
>
>=  At the Sante Fe meeting Steve
>= Jones gave a press conference and among other things told all of us where
>= to get just enough tritium to "salt" an experiment.  I have it on video
>= tape.  I can personally tell you that heat is hard.  
>= Tom Droege
>
>  How did Steve Jones know to "salt" an experiment?
>  How did he suggest to circumvent scientific integrity and controls?
>  And exactly how much was "just enough"?   Would that be for an
>  F+P level or JONES level?     Thanks in advance, Tom.

The "salt" is my word, not Steve Jones'.  He said nothing about how 
much, only how easy it was to get tritium.  After all, the saltee needs
some smarts.

Tom Droege

>
>  Best wishes.
>    Mitchell Swartz
>
>   
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenDroege cudfnTom cudlnDroege cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Tom Droege /  Re: Now what to do with $700
     
Originally-From: Droege@fnal.fnal.gov (Tom Droege)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Now what to do with $700
Date: 27 Mar 1995 16:28:06 GMT
Organization: fermilab

In article <3l2v27$ojj@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, hconser@aol.com (HConser) says:
>
>If we put it in an interest bearing account, it could grow to a tidy sum
>in a few hundred years... I think setting up a trust may be a good idea.
>It could be LONG time before anyone claims this prize.
>
>Hans Conser

This thought had occurred to me also.  There is an H.G. Wells novel
more or less on the subject.  "When the Sleeper Wakes".  It is possible
for the prize to be worth more than a source of cheap energy.

What we will need is a trustee, and a lawyer willing to set up the 
trust (for less than $700).

Tom Droege


cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenDroege cudfnTom cudlnDroege cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Tom Droege /  Re: Good work, Tom!
     
Originally-From: Droege@fnal.fnal.gov (Tom Droege)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Good work, Tom!
Date: 27 Mar 1995 16:46:29 GMT
Organization: fermilab

In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.950324095343.878E-100000@alpha.kemi.aau.dk>,
Dieter Britz <britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk> says:
>
>On 17 Mar 1995, Mark Muhlestein wrote:
>
>> 
>> Greetings!
>> 
>> I would like to publicly thank Tom Droege for the effort he has
>> expended in investigating the GG.  I definitely feel that my
>> contribution was well spent!  I hope you feel the trip was worth your
>> time and effort.
>> 
>> Also, I appreciate the professional manner in which the entire affair
>> has been handled by all parties.  If all our exchanges were as collegial
>> as this, I can't help but think it would improve the overall quality of
>> s.p.f discussions.
>
>I want to second that. Postings seem to be delayed for as much as a week
>here, so I didn't read Tom's report until last night. First class, Tom!
>In just 4 hours, you found out what we need to know, for the moment at least.
>Your slightly apologetic tone is uncalled for, we got our money's worth.
>And you need not have been so frugal with it.

>Another thing that comes out of the report is that Griggs himself is not
>at all a fanatic; he comes across much more reasonable than some of his

Good, I hoped that this is the message that I was sending.  Possibly he
was looking at "excess heat" when the P&F announcement came.  He then 
thought he was on to something.  At least he spent all of a small inheritance
($500,000) and then another $500,000 from an investor.  Spending a lot
of your own money is probably not the right environment to do good objective
science.  This is one argument for doing science in universities with 
tenure.  Not quite so much pressure to get a result.  But there is still
pressure, and this has led a lot of good people astray.

Tom Droege
 
>propagandists, who I think are not doing him any favours with their shrill
>propaganda. 
>
>-- Dieter Britz  alias  britz@kemi.aau.dk
>
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenDroege cudfnTom cudlnDroege cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Harry Conover /  Re: Bottom line? -- and more info
     
Originally-From: conover@max.tiac.net (Harry H Conover)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Bottom line? -- and more info
Date: 27 Mar 1995 16:45:54 GMT
Organization: The Internet Access Company

mitchell swartz (mica@world.std.com) wrote:
:   In Message-ID: <3l6gbu$d5a@sundog.tiac.net>
: Subject: Re: Bottom line?  - and more info
: Harry H Conover (conover@max.tiac.net) wrote:

:  : =With this deep rooted insight into why the CF experiments of others have
:  : =failed, you obviously must have the esoteric knowedge required to produce
:  : =reproducible CF.  Why haven't you reported these successes?
:  :   He did. Harry.  McKubre, Storms, Arata, Miles, Kunimatsu, Ikegami 
:  : and more.         ;-)X
: = "Read the post again Mitchell.  You miss the point entirely."

:   Did so.  It is unscientific sniping, probably inappropriate for
: your education level.


No, I was asking a quite valid question.  Since Jed posted information 
indicating his expertise in conditions which can negate a CF reaction, it 
would seem implicit that he understands how to produce produced CF 
reactions as well.  I simply asked where he had published his results.  
You see,Jed seems to confuse things he has read with things he knows.  
Most scientists  (hopefully) know better, as there is one Hell of a 
difference between reading something and knowing something.

You, in turn, cited the reports of other investigators.  In other words, you 
answered a different question than was asked.  This is why I 
suggested that you re-read my original post. 

And no, Mitchell, I am not sniping.  I was simply providing a measured 
response to still more wild-eyed CF hand waving -- trying to present as 
fact  what continues to remain merely speculative -- largely emanating 
from those untrained or unskilled in appropriate scientific disciplines.

If and when CF work is resported in a responsible, peer-reviewed physics 
journal, I'll pay close attention.  Reading the current generation of 
unsubstantiated pulp and goop is, however, nearly a total waste of time, 
somewhat akin to reading a journal on astronomy to learn of 
breakthroughs in medicine that were peer-reviewed and judged 
unacceptable for publication in JAMA or NEJM. 

                                            Harry C.
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenconover cudfnHarry cudlnConover cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / S Rees /  Re: The Farce of Physics
     
Originally-From: men5sr@sun.leeds.ac.uk (S Rees)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.philosophy.objectivis
,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,misc.books.technical,sci.astro,sci.energy,
ci.logic,sci.physics,sci.physics.electromag,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physi
s.particle,sci.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The Farce of Physics
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 17:38:17 +0100 (BST)
Organization: University of Leeds, England

In article <3l4elq$lvt@acasun.eckerd.edu> wallace@acasun.eckerd.edu
(Bryan Wallace) writes:
>
[lots of interesting stuff deleted]
>   In Chapter 4 of my book I give an example of the open arrogance and lack of
>objectivity and integrity of the modern physics politicians that tend to
>resist change to more realistic theories, I quote from the published
>retirement address of the particle physicist Robert R. Wilson, the 1985
>president of the American Physical Society:
>
>    Just suppose, even though it is probably a logical impossibility, some
>  smart aleck came up with a simple, self-evident, closed theory of
>  everything.  I--and so many others--have had a perfectly wonderful life
>  pursuing the will-o'-the-wisp of unification.  I have dreamed of my
>  children, their children and their children's children all having this
>  same beautiful experience.
>    All that would end.
>    APS membership would drop precipitously.  Fellow members, could we
>  afford this catastrophe?  We must prepare a crisis-management plan for
>  this eventuality, however remote.  First we must voice a hearty denial. 
>  Then we should ostracize the culprit and hold up for years any
>  publication by the use of our well-practiced referees.[28 p.30]
>
>
Americans are known throught the world for their curious lack of a sense
of irony.  It is strange that a rare attempt by one of their number to use
it should be so completely misunderstood by another.  The above quote is
clearly an ironical commentary about how discovering the holy grail of
physics will destroy the discipline itself; it is a humoruos aside,
A JOKE.

Apart from that, thanks for an interesting post.  Theoretical physics
is now getting so far beyond the comprehension of the layman books
that attempt to clarify the subject are invaluable.

Simon





cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenmen5sr cudfnS cudlnRees cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 /  jedrothwell@de /  Windows is as fast as common A/D hardware
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Windows is as fast as common A/D hardware
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 12:15:16 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
 
     "Yes, you can even run CAMAC from a PC, but it has serious limitations
     on the data rate and volume it can handle compared to other systems.
     They make great systems for simple problems, but they are not capable of
     "taking data at any rate you desire" as you pontificated earlier."
 
More B.S! Why don't you read product specifications? What is the matter with
you "skeptics" anyway, are you allergic to original source information? Look
on page 173 of Keithly Metrobyte catalog, where they describe the Snap-Master
(TM) Windows 3.0 based data acquisition and analysis software:
 
     "This software provides flexibility and integration of data acquisition,
     high-speed data streaming and plotting.
 
     * Operate to the maximum speed of your A/D hardware. . . .
 
Can you name a software package that allows you to collect data *faster* than
the A/D hardware?
 
This was for Windows 3.0 back in 1992. I am sure they are a lot faster now. In
any case this ivory tower nonsense about imaginary serious speed limitations
with Windows is irrelevant. You can collect the data manually from a mercury
thermometer, write it down on a piece of paper, do a few simple computations
and prove that the machine produces massive excess heat. That's fast enough!
You do not even need a computer. You do not need any technology more
sophisticated than what was available in Edison's day.
 
- Jed
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenjedrothwell cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 /  jedrothwell@de /  Richard Schultz flip flops on Lewis?
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Richard Schultz flip flops on Lewis?
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 13:03:36 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

I pointed out CF requires a high level of diligence and some expertise. I said
"It does take a fair measure of hard work, attention to detail and
cleanliness, and perhaps a year or two of practice.
schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz) writes:
 
    "You mean that Nathan Lewis (well, actually I think it was a postdoc and
    some grad students who actually built the thing), who according to the
    reports I read built his cells from a *photograph* of the P&F apparatus,
    just managed to get lucky somehow?"
 
Don't be ridiculous Schultz. Do you have any idea who Lewis is? He is an
experienced, accomplished electrochemist. He has already had a heck of a lot
more than a year or two of practice in electrochemistry! He is exactly the
kind of person you would expect to get a postive result. So did many other
experienced electrochemists like Bockris, Mizuno and McKubre.
 
What is your point about Lewis? You "skeptics" were always willing to wave
him around and praise him to the sky previously. Now that you know he got a
postive result, do you suddenly have doubts about him? Ah, well, I am sure you
can change you view at the drop of a hat, since all you know about him are
these hearsay "reports" about photographs. I am sure you have never bothered
to read his paper, or the Miles paper about him. Since you do not actually
know anything about him or his work, you can have all kinds of opinions, can't
you? No doubt you also think the Harwell work is no good, even though it was
previously held as the end-all, be-all standard against which all CF should
be measured. As soon as M&H showed that it was positive, I am sure you
"skeptics" suddenly began finding reasons to doubt it.
 
- Jed
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenjedrothwell cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Paul Budnik /  Re: The Farce of Physics
     
Originally-From: paul@mtnmath.mtnmath.com (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.philosophy.objectivis
,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,misc.books.technical,sci.astro,sci.energy,
ci.logic,sci.physics,sci.physics.electromag,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physi
s.particle,sci.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The Farce of Physics
Date: 27 Mar 1995 09:38:46 -0800
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070

Thomas Clarke (clarke@acme.ucf.edu) wrote:
: You should heed Feynman's advice:

: "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it
: 'But how can it be like that?' because you will 'down the drain'
: into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped.
: Nobody knows how it can be like that."

: (Richard Feynman quoted in Elemental Mind by Nick Herbert)

Perhaps this is one thing in which Feynman was mistaken. Feynman
may have been the most intuitively gifted of recent prominient physicists.
It seems to me that he took this extrodinary gift and used it
to serve a primarily intellectual approach to physics. The result
was extrordinary contributions to physics. But perhaps, just perhaps,
had he focused more on developing his intuition in its own right rather
than as a servant to intellect he could have done more. Perhaps he
could have figured out how it can be like that. For it is only intuition
and not intellect that can see around corners and beyond the limitations
of our current conceptual framework.

Paul Budnik
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenpaul cudfnPaul cudlnBudnik cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Doug Shade /  Re: Another www site
     
Originally-From: rxjf20@email.sps.mot.com (Doug Shade)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Another www site
Date: 27 Mar 1995 18:00:00 GMT
Organization: Motorola LICD

In article <3l1ma7$e03@stratus.skypoint.net>
jlogajan@skypoint.com (John Logajan) writes:

> Russ George of E-Quest has a www home page available for browsing at:
> 
> http://www.hooked.net/users/rgeorge
> 
> There is some discussion there of the E-Quest cavitation results.

For those of us locked behind a Web Page fire wall... what (briefly) is
E-Quest up to now?

Doug Shade
rxjf20@email.sps.mot.com
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenrxjf20 cudfnDoug cudlnShade cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Robert Heeter /  Re: A simple question
     
Originally-From: Robert F. Heeter <rfheeter@princeton.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: A simple question
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 04:51:40 GMT
Organization: Princeton University

In article <MATT.95Mar26171158@physics2.berkeley.edu> Matt Austern,
matt@physics2.berkeley.edu writes:
>
> Even if the H-H fusion problem is solved, though, building starships
> will be quite nontrivial.  I'm not sure if we'll ever have the ability
> to build ships that can get anywhere close to relativistic speeds.
> 
> Do the calculation some time: accelerate at 1g until you get halfway
> to Alpha Centauri, then slow down.  Assume you have a magical drive
> that can convert 100% of the mass of your fuel into kinetic energy.
> The question: what fuel to payload ratio do you have to start out
> with?  The answer turns out to be quite depressing.

I haven't done the calculation, but the constant-accelaration
constant-deceleration scheme is designed to minimize the
transit time, not maximize the fuel efficiency.  A trip like that
will take generations anyway, so it's more likely one would
build a self-contained flying city which accelerates to a
fixed speed and then coasts for years and years.  Not that 
this makes it that much easier, but it does reduce the problem
somewhat.  If you accelerate to 0.1 c at 1 g it only takes
you a tenth of a year; i.e. not *that* much fuel.  Granted it takes
you 40 or more years to get to another star this way, but 
you will at least be able to get a reasonable payload there.
As you suggest there's still trouble getting ships that can
actually travel any faster (and survive the various hazards
that crop up) anyway.

But I agree with you in general - odds are we'll need to find 
something better than fusion drives for interstellar space travel.

***************************
Robert F. Heeter
Email:  rfheeter@phoenix.princeton.edu
Web:  http://w3.pppl.gov/~rfheeter
Graduate Student in Plasma Physics, Princeton University
As always, I represent only myself, and not Princeton!
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenrfheeter cudfnRobert cudlnHeeter cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Bruce Hamilton /  Re: Griggs Report
     
Originally-From: B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Griggs Report
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 17:29:45 GMT
Organization: Industrial Research Limited

In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.950327113454.9484D-100000@alpha.kemi.aau.dk>
 Dieter Britz <britz@alpha.kemi.aau.dk> writes:

>On Wed, 22 Mar 1995, Cameron Randale Bass wrote:
>> In article <...>, Tom Droege <Droege@fnal.fnal.gov> wrote:
>> >Hay!  Who said their is any claim to prove?  Not Griggs.  He says he
>> >does not claim over unity operation.  See his letter.  So what are 
>> >we all debating about?

>>      I agree.  If he is not even willing to make such a claim,
>>      why should we infer any such claim?  That seems to be the primary
>>      result of the trip, that is, the specific lack of a claim of 
>>      'over unity' operation by the 'inventor'.
>>      Without such a claim, or even a reasonable scientific case
>>      that such a claim can be inferred, the case seems closed.

>... and that is how I feel about the Griggs debate. I see no evidence
>whatever that, even if Griggs is getting free-lunch energy (which Tom
>now has thrown strong doubts on, if there were not enough in the first
>place) - that this has anything whatsoever to do with fusion, the focus
>for this group. We have had a lack of focus here, to put it mildly. The
>group is obviously seen as THE place to post your crank theory or bogus
>claim for any kind of "energy". Let's forget the Griggs gadget, please,
>I don't care about a good water heater, at least here.
>Case closed, please?

From ( admittedly vague) memory, there were claims that linked the
two. You are wrong about this group being perceived as the place
to post claims about overunity devices, sci.energy gets far more.

The purpose of Tom's visit was to assess the people and the resource,
not to prove/disprove any claims. What he reports is that the standard
of the people is OK, but they were unable to present to him any evidence
that they had scientifically validated excess energy production, as 
claimed by others here. No matter how much Jed may huff and puff in his 
interesting and entertaining style - the prefix "sci." does require that 
any claims should be accompanied by acceptable scientific data.

If you don't care about a good water heater, then surely cold fusion
should be excluded as well.? :-)  Maybe we should all stump up another
few dollars to supplement the $700 and send Tom to visit F&P?. :-)
Would their laboratory notebooks withstand Tom's scrutiny? :-).
Does Tom want to practice his French? :-). 

Tom has written an excellent report on his trip ( thanks Tom, it was
no less than I expected from you - high expectations bring high rewards ).
His comments are of as much value to Griggs MegaGlobal Enterprises
as they are to us.

[ Flamebait mode on ]

No matter what Jed may hope, Tom's report indicates that this claim is 
a triumph of hope over experience. There are many practical issues
to be resolved in measuring the actual energy in/energy out of the
device, and it may even be appropriate to move such discussion to 
sci.energy. But to suggest that this has "nothing whatsoever to do with 
fusion" is a bit quick. The earlier claims did have some tenuous fusion 
connections. The probable calorimetry errors of cold fusion may
even be relevant to the Griggs device, in that the calorimetry is what
the claim is based on, and precision calorimetry will be required to
show no excess heat occurs. While "no excess heat" does not equal
"no fusion", the water heater claims for hot fusion, cold fusion and 
mechanical pump change idle curiousity to interest.

No matter what the charter of an unmoderated group says :-), you don't
have to read  all the posts, and yet much that is good has come from 
those Griggs posts. If P&F had been scrutinised as thoroughly as Griggs,
many of the false trails would have disappeared, and the inability to produce
the promised over unity water heater is consistent for hot fusion, cold
fusion and mechanical pump. Water heaters are important.

              Bruce Hamilton

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenHamilton cudfnBruce cudlnHamilton cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / John Cobb /  Re: Bottom line?
     
Originally-From: johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Bottom line?
Date: 27 Mar 1995 12:35:51 -0600
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas

In article <3l1u3k$436@fnnews.fnal.gov>,
Tom Droege <Droege@fnal.fnal.gov> wrote:
>In article <3l1i3q$p71@stc06.ctd.ornl.gov>, mbk@jt3ws1.etd.ornl.gov (Kennel) says:
>>
>>Tom, what is the bottom line with your evaluation of the Griggs 
>>thingy?
>
....

>I think the big mistake made with P&F was in not giving them access to 
>the accepted scientific literature.  We should have let them publish 
>there and accept the consequences (whatever they are) to their reputation.
>

I think that this raises an interesting issue that should be discussed. If I
were qualified to be a reviewer on this subject and I was handed P&F's '89
paper, what should I do? Let's suppose for the moment I was in agreement
with had had become the consensus opinion that at least at that point their
result was premature and inadequately documented to allow attempts at
replication. Should I recommend rejection, or revision and re-submission or
should I allow it to be published eventhough I considered it to be substandard
and probably in error?

Now Tom seems to not like the first choice (particularly when it is made not as
the result of a referee's report, but as an editorial policy). I can understand
this.

But would it be better if it was published and it had a correctable error? It
is not just P&F's reputation that is at stake. I can see it now. Dieter Britz
lists it in his bibliography and then some character might then
claim that "The prestigious journal Phys. Rev. Lett. agrees that cold fusion
exists and it is real, as does Dieter Britz, so send your checks today."
Even if Tom published 40 papers of null results, you can bet that none of the
investors are shown them, and the huckster would reply if asked that it simply
proves that Tom has an inferior experimental ability since he cannot see what
is so obvious.

Personally, I think if the paper is obviously in error, it should not be
published, and that referees should take that duty very seriously, but
I am very dubious about blanket editorial policies about rejecting all
papers about a certain topic. I think that in general it hinders recognition
of revolutionary ideas and it hinders effective debunking of psuedo-science.
It should only be exercised in extreme cases. 

just my  2 cents provided at 100% discount.

-john .w cobb
-- 
John W. Cobb	Quietly Making Noise, Pissing off the old Kill-Joys
		-Jimmy Buffett

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenjohncobb cudfnJohn cudlnCobb cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Barry Merriman /  Re: Thermocouple positioning
     
Originally-From: barry@starfire.ucsd.edu (Barry Merriman)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Thermocouple positioning
Date: 27 Mar 1995 18:39:50 GMT
Organization: UCSD SOE

In article <xi5ZnWt.jedrothwell@delphi.com> jedrothwell@delphi.com writes:

> it seems to me, the "skeptics" do not take any of my reports
> seriously so I see no point in trying to convince them.
> - Jed

No, thats not so---I read your report, and thought it was good. 
From reading it, I could see only one serious hole in your 
protocol---exactly how serious it is is hard to say, but hopefully
MD will plud that hole in his expedition.

The hole is this: there are three time periods involved in your
steam-into-barrel experiments: 

1) time from when machine is at room temp til measurement starts
2) time from start of measurement til end of measurement
3) time from end of measurement til machine returns to room temp

You only compute the heat excess observed during interval 2. You
should compute it over the entire 1 + 2 + 3 interval, to be
sure there are no stored heat effects.

Now, maybe in your judgement, (1) + (3) have no important energy 
transfer consequences. But that is hard to judge from the factual
information in your report.



--
Barry Merriman
UCSD Fusion Energy Research Center
UCLA Dept. of Math
bmerriman@fusion.ucsd.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)


cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Mike Griffin /  Re: Windows is as fast as common A/D hardware
     
Originally-From: mgriffin@il.us.swissbank.com (Mike Griffin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Windows is as fast as common A/D hardware
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 18:50:00 GMT
Organization: Swiss Bank Corporation CM&T Division

In article <RK2afI8.jedrothwell@delphi.com> jedrothwell@delphi.com writes:

> You can collect the data manually from a mercury
> thermometer, write it down on a piece of paper, do a few simple computations
> and prove that the machine produces massive excess heat. That's fast enough!
> You do not even need a computer. You do not need any technology more
> sophisticated than what was available in Edison's day.
>  
> - Jed

In fact, Jed, you don't need any data at all, do you?  Forget about real 
measurements, error analysis, reproducibility!  It's easier to just make up
the numbers you need, and post them to the net!

As PT Barnum said... (never mind.)

Mike Griffin
(speaking strictly for myself.)
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenmgriffin cudfnMike cudlnGriffin cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Richard Schultz /  Flip flops on Lewis?
     
Originally-From: schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Flip flops on Lewis?
Date: 27 Mar 1995 19:02:46 GMT
Organization: Philosophers of the Dangerous Maybe

In article <ZOz7v0w.jedrothwell@delphi.com>,  <jedrothwell@delphi.com> wrote:

>Don't be ridiculous Schultz. Do you have any idea who Lewis is?

Not only do I know who he is, but I have actually met him in person, and
I even know with whom he got his Ph. D.  In case any of that makes any
difference.

>What is your point about Lewis? You "skeptics" were always willing to wave

My point was that when Lewis -- who you have just agreed is an expert --
claimed he got a negative result, you had a ready-made answer:  he
doesn't know what he's talking about, you can't just set up the 
experiment and expect it to run, successful experiments depend on a
lot of subtle factors, etc.  

Now you claim that his data actually reveal that he got a positive result -- 
which implies that despite this so-called expertise, Lewis is in fact not
even sufficiently competent to analyze his own data correctly.

Beyond this, the point I was trying to make is that you, not I, seem to
be the one who wants to have it both ways.  You were the one who went on
and on about how it is in general not a trivial matter to reproduce an
experiment from the "recipe" given in a report.  Now, in the case of
Lewis, it wasn't he who set up the experiment; it was a postdoc and
if I remember correctly, some of the graduate students in the laboratory
who actually did the work.  And according to their recounting of the story,
they were the ones who were enthusiastic, and did the experiment depiste
Lewis's lack of interest.  All of this implies that he was not making any
particular effort to ensure that the experiment worked.

Furthermore, you have given a long list of things that have to be just
so for the experiment to work, many of which were not known at the
time, and many of which the people in Lewis's lab could not have
known about as they reproduced the cell not from a report but from
a photograph of the P&F cell.

So I repeat my question, whic I asked because I want to know.  Did 
Lewis get a positive result because he got lucky or what?  If it
was through his skill, how did he (or rather, the people in his lab)
know just what factors would be necessary to ensure a positive result?
And if he's so good, why swas he unable to correctly analyze his data?

>Since you do not actually know anything about him or his work. . .

As I pointed out above, I do in fact know about him and his work, which
is why I would tend believe his claim that he got a negative result
over your claim that he got a positive one.

As an aside to Mitchell Swartz, when you talk about the discourse
level in this newsgroup, is Jed Rothwell on your list of people whose
posts are content-free and filled with personal insults?
--
					Richard Schultz

"Any other education would have required a serious effort, but no
one took Harvard College seriously."
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenschultz cudfnRichard cudlnSchultz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / John Cobb /  Re: Solar -VS- Fusion
     
Originally-From: johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Solar -VS- Fusion
Date: 27 Mar 1995 12:54:36 -0600
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas

In article <D63Dty.GJr@prometheus.UUCP>,
Paul M. Koloc <pmk@promethe.UUCP> wrote:
>In article <3kpijv$bts@curly.cc.utexas.edu> johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu
(John W. Cobb) writes:
>>In article <D5tu11.7C3@prometheus.UUCP>,
>>Paul M. Koloc <pmk@promethe.UUCP> wrote:
>
>>So how do the Japanese do it? I was talking to one person, from LHD I 
>>believe, who stated that the construction budget alone in the Japanese fusion
>>program is larger than the entire U.S. program. Do they know something
>>our congressional leaders don't?
>
>Yep,  net POSITIVE cash flow.  Lowest Capital Gains Tax in the World.   

Err, well not exactly. All of these are funded out of Japanese equivalent
of the U.S.'s Energy and Education departments. So they are an example of
the BAd, BAD, BAD government interventionist policies that Paul doesn't like
about DOE.

Although his point is well taken. Lower costs of capital formation in Japan
have certainly been a contrbuting factor to the ability of its large firms
to maintain sound research labs while most U.S. firms have gutted their
labs (Bellcore, IBM, .....)
>
>>Oh and by the way, Japan also has a tokamak....
>
>Gee, do the Japanese have problem with "lockstepping and follow the
>other guy"?  Guess they know how to play fish school too -- when one
>turns the next one turns and so on and so on .. . etc.  

Well, good point. There is a lost of "me tooism" in international science.
This includes fusion as well as HEP and other areas.

>
>I've even heard DoE is panicking it's employees into thinking that 
>Congress is going to deep six the DoE Agency.   Hmmm!  If they go,
>I won't have much to complain about, well ...    Look's like
>I'll have to switch over to 99.9% fusion work.  
>Not a bad scenario.  
>
>>John W. Cobb	Quietly Making Noise, Pissing off the old Kill-Joys
>>		-Jimmy Buffett
>
>                           Who is Jimmy Buffett?? 

He's a singer songwriter. (more famous songs: Come Monday
					      Margaritaville
				              Son of a Son of a Sailor

Well, if DOE does get tubed, I know a lot of friends who might need to
change their .sigs to another Jumey buffett Lyric from "A Pirate Looks Back
at 40":

My Occupational Hazard Be, my Occupation's just not around.

But not me, I already jumped ship a few years ago.

-john .w cobb

*He hopped on a freighter and skidded the ocean, and left England without
 a sound
*Now he lives in the islands, fishes the pylons, and drinks his green-label
 each day.
...
*Jimmy, some of its tragic, some of its magic, but I've lived a good life
 all the way. ...... ("He went to Paris")

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenjohncobb cudfnJohn cudlnCobb cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Barry Merriman /  Re: Richard Schultz flip flops on Lewis?
     
Originally-From: barry@starfire.ucsd.edu (Barry Merriman)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Richard Schultz flip flops on Lewis?
Date: 27 Mar 1995 19:02:57 GMT
Organization: UCSD SOE

In article <ZOz7v0w.jedrothwell@delphi.com> jedrothwell@delphi.com writes:

> What is your point about Lewis? You "skeptics" were always willing to wave
> him around and praise him to the sky previously. Now that you know he got a
> postive result, do you suddenly have doubts about him?

Uh, Jed---what was your opinion of Lewis's work for the three years in which
it was considered a negative reult?

It seems to me that automatically classify all negative results 
on CF as being erroneous---am I mistaken?

By the way---where is toyota's 20kW CF water heater that you said
was months away (two years ago) :-) ?


--
Barry Merriman
UCSD Fusion Energy Research Center
UCLA Dept. of Math
bmerriman@fusion.ucsd.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)


cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Bill Page /  International Conference on Cold Fusion - Discussion Group
     
Originally-From: wspage@ncs.dnd.ca (Bill Page)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: International Conference on Cold Fusion - Discussion Group
Date: 27 Mar 1995 19:33:23 GMT
Organization: Daneliuk & Page

The ICCF5 discussion group is an email and World Wide Web distributed
mailing list focused on discussion of abstracts (and related issues)
submitted to the Fifth International Conference on Cold Fusion to be
held in Monte Carlo, April 9-13, 1995. Yes - only two more weeks to go!

Membership in the discussion group is "by invitation only" and the
intent is to promote serious discussion of scientific issues. But
all requests and/or recommendations for new members will be considered.

About 3 or 4 issues (digests) of the group are distributed each
week. The most recent one is Issue 33, sent on 21 March 1995.
All the back issues of the discussion group are now publically
available via WWW (Mosaic or other browser) at URL:

  http://xfactor.wpi.edu:8080/iccf5.html

And a subset (due to space limitations) of the more recent back issues
is also available at:

  http://aix1.uottawa/~s060739/iccf5.html

Please feel free to browse through this archive. There is also a useful
list of links to other "CF" related Web pages and an interactive
comment form to send e-mail to the moderator (me). Some of the abstracts
are available in HTML format with full mathematical symbols and graphics.

If you are interested in participating in the discussion group, please
make a request by email to Bill Page at:

  wspage@ncs.dnd.ca

Before joining the group, I usually ask people to submit a brief summary
of their interest in "CF" and an outline of their background. This is 
distributed to the other members with the next issue.

It is currently planned that this discussion group will "disband" a month
or two following the conference - or after the ensuing discussion dies
down.

Finally, please note that this is an indepentent discussion group and
has no formal connection with the organizers of the conference.

Cheers,

Bill Page
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenwspage cudfnBill cudlnPage cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / mitchell swartz /  Fusion in the Solid State (Survey and more info)
     
Originally-From: mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy,sci.energy.hydroge
,sci.chem,sci.materials,sci.environment,sci.skeptic,alt.conspiracy,sci.e
ectronics
Subject: Fusion in the Solid State (Survey and more info)
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 19:31:33 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

                  March 27, 1995

Dear colleagues:
   Thank you for your help in responding to the cold fusion
survey, first posted three weeks ago.
   The results are interesting and will be released shortly.
   This is the second call for input to the survey sheet (below)
which has been very slighly modified by the comments of several of the
thoughtful respondees.   :-)

    The preponderance of respondees so far are physicists, (~30%)
with major inputs from fusion scientists and engineers (~17%),
mech./elec. engineers, material scientists, and chemists.
There were even a few students, and two journalists.

  So, this is the second call for survey responses.  
As previously, an offer for more information regarding the field of
cold fusion is available to those who help this research.
However, any and all replies to the survey are welcome and have been,
and will be, counted.
To increase S/N and decrease bandwidth, the survey sheet 
and other details can be obtained by simply mailing e-mail to me
with the Subject: Survey2    
 Best wishes and thanks in advance.
                        Mitchell Swartz  [mica@world.std.com]


cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenmica cudfnmitchell cudlnswartz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Cindy Lundgren /  Re: COLD FUSION - what happend (if anything?)
     
Originally-From: lundgrca@esvax.dnet.dupont.com (Cindy Lundgren)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: COLD FUSION - what happend (if anything?)
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 18:23:22 GMT
Organization: DuPont all opinions my own

In article <js_vetrano-2303950905410001@js_vetrano.pnl.gov>,
js_vetrano@pnl.gov (John Vetrano) wrote:
> 
> In article <3kqs9m$7ql@elvis.vnet.net>, jnw@elvis.vnet.net (John N. White)
> wrote:
> 
> > jedrothwell@delphi.com writes:
> > 
> > > That is a good thing, because CO2 will clobber a CF reaction. It is good
> > > way to turn one off -- breath on it.
> > 
> > That wasn't the CO2, that was the garlic and onion sandwich ... :-)
> > 
> > It is interesting that CO2 will clobber a CF reaction, especially since
> > many use potassium carbonate in their electrolyte.
> > -- 
> > jnw@vnet.net
> 
> Jed, are you just joshin' when you say one can turn off a CF reaction by
> breathing on it?  If that could be done, or the reaction turned off by a
> sudden influx of CO2, then wouldn't that point to a surface reaction and
> not a "fusing" of H, D or whatever on the interior of the cathode?  And if
> that were true, then the arguements about the changes possible for fusion
> by the H atoms being in a lattice are all irrelevant. 
> JV
> js_vetrano@pnl.gov
> boring .sig to follow
> 
> -- 
> The above opinions are mine, all mine.


	Before the beta phase Pd hydride can be formed, hydrogen must first be
adsorbed onto the surface, by the following 1 electron reduction:
				H+ + 1e- ---> Pd-H(ad)
The hydrogen then diffuses into the bulk where supposedly cf occurs.
Diffusion is much faster than the adsorption step. The hydrogen adsorption
reaction is very easily poisoned, and sometimes by 10 **-10 mol/dm3 levels.
It is not unreasonable to think that other materials may preferentially
adsorb to the surface, blocking sites. A good reference is M. Enyo,
Hydrogen Electrode Reaction on Electrocataltically Active Metals in
"Comprehensive Treatise of Electrochemistry", Vol. VII, Conway, Bockris,
Yeager, Khan, White, eds., Plenum Press, 1983.

Cindy Lundgren
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenlundgrca cudfnCindy cudlnLundgren cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Barry Merriman /  Re: Solar -VS- Fusion
     
Originally-From: barry@starfire.ucsd.edu (Barry Merriman)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Solar -VS- Fusion
Date: 27 Mar 1995 21:41:52 GMT
Organization: UCSD SOE

In article <3l71lc$mp4@curly.cc.utexas.edu> johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu (John W.  
Cobb) writes:

> 
> But not me, I already jumped ship a few years ago.
> 
> -john .w cobb
> 

To what?

(Personally, if I exit fusion research, I'll go into biology)


--
Barry Merriman
UCSD Fusion Energy Research Center
UCLA Dept. of Math
bmerriman@fusion.ucsd.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)


cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / Bryan Wallace /  Re: The Farce of Physics
     
Originally-From: wallace@acasun.eckerd.edu (Bryan Wallace)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.philosophy.objectivis
,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,misc.books.technical,sci.astro,sci.energy,
ci.logic,sci.physics,sci.physics.electromag,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physi
s.particle,sci.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The Farce of Physics
Date: 27 Mar 1995 15:09:43 -0500
Organization: Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida

References: <3l4elq$lvt@acasun.eckerd.edu> <3l6kk0$grk@news.cc.ucf.edu>
Distribution: 

Thomas Clarke (clarke@acme.ucf.edu) wrote:
: You should heed Feynman's advice:

: "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it
: 'But how can it be like that?' because you will 'down the drain'
: into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped.
: Nobody knows how it can be like that."

: (Richard Feynman quoted in Elemental Mind by Nick Herbert)

: Tom Clarke
:  

I never said Feynman was perfect, he has been known to be wrong.  I for
one will never stop asking "how can it be like that?"

Bryan

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenwallace cudfnBryan cudlnWallace cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 / John Logajan /  Re: Grigg visit: Droege found no error
     
Originally-From: jlogajan@skypoint.com (John Logajan)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Grigg visit: Droege found no error
Date: 27 Mar 1995 23:44:55 GMT
Organization: SkyPoint Communications, Inc.

jedrothwell@delphi.com wrote:
: I mean that another device similar to Griggs is reportedly getting 300%
: C.O.P.'s routinely. "Poor Carnot efficiency" means that it is not running
: very hot ...

Isn't the cat out of the bag on the identity of this replication of Griggs?
Chubb and Chubb reported in "CF" #6 that their associate, Bob Smith, "saw
the Moscow cavitation thermal reactor in operation and was much impressed
both with the device and the competence of the engineering and the
operators.  The coefficient of performance was reported to be >3.0 ..."

By previous association in the report, MADI Technical University in Moscow
would seem to be the location of the lightwater cavitation device.

--
 - John Logajan -- jlogajan@skypoint.com  --  612-633-0345 -
 - 4248 Hamline Ave; Arden Hills, Minnesota (MN) 55112 USA -
 -   WWW URL = http://www.skypoint.com/members/jlogajan    -
cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenjlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.28 / James Vanmeter /  What about McKubre? (Hello Tom Droege)
     
Originally-From: nazrael@cats.ucsc.edu (James Vanmeter)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: What about McKubre? (Hello Tom Droege)
Date: 28 Mar 1995 00:34:58 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz


Tom Droege:  You have argued that Griggs has not made a formal
claim of overunity and that, therefore, his work is not yet worthy
of serious consideration.  However, a formal claim of overunity has
been made by McKubre of SRI, with some scientific rigor.  Isn't McKubre
worthy of at least as much attention as Griggs has been getting?  We  
could, for example:

1. Send you to SRI.

2. Ask McKubre to send an overunity cell to Scott Little for verification.

3. Encourage McKubre to post here on s.p.f.

#1 may not accomplish much, and McKubre may or may not be willing and
able to go along with #2.  #3, however, seems both reasonable and desirable.

Incidentally, the fact that McKubre measured overunity in one set-up
and no overunity in a seemingly identical set-up suggests that the effect,
if real, is extremely sensitive to non-obvious parameters which have yet to be
pinned down.  This could explain why you and others have failed to achieve
excess heat.

How about it?  Does anybody know McKubre's e-mail address?
mckubre@something.sri.com?


Regards,
Jim van Meter


cudkeys:
cuddy28 cudennazrael cudfnJames cudlnVanmeter cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.28 / John Nix /  Positive March '95 Amoco CF Result
     
Originally-From: GGRV13A@prodigy.com (John Nix jr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Positive March '95 Amoco CF Result
Date: 28 Mar 1995 00:46:08 GMT
Organization: Prodigy Services Company  1-800-PRODIGY

In a separate post, Jed Rothwell notes a positive CF experiment in:

> See: Amoco Production Company, 
> Research Departent, 
> T. V. Lautzenhiser, D. W. Phelps, Report T-90-E-02, 90081ART0082,
> 19 March 1995, "Cold Fusion: Report on a Recent Amoco Experiment."
 
Assuming this report is intended for public release, would someone with a 
copy of this report please post a summary of the abstract and conclusion 
here?

Thanks for your help.

John

cudkeys:
cuddy28 cudenGGRV13A cudfnJohn cudlnNix cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.28 / Tom Droege /  Re: What about McKubre? (Hello Tom Droege)
     
Originally-From: Droege@fnal.fnal.gov (Tom Droege)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: What about McKubre? (Hello Tom Droege)
Date: 28 Mar 1995 01:05:29 GMT
Organization: fermilab

In article <3l7lji$7bj@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, nazrael@cats.ucsc.edu (James Vanmeter) says:
>
>
>Tom Droege:  You have argued that Griggs has not made a formal
>claim of overunity and that, therefore, his work is not yet worthy
>of serious consideration.  However, a formal claim of overunity has
>been made by McKubre of SRI, with some scientific rigor.  Isn't McKubre
>worthy of at least as much attention as Griggs has been getting?  We  
>could, for example:
>
>1. Send you to SRI.


McKubre has received a lot of attention by me in these posts.  We had
an all day meeting in Washington D.C about 2 years ago, and I made a 
long report of that meeting here.  McKubre's work is of high scientific
quality.  It may still be wrong.  I was impressed by McKubre's discussion
of error sources in his ICCF-2 paper.  Still, there were a number of 
thigs wrong with it that I discussed at great length at the time.  I 
suppose I have it all recorded here some where.  Sigh!  I do not yet
have a good system to locate old posts, although they are all on floppys
some where.  
>

>2. Ask McKubre to send an overunity cell to Scott Little for verification.
>

McKubre was one of the ones that Peter Hagelstein asked to give me a cell
to test at the Maui meeting.  Nothing came of it.

>3. Encourage McKubre to post here on s.p.f.

>
>#1 may not accomplish much, and McKubre may or may not be willing and
>able to go along with #2.  #3, however, seems both reasonable and desirable.

We have tried.  I know he occasionally reads these posts.  At least there
was evidence that came back when I was posting on line about my 
experiments.  

>
>Incidentally, the fact that McKubre measured overunity in one set-up
>and no overunity in a seemingly identical set-up suggests that the effect,
>if real, is extremely sensitive to non-obvious parameters which have yet to be
>pinned down.  This could explain why you and others have failed to achieve
>excess heat.

Yep.  But how much of one't life do you spend trying to reproduce 
irreproducable events?  If you hang in there and finally find something,
the world should give you great credit.  I will certainly congratulate 
P&F, McKubre, or whoever develops a good positive experiment.  Myself,
I have tried my best and have given up.  


Tom Droege

>
>How about it?  Does anybody know McKubre's e-mail address?
>mckubre@something.sri.com?
>
>
>Regards,
>Jim van Meter
>
>
cudkeys:
cuddy28 cudenDroege cudfnTom cudlnDroege cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.28 / Tom Droege /  Re: Bottom line?
     
Originally-From: Droege@fnal.fnal.gov (Tom Droege)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Bottom line?
Date: 28 Mar 1995 01:42:56 GMT
Organization: fermilab

In article <3l70i7$6l9@curly.cc.utexas.edu>, johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu
(John W. Cobb) says:
>
>In article <3l1u3k$436@fnnews.fnal.gov>,
>Tom Droege <Droege@fnal.fnal.gov> wrote:
>>In article <3l1i3q$p71@stc06.ctd.ornl.gov>, mbk@jt3ws1.etd.ornl.gov (Kennel) says:
>>>
>>>Tom, what is the bottom line with your evaluation of the Griggs 
>>>thingy?
>>
>....
>
>>I think the big mistake made with P&F was in not giving them access to 
>>the accepted scientific literature.  We should have let them publish 
>>there and accept the consequences (whatever they are) to their reputation.
>>
>
>I think that this raises an interesting issue that should be discussed. If I
>were qualified to be a reviewer on this subject and I was handed P&F's '89
>paper, what should I do? Let's suppose for the moment I was in agreement
>with had had become the consensus opinion that at least at that point their
>result was premature and inadequately documented to allow attempts at
>replication. Should I recommend rejection, or revision and re-submission or
>should I allow it to be published eventhough I considered it to be substandard
>and probably in error?

P&F were trying to have it both ways.  They were trying to give out just enough
information so that they could make a claim without giving out enough information
to replicate it.  That way they could continue their work and tie up all the 
patents before others could figure out what they were doing.  This is not 
science, and in fact is enough in my book to get one drummed out of the scientific
community. 

I think that the normal process is to just ignore such a paper.  But this was 
a spectacular claim, from people with pretty good credentials.  It was not a 
scientific paper with an error - correctable or not.  It was not really a 
sceintific paper but a "claim".  

So what should be done in this case?  Very hard.  The scientific community did
the conventional thing.  No publication until you write a paper and we review
it.  I think that for such spectacular claims, it may kill phoney claims faster
if we go ahead and let the perpetrators publish.  Then everyone can see the 
quality level.  The P&F claims were much more believeable when they were 
vaporware.  The Physics Letters A paper showed the real quality of their work.  

>
>Now Tom seems to not like the first choice (particularly when it is made not as
>the result of a referee's report, but as an editorial policy). I can understand
>this.

Yep, the no cold fusion papers is like the patent offices no perpetual motion 
machine policy.  If they let em patent their devices there would be fewer claims.

>
>But would it be better if it was published and it had a correctable error? It
>is not just P&F's reputation that is at stake. I can see it now. Dieter Britz
>lists it in his bibliography and then some character might then
>claim that "The prestigious journal Phys. Rev. Lett. agrees that cold fusion
>exists and it is real, as does Dieter Britz, so send your checks today."

I would rather have the Rubes send their checks to industry building crazy machines
than to lotteries and the like that take their money with equally bogus (in my 
opinion) presentations.  You can't stop the Rubes from throwing away their 
money.  At least this way we would support the machine tool industry making 
wild looking machines to impress the Rubes. 

>Even if Tom published 40 papers of null results, you can bet that none of the
>investors are shown them, and the huckster would reply if asked that it simply
>proves that Tom has an inferior experimental ability since he cannot see what
>is so obvious.

Somewhere in the prospectus will be words to the effect, "We have not actually 
made this work yet, and there is no reason to believe that your money will be 
enough to make this work, and if it does there is no guarantee that you will 
get a decent return on your money etc.."  The securities laws are pretty good.  
They really do require full disclosure.  But they do not guarantee that the 
backers will not lie.  They only send them to jail if they are caught lying.  
But the law does not protect you from someone holding you up at gun point 
either.  

>
>Personally, I think if the paper is obviously in error, it should not be
>published, and that referees should take that duty very seriously, but

I agree.  I also feel that when a paper is presented with the fan fare of 
the P&F situation that special rules may be needed.  Once it is on the covers
of all the news magazines, then science needs to defend itself.  It is not 
clear how to do this, but refusing publication may just not work. 

>I am very dubious about blanket editorial policies about rejecting all
>papers about a certain topic. I think that in general it hinders recognition
>of revolutionary ideas and it hinders effective debunking of psuedo-science.

This is the other side.  But journals are no good for this anyway.  Recognition
these days comes from the pre-print network, and e-mail, and this medium if you
can't find anyplace else.  So the journals can no longer hide good work.  The 
word will get out.  Everyone on the internet can see it and can choose if they
want to replicate it.  If they do, then the scientific process works.  The 
journals are already publications of record.  No one (that I know) waits for 
the latest issue of Physical Review Letters to see what new things have been
discovered. They have already seen pre-prints if not draft copies. 

>It should only be exercised in extreme cases. 

>
>just my  2 cents provided at 100% discount.

Your change sir!

Tom Droege
>
>-john .w cobb
>-- 
>John W. Cobb    Quietly Making Noise, Pissing off the old Kill-Joys
>                -Jimmy Buffett
>
cudkeys:
cuddy28 cudenDroege cudfnTom cudlnDroege cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.28 / Tom Droege /  Re: Bottom line? -- and more info
     
Originally-From: Droege@fnal.fnal.gov (Tom Droege)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Bottom line? -- and more info
Date: 28 Mar 1995 01:48:46 GMT
Organization: fermilab

In article <3l6q42$k5t@sundog.tiac.net>, conover@max.tiac.net (Harry H Conover) says:
>
>mitchell swartz (mica@world.std.com) wrote:
>:   In Message-ID: <3l6gbu$d5a@sundog.tiac.net>
>: Subject: Re: Bottom line?  - and more info
>: Harry H Conover (conover@max.tiac.net) wrote:
>
>:  : =With this deep rooted insight into why the CF experiments of others have
>:  : =failed, you obviously must have the esoteric knowedge required to produce
>:  : =reproducible CF.  Why haven't you reported these successes?
>:  :   He did. Harry.  McKubre, Storms, Arata, Miles, Kunimatsu, Ikegami 
>:  : and more.         ;-)X
>: = "Read the post again Mitchell.  You miss the point entirely."
>
>:   Did so.  It is unscientific sniping, probably inappropriate for
>: your education level.
>
>
>No, I was asking a quite valid question.  Since Jed posted information 
>indicating his expertise in conditions which can negate a CF reaction, it 
>would seem implicit that he understands how to produce produced CF 
>reactions as well.  I simply asked where he had published his results.  
>You see,Jed seems to confuse things he has read with things he knows.  
>Most scientists  (hopefully) know better, as there is one Hell of a 
>difference between reading something and knowing something.
>
>You, in turn, cited the reports of other investigators.  In other words, you 
>answered a different question than was asked.  This is why I 
>suggested that you re-read my original post. 
>
>And no, Mitchell, I am not sniping.  I was simply providing a measured 
>response to still more wild-eyed CF hand waving -- trying to present as 
>fact  what continues to remain merely speculative -- largely emanating 
>from those untrained or unskilled in appropriate scientific disciplines.
>
>If and when CF work is resported in a responsible, peer-reviewed physics 
>journal, I'll pay close attention.  Reading the current generation of 

Well, this has taken place.  The "Physics Letters A" paper. Of course
any of us can tell the difference between the "Physics Letters A" paper
and "unsubstantiated pulp and goop" can't we?  How about it Harry, can
you point out a few differences?

Tom Droege

>unsubstantiated pulp and goop is, however, nearly a total waste of time, 
>somewhat akin to reading a journal on astronomy to learn of 
>breakthroughs in medicine that were peer-reviewed and judged 
>unacceptable for publication in JAMA or NEJM. 
>
>                                            Harry C.
cudkeys:
cuddy28 cudenDroege cudfnTom cudlnDroege cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.03.27 /  Ken /  Re: The Farce of Physics
     
Originally-From: Ken <mgmtfxt@osuunx.ucc.oksTue Mar 28 04:37:04 EST 1995
tate.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.philosophy.objectivis
,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,misc.books.technical,sci.astro,sci.energy,
ci.logic,sci.physics,sci.physics.electromag,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physi
s.particle,sci.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The Farce of Physics
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 19:48:44 -0600 (CST)
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater OK

On 27 Mar 1995, Paul Budnik wrote:

> Thomas Clarke (clarke@acme.ucf.edu) wrote:
> : You should heed Feynman's advice:
> 
> : "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it
> : 'But how can it be like that?' because you will 'down the drain'
> : into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped.
> : Nobody knows how it can be like that."
> 
> : (Richard Feynman quoted in Elemental Mind by Nick Herbert)
> 
> Perhaps this is one thing in which Feynman was mistaken. Feynman
> may have been the most intuitively gifted of recent prominient physicists.
> It seems to me that he took this extrodinary gift and used it
> to serve a primarily intellectual approach to physics. The result
> was extrordinary contributions to physics. But perhaps, just perhaps,
> had he focused more on developing his intuition in its own right rather
> than as a servant to intellect he could have done more. Perhaps he
> could have figured out how it can be like that. For it is only intuition
> and not intellect that can see around corners and beyond the limitations
> of our current conceptual framework.
> 
> Paul Budnik
> 
> 

Intuition - Your mind's way of letting you know that it doesn't always 
have to explain itself. 


                              #####  
                              )0~0(
+--------------------------oOo--O--oOo--------------------------------------+
|                              Ken                                          |
|                                                                           |
|        "But, how can I know what I think until I hear what I say?"        |
+___________________________________________________________________________+

cudkeys:
cuddy27 cudenmgmtfxt cudlnKen cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
processed by cud.pl ver. 0.5 ------------------------------
