Re: [Vo]:New Energy Times
On Jul 9, 2009, at 4:36 PM, Jones Beene wrote: One comment on The Letter to the Editor from John Sutherland - Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It raises a point that should be clarified. He may be unaware that we can tolerate mention of Randell Mills or Blacklight Power here. Actually, welcome mention might apply, since it is so very much on list topic. Which is to say that when 4He is measured as the ash from LENR, and this has been assumed to be real helium, it could instead consist of one molecule of ”two fractional hydrogen isotopes” - better known as the Mills hydrino, or more specifically the Mills’ “di- deuterino.” Back circa 1994, if memory serves, Mills mentioned this possibility in Fusion Technology. The ionization potential for the “di-deuterino” would be extremely high according to Mills, in the case of deep redundancy – and essentially there is little way they could ever be distinguished from helium except for the small mass difference which we have talked about here before - and which has actually shown up in very sophisticated Mass Spec charts before, as that small blip. This makes no sense to me Jones. Mass Spectrometers work on ionized species. There would thus have to exist a reduced energy orbital for a D2+ dideuterino species. Further, even if such a species exists, to the degree no He is present, no mass 4 He++ species will show up in the mass spectrograph. This would be a very evident feature of the mass spectrograph. If you fully ionize a dideuterino, if that is readily feasible, since it ostensibly takes around 70 eV , then you still get mass 2 deuterium nuclei, not a mass 4 He nucleus. To the extent you don't ionize dideuterionss, then they remain neutral, and thus not in the mass spectrograph, or show up as mass 4 singly charged species. Any in-between condition, i.e. a mixture of species, would still show up as mass spectrograph which would be mysterious or anomalous without a hydrino explanation, and thus to most CF researchers that did He mass spec. , other than possibly Mills' staff. It may be of use to look at US Patent 6,024,935, which discusses much about dihydrino isolation and mass spec. , and which also makes no sense to me for the same reasons. Maybe I'm just missing something obvious. I didn't take much time to look at it. I recall posting the reference to that chart, years ago, to vortex, and if memory serves it was done at Frascatti but I cannot find the reference now. Jones Following is the beginning of a fairly long old thread, Mass Spec. question, which may be of interest. On Dec 2, 2002, at 11:56 AM, Jones Beene wrote: Here is a question for Ed Storms or anyone else who has done mass spectrometry on ash from a cold fusion cell. My apology if this question has been answered previously. I remember it having been brought up in the past, but couldn't find a satisfactory direct answer in searching the vortex archives or on LENR-CANR. Question: Have experimenters absolutely eliminated the possibility that the 4He atom that is found in CF cells, and is usually identified through mass spectrometry - and is offered as evidence of D+D fusion - could not instead be a tightly bound below ground state deuterium pair, a.k.a. the di-deuterino molecule? According to Mills, the first ionization energy of the dihydrino molecule is 62.27 eV and IP2 is 65.39 eV which, of course, are far higher than D2 and higher than Helium, but IP2 is fairly close. The mass of a di-deuterino molecule would be somewhere between 4He= 4.0026 amu and that of the deuteron molecular mass of 4.0280 amu, but exactly where is not clear. AFAIK, Mills doesn't specify that a di-deuterino ionization energy would be any different than a di-hydrino, but then again, he seldom mentions below ground state deuterium at all. I suspect that lack of mention is for reasons that relate to protecting his intellectual property. I know Ed has proposed that the lack of O2 buildup in his closed cells is indicative of no deuterinos, and that is a good argument that would have to be answered by anyone wishing to equate Mills work with cold fusion - but this question relates *only* to mass spectrometry results and whether or not the putative di-deuterino has been eliminated. Regards, Jones Beene On Dec 2, 2002, at 12:01 PM, Edmund Storms wrote: Most mass spectrometers used to detect He are able to distinguish between He and D2. In addition, the D2 is removed chemically from the gas. We would have to assume that the di-deuterino molecule was not chemically active so that it remained in the gas and was mistaken for He. In addition, we would have to assume this molecule can be ionized to the +1 ion by 70 eV electron bombardment. According to Mills, the first ionization energy of the dihydrino molecule is 62.27 eV and IP2 is 65.39 eV which, of course, are far
[Vo]:Happy Birthday Alternating Current
Thanks, Nikola, to you and your anagrams: Alset Alokin Tinsel Koala Stone Alkali Kate Allison Stella Nokia Ollie Kastan Terry
[Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
http://www.steorn.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=61849page=1#Item_0 Here is an excerpt from a message in the above thread. It's actually heresay (not directly from a juror); but, it rings true: I wasn't on the jury and first got to hear of it last year through some university people. They gave me a bit of the background. I took a mildly passing interest on how it would unfold. No confidentiality agreements were broken and no one was waving pieces of paper with drawings and the like around. In the early days, the jury were given test data in the form of computer printouts and spreadsheets. Steorn were asked for more details - test protocols, schematics, build details of the devices being tested etc. There were always reasons why these were not supplied. The main one being that the test rigs were too complicated and expensive to replicate and that Steorn was developing a simplified version of a rig (it wasn't called Orbo in those early days) which the jury members could replicate. At one stage it was stated to a couple of the jury members that Kinetica would be a preview of the unit the jury would get to see, build and test. This didn't happen. The excuses then became the need to iron out the glitches. It was at that point some of the jurors left for personal reasons. Apart from one (who did have genuine personal reasons), the reason was a frustration with Steorn and a lack of any evidence to verify. Steorn were advised late 2008 (end of October / early November) that the remaining members of the jury were going to return a negative verdict. There wasn't going to be a report ... since the jury essentially had nothing to report on. Steorn asked that they didn't go public until a comprehensive press statement could be prepared which would include the jurors' conclusion and Steorn's response. There were more delays ... Most of the jurors now believe this was so Steorn could come up with the Talks and the 300 engineers stage. Following even more delays the remaining jury members got so frustrated they told Steorn they were going to post their brief conclusion on ning. Steorn tried to convince them to delay it, again using talk of just about having the glitches solved. By this stage none of the jury believed them and the statement was published. Steorn had been given advanceed warning of the statement so had their press release ready. Bottom line ... all members of the jury are convinced Steorn do not have anything. They were given nothing to convince them otherwise. The onus was on Steorn to give them the evidence to evaluate. It didn't happen. end excerpt
RE: [Vo]:New Energy Times
Horace, * This makes no sense to me Jones. Mass Spectrometers work on ionized species. There would thus have to exist a reduced energy orbital for a D2+ dideuterino species. Further, even if such a species exists, to the degree no He is present, no mass 4 He++ species will show up in the mass spectrograph. OK - does it makes more sense to suggest the ionization potential at 54.4 eV can be identical for both species in many cases? Jones
[Vo]:OT: (politics) Americans value science, but not all of it: survey
From Reuters. Americans value science, but not all of it: survey http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE56901O20090710 http://tinyurl.com/lfgq3g Excerpt: The survey found nearly 9 in 10 scientists accept the idea of evolution by natural selection, but just a third of the public does. And while 84 percent of scientists say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, less than half of the public agrees with that. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Repost of: Oil Glut?
Chris Zell quoted someone: However, the fact is that as cars get older, Sha'ken [car inspection] becomes more and more expensive. It doesn't seem to be a problem with anyone I know. Eventually, if the car stops running well or reaches a certain age (even though it's still a good car), you may have to pay a fee just to get rid of it. Out in the countryside they often haul old cars up into the hills and use them for storage or a chicken house. Things are laid back in the countryside. There are quite a number of unlicensed cars running around on the islands on the Inland Sea, often driven by 12-year-old kids. Sometimes drunk 12-year-old kids, according to one I know who did that 40 years ago . . . When the cops come around, they hide the cars in the hills to avoid paying the tag fee or getting them inspected. This is the reason why there are so few older cars in Japan. Maybe its just me, but see them everywhere in Yamaguchi, including a 1960s Volkswagon beetle that a friend of mine used to drive, years ago. (Probably gone by now.) One wheel fell off the road into a ditch, which often happens out there. We got out, picked it up, and put it back. Those cars are lighter than you would think! The other day, another friend of mine got into a fender-bender accident with some American servicemen smack dab in the middle of nowhere. He called his mother on the cell phone and asked her to bring his driver's license and registration papers before the cop showed up, which she did. The cop came, by and by, and asked him to interpret Japanese to English. He said, Would that be proper? I'm involved in the accident. The cop and the Americans agreed it didn't matter. As I said, things are laid back in the countryside, and also in academic nuclear laboratories, in my experience. A Japanese physicist friend of mine once watched a video I made at the U. Osaka linear accelerator, Takahashi's lab. He paused after watching it, looked at me, and said, Well, I guess you don't plan to have any more kids . . . I hope your gonads are intact. They tore down the nuclear engineering department at Hokkaido U., Mizuno's lab, a couple of years ago. It was on the verge of falling down on its own. They got halfway through and declared it a nuclear waste zone, and had to pay a fortune to decontaminate it and finish the job. When cars hit about 60,000 kilometers (maybe 40,000 miles), people start to get rid of them. You'll find very few cars on the road with more than 100,000 kilometers (66,000 miles). I haven't checked to odometer but given the short distances I doubt our old car has gone that far. My Geo Metro has gone ~40,000 miles in 15 years. - Jed
[Vo]:Tesla's Birthday on Google
In case you haven't noticed it already, check out the Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla Google logo today. Nice artwork. Nice thought.
Re: [Vo]:Tesla's Birthday on Google
thanks for the heads up:) it was very cute On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Michael Fostermf...@yahoo.com wrote: In case you haven't noticed it already, check out the Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla Google logo today. Nice artwork. Nice thought.
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
From Terry: http://www.steorn.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=61849page=1#Item_0 The steorn saga has been a real education for me. Whether it is naivety on my part or not, I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Steorn's engineers in assuming that they had accurately detected an energy/force anomaly in their ORBO technology. However, assessing these latest comments would seem to suggest to me that my trust may have been misplaced, perhaps badly so. If so it is not Steorn's fault, by my own alone. I still find what seems to be transpiring hard to reconcile within myself because my own common sense would seem to suggest to me that Steorn's engineers couldn't have been *that* stupid or so utterly self-deluded that couldn't have detected mistakes in their measurements. However, from my own personal experience I have to make the confession that once one has acquired a strong personal BELIEF in the existence of a particular process, any sense of objectivity pertaining to actual evidence that supports that BELIEF (or more importantly, the lack of actual evidence) is in danger of being parsed through the filters of one's personal beliefs. The results: The alleged explanations (excuses?) from Steorn's that the test rigs were too complicated and expensive to replicate, or that Steorn was attempting to build a simplified version might sound reasonable at first glance - perhaps for a while. However, as best as I can tell there simply doesn't seem to have EVER been any hard published data for which the jury could sink their teeth into. No wonder the jury eventually threw up their hands and left a sinking ship. In Zen-like philosophical terms, this does look to me to be a good example of the folly of what happens when one allows oneself to worship a belief, or as in this case: a belief in a process or technology. Creating beliefs are not in themselves bad or evil. Beliefs are simply tools we all end up crafting throughout our lives to help us negotiate our way through the universe we operate in. The problem is when we allow ourselves to identify our very existence, the innermost part of our soul, too closely with a belief we have personally manufactured. All too often we tend to forget the subtle fact that we were the ones who came up with the belief(s) we subscribe to in the first place. We forget that we are responsible for creating all the false-gods we worship. We subsequently don't notice our incessant attempts to continuously prop them up on a pedestal, for we literally fear that if they were allowed to topple, so will our very soul. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Tesla's Birthday on Google
Thanks On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 7:35 AM, Michael Fostermf...@yahoo.com wrote: In case you haven't noticed it already, check out the Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla Google logo today. Nice artwork. Nice thought.
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
OrionWorks wrote: From Terry: http://www.steorn.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=61849page=1#Item_0 The steorn saga has been a real education for me. Whether it is naivety on my part or not, I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Steorn's engineers in assuming that they had accurately detected an energy/force anomaly in their ORBO technology. However, assessing these latest comments would seem to suggest to me that my trust may have been misplaced, perhaps badly so. If so it is not Steorn's fault, by my own alone. I still find what seems to be transpiring hard to reconcile within myself because my own common sense would seem to suggest to me that Steorn's engineers couldn't have been *that* stupid or so utterly self-deluded that couldn't have detected mistakes in their measurements. A quick slice using Occam's razor suggests a very simple explanation, one which doesn't require you to worry too much about your own belief in various aspects of reality. In short The Steorn engineers are not self-deluded. They're dishonest. Fraudulent. Liars, plain and simple. As far as I can tell, Steve, you are not dishonest, not a liar, and I dare say you would never undertake anything of a fraudulent nature. Consequently, you may find it hard to believe, on a gut level, that someone else could be so utterly bent, so totally alien to everything you think of as a normal human, as to publish bald-face lies about their work, and take investors' money using completely false promises about what is going to be done with it. You may find it even harder to believe that dishonest scum can *appear* open, trustworthy, cheerful, positive, and like all-around Good Guys. Consider this: So far, every claimed perpetual motion machine for which we have the full story has turned out to have been the result of either fraud or error, and most of the modern ones, done by people with a good deal of expertise, have been the result of fraud. The fact that Steorn's is, too, should surprise nobody. You might be tempted to say the Steorn operation is too big for it to be based on a fraudulent claim, with too many engineers in on the secret. But all you need to do is look at the Madoff mess to see absolute undeniable proof that a rather large organization, in business for many years, dealing with many customers, can be built entirely, 100%, on a flat lie, a lie which must *obviously* have been well known to all the insiders. Maybe only Madoff himself has been convicted, but surely every officer in the company, and most of the accountants and traders working for him, must have been in on the dirty little secret too. Dishonest people are a dime a dozen and finding enough smart ones to staff a sham organization is clearly possible. Don't waste sympathy on anybody at Steorn. They're the kind of repulsive people who make it necessary to have a lock on your front door.
[Vo]:USPO regulations say cold fusion is wholly inoperative
See: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2100_2107_01.htm II.WHOLLY INOPERATIVE INVENTIONS; INCREDIBLE UTILITY Situations where an invention is found to be inoperative and therefore lacking in utility are rare, and rejections maintained solely on this ground by a Federal court even rarer. In many of these cases, the utility asserted by the applicant was thought to be incredible in the light of the knowledge of the art, or factually misleading when initially considered by the Office. In re Citron, 325 F.2d 248, 253, 139 USPQ 516, 520 (CCPA 1963). Other cases suggest that on initial evaluation, the Office considered the asserted utility to be inconsistent with known scientific principles or speculative at best as to whether attributes of the invention necessary to impart the asserted utility were actually present in the invention. In re Sichert, 566 F.2d 1154, 196 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1977). However cast, the underlying finding by the court in these cases was that, based on the factual record of the case, it was clear that the invention could not and did not work as the inventor claimed it did. Indeed, the use of many labels to describe a single problem (e.g., a false assertion regarding utility) has led to some of the confusion that exists today with regard to a rejection based on the utility requirement. Examples of such cases include: an invention asserted to change the taste of food using a magnetic field (Fregeau v. Mossinghoff, 776 F.2d 1034, 227 USPQ 848 (Fed. Cir. 1985)), a perpetual motion machine (Newman v. Quigg, 877 F.2d 1575, 11 USPQ2d 1340 (Fed. Cir. 1989)), a flying machine operating on flapping or flutter function (In re Houghton, 433 F.2d 820, 167 USPQ 687 (CCPA 1970)), a cold fusion process for producing energy (In re Swartz, 232 F.3d 862, 56 USPQ2d 1703, (Fed. Cir. 2000)), a method for increasing the energy output of fossil fuels upon combustion through exposure to a magnetic field (In re Ruskin, 354 F.2d 395, 148 USPQ 221 (CCPA 1966)), uncharacterized compositions for curing a wide array of cancers (In re Citron, 325 F.2d 248, 139 USPQ 516 (CCPA 1963)), and a method of controlling the aging process (In re Eltgroth, 419 F.2d 918, 164 USPQ 221 (CCPA 1970)). These examples are fact specific and should not be applied as a per se rule. Thus, in view of the rare nature of such cases, Office personnel should not label an asserted utility incredible, speculative or otherwise unless it is clear that a rejection based on lack of utility is proper. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: The Steorn engineers are not self-deluded. They're dishonest. Fraudulent. I have not been following the story. Is there evidence that they benefited financially? It isn't a fraud unless someone is defrauded. People have claimed the Mills is a fraud, but I see zero evidence for that. He has collected millions of dollars, but it has been spent on laboratory equipment and salaries. If he was dishonest he would take the money and run, instead of spending it on mass spectrometers. Is there evidence that the people at Steorn have collected money and not spent it on research? Or that they paid themselves more than a typical researcher might earn? If there is no evidence for this, and if most of the money has been spent, then I suppose it is not fraud. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:USPO regulations say cold fusion is wholly inoperative
Jed Rothwell wrote: See: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2100_2107_01.htm *II.WHOLLY INOPERATIVE INVENTIONS; INCREDIBLE UTILITY* ... , a cold fusion process for producing energy (/In re Swartz/, 232 F.3d 862, 56 USPQ2d 1703, (Fed. Cir. 2000)), But also see note at end: These examples are fact specific and should _not_ be applied as a /per se/ rule. Thus, in view of the rare nature of such cases, Office personnel should not label an asserted utility incredible, speculative or otherwise unless it is clear that a rejection based on lack of utility is proper. In other words, it's Swartz's application which got the label. Cold fusion in general has not been relegated to that status, if I read this correctly. I don't see any other way to interpret '... should not be applied as a per se rule ...'. As they say earlier, However cast, the underlying finding by the court in these cases was that, *based on the factual record of the case*, it was clear that the invention could not and did not work as the inventor claimed it did.. So, what this says is that, in the Court's opinion, Swartz's device doesn't do what he claims it does. I haven't read his papers so I can't comment on whether they are being unreasonable here.
Re: [Vo]:USPO regulations say cold fusion is wholly inoperative
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: But also see note at end: These examples are fact specific and should _not_ be applied as a /per se/ rule. Ah, but in fact they do apply this. I don't see any other way to interpret '... should not be applied as a per se rule ...'. I would interpret that as window dressing. It is something they can point to, when they wish to defray criticism and perhaps lawsuits. I did note these sentences, but I discount them. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:USPO regulations say cold fusion is wholly inoperative
Jed Rothwell wrote: Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: But also see note at end: These examples are fact specific and should _not_ be applied as a /per se/ rule. Ah, but in fact they do apply this. I don't see any other way to interpret '... should not be applied as a per se rule ...'. I would interpret that as window dressing. It is something they can point to, when they wish to defray criticism and perhaps lawsuits. I did note these sentences, but I discount them. Sigh ... That's too bad.
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
Jed Rothwell wrote: Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: The Steorn engineers are not self-deluded. They're dishonest. Fraudulent. I have not been following the story. Is there evidence that they benefited financially? It isn't a fraud unless someone is defrauded. They had investors. I think that says it all. If you lie to prospective investors about something material to your company and then you accept investment money, that's fraud. Doesn't matter what you do with the money afterward. People have claimed the Mills is a fraud, but I see zero evidence for that. He has collected millions of dollars, but it has been spent on laboratory equipment and salaries. See above. Mills has investors, and his claims have encouraged them to invest. Either he's right, or he's mistaken, or he's committing fraud; there's no fourth possibility. But in any case, regarding the question of where the money went, how do you know what he spent it on? Have you audited his books? Some of it, certainly, went to lab equipment. I think that's the most an outsider can say with certainty. Perhaps more to the point, has Mills, personally, drawn no salary? If he was dishonest he would take the money and run, instead of spending it on mass spectrometers. The kind of argument you're positing doesn't work in cases of massive fraud, because you're assuming the person in question thinks like a normal person. But perpetrators of fraud at that scale don't think like normal people. Consider Madoff again; he's a great counter-example to nearly all common sense arguments about whether a particular situation could be a case of fraud: Madoff stayed until the money ran out and the roof fell in -- he had no exit strategy, as far as I can see. And note well: Madoff spent an awful lot of the money paying out 'interest' on people's investments. He didn't just run off with the whole pile; if he had, he'd be living in luxury today on some South Seas island. Madoff's company was built on a Ponzi scheme and everyone who knows anything about finance knowns Ponzi schemes have a limited lifetime and inevitably collapse. It's simple arithmetic. Certainly, Bernard Madoff must have known, too. Yet, he ran it without building an exit strategy. Bernard Madoff could not be a fictional character because his behavior made no sense; a character like that would ruin a good book by making it unbelievable. Yet, he exists, and by existing he proves the possibility of someone heading up a large organization built entirely on lies, and what's more, lies which have a 100% probability of eventually being exposed, to the ruin of all involved. So, don't say, If he were dishonest, he'd maximize his profit by doing XYZ sensible (but despicable) thing, and he's not doing it, so he can't be dishonest. Dishonest people do not always act in sensible ways. Is there evidence that the people at Steorn have collected money and _not_ spent it on research? Or that they paid themselves more than a typical researcher might earn? If there is no evidence for this, and if most of the money has been spent, then I suppose it is not fraud. No, as I said, if they lied to investors, then it's fraud, and it doesn't matter what kind of salaries they drew.
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: I have not been following the story. Is there evidence that they benefited financially? It isn't a fraud unless someone is defrauded. They had investors. I think that says it all. Not necessarily. As I said, it depends on how they spent the money. (I have no idea how the people at Steorn spent the money.) See above. Mills has investors, and his claims have encouraged them to invest. Either he's right, or he's mistaken, or he's committing fraud; there's no fourth possibility. I do not think there is any chance he is committing fraud, because, as I said there are much easier ways to commit fraud. Fraud does not involve locking yourself in a lab for decades, slaving over mass spectrometers. If it fraud, you just pretend to be working, while actually you are at the beach getting a tan. But in any case, regarding the question of where the money went, how do you know what he spent it on? I do not know, but I have heard from people who visited Mills and have connections that all of the money appears to be spent on research. Of course this is only a rough estimate, but there is no sign that millions have been pocketed. Perhaps more to the point, has Mills, personally, drawn no salary? That's hardly called for! Unless he is fabulously wealthy, he deserves a reasonable salary. His investors cannot expect him to live on air. If he is paying himself $200,000 a year, I would call that borderline fraud. $1 million per year would be out-and-out fraud. If he was dishonest he would take the money and run, instead of spending it on mass spectrometers. The kind of argument you're positing doesn't work in cases of massive fraud . . . I mean that people like Madoff do not actually do any work. Madoff did not invest the money. He just spent it. If he had invested it and lost it, without telling anyone, that would be accounting fraud but not a Ponzi scheme. If he invested it, lost it all, and told everyone in their monthly statements, that would not be fraud. It would be bad luck or incompetence. By the same token, reliable sources tell me that Mills and his colleagues are working hard at the lab. If he spends all of the investment funds and does not succeed in making a useful or at least a convincing gadget, that would not be fraud either. Again, it would be bad luck or incompetence. Perfectly legal, as long as he tells the investors what is happening, and informs them up front that his venture is risky. Madoff stayed until the money ran out and the roof fell in -- he had no exit strategy, as far as I can see. That's true. But most Ponzi scheme operators do have an exit strategy -- they run. He was too famous to run, I guess. And note well: Madoff spent an awful lot of the money paying out 'interest' on people's investments. He didn't just run off with the whole pile; if he had, he'd be living in luxury today on some South Seas island. That's how a Ponzi scheme works. You have to pay the early investors to make the take grow exponentially. You kite it up and then just before it collapses, you grab the money and run. Madoff did not run, but most Ponzi operators do, as I said. He acted like a bank robber who stands on the street in front the bank counting the cash until the cops show up. He seems addled. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
Occam's razor suggests to me that the most likely explanation of what happened is that the engineers and researchers at Steorn simply deluded themselves. It's easy to do, I know from personal experience – even with the best intentions, especially if you believe you are interpreting and/or applying the physics at hand correctly when in fact you haven't. Sometimes, all it can take is assuming a fundamental value should be applied positively when it should have been applied negatively. Whatever... Regarding fraud, there exists a similar explanation placed out at Wikipedia, our source of accurate news – with tongue firmly lodged in cheek. I personally find the explanation, the rationale a tad too dramatic and unnecessarily complex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn Many people have accused Steorn of engaging in a publicity stunt although Steorn deny such accusations.[19] Eric Berger, for example, writing on the Houston Chronicle website, commented: Steorn is a former e-business company that saw its market vanish during the dot.com bust. It stands to reason that Steorn has re-tooled as a Web marketing company, and is using the free energy promotion as a platform to show future clients how it can leverage print advertising and a slick Web site to promote their products and ideas. If so, it's a pretty brilliant strategy.[20] Thomas Ricker at Engadget suggested that Steorn's free-energy claim was a ruse to improve brand recognition and to help them sell Hall probes.[21] It seems to me that much of this kind of juicy conjecture involves a far too complex and elaborate game plan, at least within my personal paradigm of how the universe works. But then it's only my own created universe we're talking about here. ;-) As Otter once tried to console, Flounder, in the classic film, Animal House – Hey! You f_cked up! Well... Hey! Steorn! You F_cked up! Well, who hasn't. Perhaps it's time to move on. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
It reminds me of Greg Watson. We never could figure out what his motive was. He claimed to have found an anomaly in magnetic fields that he could exploit. He claimed to have built a magnetic track which would move a ball around the track indefinitely. But it could never be looked at independently. Craig Haynie (Houston)
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
Fraud: 2. (Law) An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of obtaining some valuable thing or promise from another. Valuable a. 1. Having value or worth; possessing qualities which are useful and esteemed; precious; costly; as, a valuable horse; valuable land; a valuable cargo. If you sell me one share of stock, then in exchange I will give you some money, which has value or worth, and so is valuable. If you lied about the share of stock, then that was fraud, and it doesn't matter whether you spend the money on your sick grandmother, or donate it to the church, or spend it on a bottle of Chivas. It's still fraud. * * * Jed Rothwell wrote: Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: I have not been following the story. Is there evidence that they benefited financially? It isn't a fraud unless someone is defrauded. They had investors. I think that says it all. Not necessarily. As I said, it depends on how they spent the money. (I have no idea how the people at Steorn spent the money.) And as I said, no it doesn't. Securities fraud depends on what you say, and on whether people give you money. It doesn't depend on what you spend it on. See above. Mills has investors, and his claims have encouraged them to invest. Either he's right, or he's mistaken, or he's committing fraud; there's no fourth possibility. I do not think there is any chance he is committing fraud, because, as I said there are much easier ways to commit fraud. So? I don't think he's committing fraud either, but I don't think your argument gets you to first base in proving it. People do all kinds of things the hard way. And if Mills *IS* committing fraud, I warrant that it's not just for the money, and reasoning founded on the notion that he is just trying to maximize his income is not going to lead you to the right conclusion. Fraud does not involve locking yourself in a lab for decades, slaving over mass spectrometers. If it fraud, you just pretend to be working, while actually you are at the beach getting a tan. That's the common image of a fraudster, yes. If they're sensible that's what they do. If they're sensible they mostly don't get into this situation to start with, tho. You can't apply common sense arguments to predict their behavior. But in any case, regarding the question of where the money went, how do you know what he spent it on? I do not know, but I have heard from people who visited Mills and have connections that all of the money appears to be spent on research. Of course this is only a rough estimate, but there is no sign that millions have been pocketed. Perhaps more to the point, has Mills, personally, drawn no salary? That's hardly called for! Yes it is called for, given the point I was trying to make, which is that *IF* he has been lying about his results, *THEN* he is committing fraud: He took money from people based in part on his results, and he spent at least some of it on himself. If those results were faked, then that is certainly fraud. Unless he is fabulously wealthy, he deserves a reasonable salary. His investors cannot expect him to live on air. If he is paying himself $200,000 a year, I would call that borderline fraud. $1 million per year would be out-and-out fraud. No, that's wrong. Please do not mix up the word fraud with the word bad. In for a penny, in for a pound; it is or it isn't, and it doesn't depend on the amount of money involved. It is fraud if and ONLY if he lies about it to his investors. If he draws a salary of a million a year, *AND* he either discloses that in the Prospectus for the company, or he doesn't say anything about it and only discloses the total amount spent on salaries (including his fat one), then he didn't lie about it and that outsize salary, by itself, is NOT FRAUD. If he was dishonest he would take the money and run, instead of spending it on mass spectrometers. The kind of argument you're positing doesn't work in cases of massive fraud . . . I mean that people like Madoff do not actually do any work. False. Read some more about Madoff's slide down. He did invest it, at least to start with, and slid into the Ponzi scheme only when the investments went south and he needed to jazz up results for what he supposedly hoped would be a short term. How many researchers and inventors have gone that same route when the initial results didn't pan out, and the idea they had turned out not to work as they had expected? We'll just adjust the results a little until we get the experiment to work better... I don't know but I'm sure the number is nonzero. The Dark Side is always calling, and when things go wrong, some people answer the call. AFAIK Madoff's company never stopped investing, either -- in fact they couldn't, it would have been screamingly obvious if they had no investments at all. There's only so much you can cook the books before they turn completely to mush. And
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
OrionWorks wrote: Perhaps it's time to move on. D'accord. I'm too much of a cynic anyway. I shall stop venting here.
[Vo]:DARPA Creates Rothwell's Chickens!
The only problem is they are not fueled by cold fusion. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/09/eatr_beta/ Robot land-steamers to consume all life on Earth as fuel Autonom-nom-nom-nomous technology By Lewis Page Posted in Science, 9th July 2009 12:06 GMT News has emerged of a milestone reached on the road towards a potentially world-changing piece of technology. We speak, of course, of US military plans to introduce roving steam-powered robots which would fuel themselves by harvesting everything alive and cramming it into their insatiable blazing furnaces. more
Re: [Vo]:More From the Steorn Jury
From Mr. Lawrence: ... I don't know why he didn't run. ... Shoot! I'm still alive! I thought I'd surely die in my bed of silken sheets before everything unraveled. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:DARPA Creates Rothwell's Chickens!
Terry sez: The only problem is they are not fueled by cold fusion. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/09/eatr_beta/ Robot land-steamers to consume all life on Earth as fuel Autonom-nom-nom-nomous technology By Lewis Page Posted in Science, 9th July 2009 12:06 GMT News has emerged of a milestone reached on the road towards a potentially world-changing piece of technology. We speak, of course, of US military plans to introduce roving steam-powered robots which would fuel themselves by harvesting everything alive and cramming it into their insatiable blazing furnaces. more I'll be baack Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:New Energy Times
I wrote: So, in the absence of a continuous catalytic process of some kind, one which provides energy from some source other than dropping to the fractional state (e.g. from ZPE expansion of the orbital), the two processes should be readily sorted out by energy production alone, without the use of mass spectrometry. To clarify, continuous catalytic process above means one which continuously recycles the hydrogen. I also wrote: This does admittedly require the assumption that the full measure of 23.9 MeV per He atom created is obtained. This measure of energy production is not guaranteed at all under various theories, including deflation fusion, which predicts the energy obtained in a given reaction to be sampled from a random distribution with 23.9 MeV to be a maximal and therefore improbable amount, the mean being much lower. The above is meant to address studies which showed a close approximation of heat/reaction = 23.9 MeV/He atom and in which mass spec. was performed. I don't mean to imply that all studies result in a 23.9 MeV per reaction number. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:New Energy Times
On Jul 10, 2009, at 4:55 AM, Jones Beene wrote: Horace, Ø This makes no sense to me Jones. Mass Spectrometers work on ionized species. There would thus have to exist a reduced energy orbital for a D2+ dideuterino species. Further, even if such a species exists, to the degree no He is present, no mass 4 He++ species will show up in the mass spectrograph. OK – does it makes more sense to suggest the ionization potential at 54.4 eV can be identical for both species in many cases? Jones In approximate terms, suppose we say the m/Q ratio for He+ is (4/1) = 4. The m/q ratio for He++ is then (4/2) = 2. The m/Q ratio for a singly charged dideuterino is (4/1) = 4, thus it masquerades as a He +. If the ionization potential is pushed far enough, then the dideuterino breaks down and becomes ordinary deuterium D+ (or at least one of the deuterons does, since there is only one electron) with a mass/charge ratio of (2/1) = 2, thus it masquerades (not very well in a precision mass spec.) as He++. Suppose the singly charged dideuterino breaks down at a very high voltage, much higher than where He+ loses its last electron. Suppose very little helium is present in a sample, but a lot of dideuterinos. This would be readily detected by comparing the mass spectrographs for (average) ionization energies just above He+ and then just above He++, both in a high precision mass spec. The helium will migrate from the m/Q = 4 peak down into the m/Q =2 peak.If the singly charged dihydrinos require a large ionization energy, then they will all remain in the m/Q = 4 peak. This lack of any migration would be recognizable as anomalous. The above assumption of a differing second ionization energy is not needed to make the determination of the presence of dihydrinos though. Suppose you then push the ionization energy well beyond the dihydrino's full ionization energy. This will result in an increase in deuterons in the m/Q = 2 peak, but these, necessarily being *ordinary* D+ deuterons, will be readily distinguished from any small amount of He+ that would remain. In other words, as you push up the ionization energy, He+ will disappear from their (m/Q) = 2 peak, while, if any dihydrinos are present, they will *increase* the size of the m/Q = 2 deuterium peak. Further, if the ionization energies for He+ and singly charged dihydrinos differ, then the m/Q = 2 migrations will occur at definitively different ionization voltages, which would provide even further confirmation of an anomalous (hydrino based) process. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
[Vo]:CF in the Public Realm
I'm sitting here watching Discovery Channel's Cash Cab, a trivia game show which occurs in a NYC taxi, when they ask the following question: A fusion reaction which occurs at room temperature and pressure is called what? Sadly, they missed it, even with their shout out, by responding fission. Geeze. Terry
[Vo]:Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate and Cold Fusion
Takahashi's theory of the formation of a Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate by, as I understand it, two deuterium molecules, i.e., four deuterons and the four electrons, which if they arrange with each deuteron at a vertex of a tetrahedron, which is what would be optimal packing into the cubic palladium lattice at the surface, resulting in collapse and fusion to Be-8, which then fissions promptly to two alpha particles at 23.8 Mev, seems quite interesting; it seems to me that it predicts most known CF phenomena: 1. No direct neutrons. 2. Surface reaction, since deuterium dissociates on entering the lattice. 3. Takahashi predicts from quantum theory that if the TSC forms, it will fuse 100%. 4. No momentum transfer problem, all energy is kinetic with the alpha particles. 5. Alpha radiation. 6. The TSC, in its short lifetime, being neutrally charged, may itself directly fuse with other elements present, causing the +4 transmutation known from, say, Iwamura. 7. 2 or 3 deuterons, unless they are energetic, packed in the lattice, might have increase fusion rate, there is some evidence for that, but 4, we can easily imagine, is where it happens. And 5 is too damn tight, doesn't happen. Very unusual conditions required, explaining why the lab didn't vaporize 8. Apparently no new physics needed. I'm reminded of the Oppenheimer-Phillips reaction; as an ad-hoc visualization, the deuterons are polarized, protons out, so they can approach more closely, possibly closely enough for the strong nuclear force to take over between the neutrons; and unlike the more traditional O-P reaction with a heavy nucleus, the repulsive force is only that between two singular positive charges, so the deuteron doesn't fracture as it does in the usual O-P reaction, the whole thing is sucked in. The electrons, of course, help shield the Coulomb barrier as well. 9. The energetic alphas will cause secondary reactions, explaining low-level neutrons, that's how Mosier-Boss mentions the theory. So ... while this theory has some substantial notice, Storms discusses it in The Science of LENR (2007), Mosier-Boss refer to it in their January Triple-track paper in Naturwissenschaften, there is a paper by Takahashi on the quantum theory analyzing the motion of the condensate in the ACS LENR Sourcebook (2008), it's mentioned by He Jing-tang in Frontiers of Physics in China (2007), and, of course, Takahashi has been publishing on multibody fusion since the early 1990s, but when I watch the videos of, say, the LENR seminar run by Robert Duncan at the U of Missouri, no mention of it. There was a presentation on Bose-Einstein condensate theory and LENR, by Kim, and Kim has a paper published in Naturwissenschaften in May of this year on this, but No citation of Takahashi. Takahashi mostly cites himself. What's going on? Storms briefly covers it with: Takahashi proposed that four deuterons condense to make Be-8. which quickly decomposes into two alpha particles, each with 23.8 MeV. This energy is consistent with the measurements provided formation of Be-8 can be justified. Now, I can imagine what he was thinking. Two deuterons can't easily fuse. Three seems remote. Four? That ought to be so totally rare, forget it! However, if we think, instead, of deuterium *molecules,* two deuterons electronically bound, entering the lattice, one enters cubic confinement. It's tight, the electrons get dissociated and spread over the lattice, and the two deuterons separate, preferring one per cubic cell. But for a short while, there is a single deuterium molecule in there. Add *one* more. Presto: The confinement conditions shape the proto-TSC, which is predicted to collapse and fuse. That's why *four*. So why does Takahashi not mention the words Bose-Einstein condensate, which is what the TSC seems to be? And why does Kim not mention Takahashi, his prior experimental work, and his theory? Kim doesn't seem to mention 4D fusion, or does he? Have I got this wrong? Is the TSC not a Bose-Einstein condensate? If it is, as I believe I understand, then we have two major papers published, last year and this, that really align with each other. Takahashi would simply be more specific. Have any quantum physicists reviewed these papers?
[Vo]:Another mystery: Vyosotskii and biological transmutation.
I can understand why biological transmutation makes some people edgy. When I first came across this, I was edgy too. Ah, well, I thought, cold fusion being so widely rejected, the conferences have to be open to new ideas. Then I read the actual papers. Storms reports it pretty well. I happen to have a piece of background that made Vyosotskii's work with Mossbauer spectroscopy appeal to me; I was a sophomore at Caltech when Mossbauer, who was there, had just won the Nobel Prize, and we did a Mossbauer experiment in physics lab. (Feynman, by the way, taught my two years of physics at Caltech. Luck of the draw, I suppose.) The technique is insanely precise, I don't believe it's possible that his detection of Fe-57 was an artifact. Many people, seeing that spectrogram, wouldn't get that. If cold fusion or other low-energy nuclear reactions are possible, as it surely seems they are, there is nothing particularly weird about proteins, which can create very precise molecular conditions, accomplishing it, particularly if it conferred some survival advantage under even rare conditions. So ... has anyone tried to replicate Vyosotskii's work? Mossbauer spectroscopy isn't terribly rare or expensive or difficult, and the experiment seems terminally simple, one would want to make sure that one had the right bacterial cultures to have a good shot at replication. Vyosotkii's work with mass reduction of radioactivity is likewise something pretty simple, if it works. Measuring the radioactivity of a sample is straightforward, and chemical processes should ordinarily have little effect (though there are known effects of chemical environment on half-life, a little-recognized accepted example of CANR). Again, any replications?
[Vo]:OFF TOPIC Cost of Japanese car inspection
I looked up the cost and frequency of Japanese mandatory car inspections (shaken in Japanese). Here is a QA page in Japanese from the Min. of Land, Infrastructure and Transport: http://www.mlit.go.jp/jidosha/kensatoroku/question/index.htm The first question is: Is is true that in America they don't have car inspections? Answer: No. 48 states mandate inspections. Apparently this is a sore point. The first graph on this page shows data from the U.S. GAO showing the accident rates after 10 years for states that have inspections (blue line) versus states that don't (red line). Anyway, the first inspection is 3 years after purchase, and then every 2 years after that. The base cost is 49,370 Yen ($500). Other sources say that after several years when parts such as brake pads have to be replaced, the total cost typically reaches $1000 to $1500, seldom more than that. There is a long list of tests in the Min. website, so this cost is for complete maintenance. In other words, comprehensive maintenance is required and it costs about $500 to $700 a year, which seems reasonable to me. As I mentioned, I have ridden in many beat-up jalopies in Japan, but come to think of it, the brakes and lights work, and the tires are not bald. Except on the island of Ukashima where the police come once a year, everyone knows they are coming (by boat -- you can't miss 'em), and the residents hide most of the cars up in the hills. (No kidding.) There is a Japanese Wikipedia page on car inspectiosn, and a partial translation into English here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-vehicle_inspection_(Japan) The inspection includes things that are not covered in U.S. inspections, such as torn seats, but I happen to know for a fact that you can pass the inspection by duct-taping a torn plastic seat. They don't want people driving around with the stuffing coming out of the seat. In my opinion, this is a sound policy. Little things like torn seats can be more dangerous than you might think. I have read a lot about aircraft accidents because they are meticulously investigated and documented. You would be surprised at how many were caused by half-assed repairs and things like torn seat covers. In one memorable case in the 1950s, someone used a wire to hold the pilot's seat in place, instead of the properly designated lock ratchet mechanism. I mean the thing that holds the seat from moving forward and back, like what you have in a car. The plane took off, headed up at a steep angle, and the weight of the pilot on the back of the seat broke the wire. The pilot slid fell back while holding the controls, the airplane went straight up, stalled, and crashed, killing everyone. If you have ever driven a car with the seat not properly locked in position you will have a sense of this. If you fix it with a wire you may kill yourself to avoid paying $50 for a genuine part. Aircraft mechanics refer to an airplane as a flock of spare parts flying in formation. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Cost of Japanese car inspection
Google maps are astounding. This link puts Ukashima in the middle of the page and opens a photo of the village: http://maps.google.com/maps/mpl?moduleurl=http:%2F%2Fmaps.gstatic.com%2Fintl%2Fen_us%2Fmapfiles%2Fmapplets%2Fpanoramio%2Fpanoramio.xmlmapclient=googlegl=ushl=enie=UTF8ll=33.971552,132.376328spn=0.167986,0.293541z=12lci=com.panoramio.alliwloc=lyrftr:com.panoramio.all,4685702688667981683,33.945354,132.350578 - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate and Cold Fusion
-Original Message- From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax So why does Takahashi not mention the words Bose-Einstein condensate, which is what the TSC seems to be? ... not cold enough ? And why does Kim not mention Takahashi, his prior experimental work, and his theory? ... professional jealousy ? Have I got this wrong? Is the TSC not a Bose-Einstein condensate? If a transitory high temperature version of the BEC is possible, then yes, this could be possible, and would serves to answer a lot of questions. However there are other hypothetical ways for four nuclei to condense. AFAIK there is zero real proof that a BEC is possible at anywhere near 300-400 K, although that hypothesis has been mentioned as far back as 1992, if not earlier. Proof always seems to get in the way. However, there is another possibility that goes back to the geometry you mentioned - the tetrahedron, which is one of nature's most favored structures. That hypothesis is even further out, but possibly no more of a stretch than a hot BEC. Although the tetrahedron has no orthocenter in the sense of intersecting altitudes, there is a 'virtual' center known as the Monge point which could conceivably hold or even 'entice' a strong negative charge - via the four nuclei at the vertex getting into some kind of resonance in a tight matrix situation. The central virtual charge would need to be Spin 1 and not a lepton, or else a bound pair of leptons. Long before PF, when Aspden had a little more credibility than he does these days (due to 40 years of few confirming experiments) he was talking about bound dual virtual muons. This citation will be hard to find: H. Aspden: Physics without Einstein (Sabberton, Southampton, 1969) He was able to tie it all mathematically into the fine structure constant; and that virtual muon pair might work as an agent of condensation or Coulomb shield or whatever - for four tetrahedral deuterons in an alternative TSC. Far enough out there for you? Hey, let's face it - there is nothing that works to everyone's satisfaction. The best thing about Aspden is that he is (was) able to find all sorts of strange coincidental values that align ... for (probably) unrelated reasons ... or not. Jones
Re: [Vo]:Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate and Cold Fusion
On Jul 10, 2009, at 4:48 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Takahashi's theory ... it seems to me that it predicts most known CF phenomena: 1. No direct neutrons. 2. Surface reaction, since deuterium dissociates on entering the lattice. 3. Takahashi predicts from quantum theory that if the TSC forms, it will fuse 100%. 4. No momentum transfer problem, all energy is kinetic with the alpha particles. 5. Alpha radiation. [snip] The emission of barely detectable amounts of 23.8 MeV alphas from thin foils or co-deposition experiments is not consistent with the excess heat observed. Given that most fusion is said to occur, by Takahasi's theory and many others, at the surface, and given that co- deposted cathode surfaces are made up of nanometer scale particles, there is not enough barrier to 13 MeV alpha particles in typical cathodes to suppress their detection enough to account for the low count densities. To make a rough approximation based on copper, particle attenuation in Pd at 13 MeV should be less than 0.3 MeV/mg/ cm^2. The density of Pd is 12 g/cm^3. A 100 micron foil weighs 12 g/ cm^3 * (100x10^-6 cm) = 0.0012 g/cm^2 = 1.2 mg/cm^2. Attenuation in a 100 micron thick Pd foil, a 1.2 mg/cm foil, would only be on the order of (0.3 MeV/mg/cm^2) * (1.2 mg/cm) = 360 keV. Water would of course attenuate further, but direct CR-39 contact, such as that used in the SPAWAR experiments, even with the added attenuation of an intervening 6 micron plastic film, should not significantly reduce the count of the 32 MeV alphas, only their apparent energies. The excess heat, observed in surface hot spots, by SPAWAR and various others, demand a significant particle count. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
