> Ed, > > Thanks for your more detailed answer, which addresses several points of > interest in the Letts effect which were unclear from you published experiment, > and your previous messages. Perhaps we should even reserve judgement on this > name, the Letts effect, pending review of the similar work of Dr. Mitchell > Swartz, who seems to claiming some priority in this discovery. More > disturbingly, he seems to be insinuating that there is an ongoing effort on > the part of LENR-CANR to censor or otherwise obstruct the distribution of his > information.
I have no idea how Mitchell thinks. I and Jed on numerous occasions have asked him for copies of his work. On the few occasions when he responded, the files were not in the right format to upload. He was told of this problem, but he never sent proper formats. The LENR-CANR site wants his work if he will provide it. As for his claims of previous laser studies, these never came to my attention at the time, nor to anyone else as far as I know. If Swartz wants to take credit for his ideas, he needs to publish them before the fact not afterwards. > > But back to the task of looking towards the future of a planet which is > desperately in need of a prompt solution to its increasing energy needs, part > of which might be met if the [eponymic] effect is truly reproducible, with or > without the direct conversion of heat into electricity... > > I think everyone will agree with your first conclusion: > "In short, many of the details about the effect still need to be determined." > > However, in regard to the second, > "Therefore, it is premature to speculate about a model." > > Experimenters desirous of efficiency should disagree in the strongest terms > with that conclusion for several reasons: > > 1) The important thing for the future, not only of this experiment but perhaps > for the entire field, is to find the correct model expediently, in order to > guide in the correct understanding of this anomaly; and this cannot be done > efficiently without first designing experiments based on *most likely possible > models,* so that the false models can be eliminated, one by one. No one is doing the work hit or miss, as you say. Everyone in the field has his own personal model, most of which have not been published. I'm only concerned about time wasted discussing a model that is based on what might be incorrect experimental claims. It is obvious, even without a theory, that the effect of polarization, a magnetic field, laser frequency, and laser power all need to be explored. A "theory" adds nothing to this effort right now unless you can predict where the best frequency might be. > > 2) To proceed in a hit-or-miss fashion, based on incremental improvements of > past experiments, might provide some good answers also, but unless one is very > fortunate or skilled, it will logically be a semi-blind effort, since there is > no satisfactory underlying model. No doubt you have a personal model in the > formative stages, which steers the design of ongoing work. But even though > this Edisonian approach does work well sometimes, the only problem is, it may > not be as efficient for others than yourself as the alternative: which is > building speculative models first, and then performing experiments to > prove/disprove those. > > 3) There are some easy-to-disprove new models, based on Quantum Mechanics, > which can be put forward. No one is going to waste their time trying to disprove some one else's model. Experimentalists spend their time trying to prove their own models. > > 4) At least one of these models is poised to produce answers for less effort > than is involved in the typical calorimetry experiment, because calorimetry is > not needed-and in fact, in this model retention of excess heat in the active > zone could be inhibitory to the effect. > > This model will depend on a newfound ability (hopefully), if the obvious > extension to the Letts effect is correct, to construct the experiment in two > separated steps > a) loading and sealing a target, > b) irradiating a stand-alone target, not with some randomly chosen frequency > but with a frequency determined by the model, and irradiation the target > outside of a liquid cell, so that charged particles can be collected, if they > are present. Yes, that would be a good and obvious approach. However, we must first discover how to make the active sites. Right now nature does this by a random process. > > If charged particles are not found, and they should be easy to find if they > are present, then that would be very temporarily disappointing, but might > lead to a more refined model and subsequent experiment to prove/disprove the > next model. A number of people are now looking for and finding charged particle emission using various methods to initiate the nuclear reactions. However, the emission rate is nearly 10 orders of magnitude below He4 production rate, causing a person to wonder if this has anything to do with the F-P effect. > > You are understandably committed to the Edisonian approach - fine - it has > worked for you in the past, but that is because you are an exceptionally > skilled experimenter, like Thomas A. himself - but the rarity of those traits > only reinforces the notion that it is wiser for others to proceed more > logically. I just wish you and the others in this field has a staff of 50-60 > technicians to push this effort along I suggest every one, including myself, are proceeding logically. The only issue is what model is being followed logically. It is the nature of the beast that he who has the experimental set up determines the model that will be followed. Of course, some of these models are good and some are not. Nevertheless, it is the experimentalist who calls the shots, at least until someone with a theory also has enough money to call the shots. Regards, Ed > > Regards, > > Jones Beene > > Here is a story on the Large Hadron Collider > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3583658.stm > which is the latest $5 billion boondoggle which takes away even more potential > funding from much higher priority needs - like REAL - solutions to nuclear > energy at the low-energy end of the spectrum. Give experimenter like > Storms/Letts/Shoulders/Miley/ etc. etc. a small fraction of that and we could > already be sitting on the answer to an oil-free future. > > > >
