Steve, Well - you have effectively raised up on the www horizon, a large and fluttering "call me" flag - and every investigative journalist should do this on a cherished subject - and I suspect that if anyone out there has specific details that they would like to share with you, they will contact you off-list.
Over the course of years, any good observer will get an "impression" of what is going on in the larger community, but this will often come without a time-stamp. If I read the ideas of x,y and z, and then notice that from my perspective z seems to be echoing the ideas of x and y over and over again - that is not "proof" of anything, without more. In fact x and y could have borrowed the ideas of z inadvertently (or not). However, if I personally know x and y from a long history, and at the same time heard negatives about z, this will slant the picture - yet it does not prove or disprove anything. The negatives could relate to something else. These things will usually tend to always work themselves out in the end - maybe it takes decades. In an age of 'instant messaging', however, many in the general public may want quicker answers. If you want to hasten the process as a cutting-edge reporter - all the better, so long as accuracy is not compromised. That is what the internet is for - but it is unwise to try to limit what is 'informed opinion' on newsgroups, even if it happens to contradict a preconceived notion that may be equally premature or ill-conceived. Heck "they" (meaning big-shots in general) let bimbos like Palin pretend to write OpEd pieces in a major newspaper, but that does not mean they don't care about truth (since they know the piece came from a staff of hired guns anyway). You seem to be leaning towards the WL theory, others may like some of it but not all; I may be leaning to a variation on the fractional hydrogen theory, and Horace has a good deflation model; and all theories have evolved considerably over time and often towards common focal points along the way. As a result, all theories develop crossovers and cross-connections. The general idea of an energy depleted neutron, however is very old (Mills and Dufour circa 1993?) ... but his was not a 'real' neutron YET neither is the WL variety, if it differs from the known 'cold neutron'. And that is a most apt example, and the reason for my original posting - this is to say - because the known ultra-cold neutron is very different from that of WL. Yet the important thing here Steve, is that you did NOT hear this bit of information from them. A top-rate scientist (in my dreams) always acknowledges not only the source of ideas he borrows, but explains the evidence going the other way. We (some of us) suspect that the proponents are far from top-rate, but they could still be close enough to get major credit. So it goes .... Let's hope that in the end, P&F get the lion's share of the credit, even for the theory that they may have missed, since they took most of the hits in getting us there. Jones -----Original Message----- From: Steven Krivit Jones, I take public character insinuation toward scientists and researchers very seriously. So when I see a comment such as yours, it gets my attention. Vortex is a forum which I find to be one of the more enlightened and intelligent discussion lists. I am also very enthusiastic about the Widom-Larsen theory. As a consequence, if there is something you know about WL that you think should be known publicly, I want to know about it. That way, I can best differentiate between important facts, feelings that some people may have, or smoke that some people may blow. Steve At 06:40 PM 12/9/2009, you wrote: >Given time ... which is not available now. It would involve comparing dates >and details in hundreds of pages of text. No thanks. > >BTW - are you "on a mission," or what? > >After all, this is an informal newsgroup, not the investigative arm of the >anti-defamation league of oppressed & unrecognized scientists ... > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Steven Krivit > >Jones, > >Thanks for your reply. > >Now can you defend your insinuation (quoted below) with some evidence? > > >and repackaging the ideas of many theorists - including [H. Heffner] - > >without proper attribution. > >Steve
