Jones Beene wrote:
Plus, wrt the LENR results. I don't think competent scientists will actively
try to hide or avoid the significant (if not overwhelming) contribution of
prior art. In this case that comes from Arata and Mills for sure.
Well . . . some folks do this kind of thing. The best example is
Arata himself. He is an extremely competent scientist -- a brilliant,
world-class genius scientist -- but he claims that he is the only one
who has ever succeeded in producing a cold fusion reaction. All of
the others, starting with Fleischmann and Pons, have made "inept" and
"obvious" mistakes and their results are "garbage," he says. He
claims that discovered cold fusion in the late 1940s but kept quiet
about it until Fleischmann and Pons came along with their obvious
mistake. In order to clear up the confusion, Arata decided to reveal
real cold fusion. It is unclear why he kept it secret so long. I
vaguely recall it was because "the world wasn't ready for it yet" but
that's what they all say, isn't it? Maybe I have him mixed up with
the Correas or the Methernitha cult.
The point is, you cannot judge a scientist's claims by looking at his
or her personality, personal behavior, or academic ethics. Arata
would drastically fail by these standards. But they simply do not
matter. His contributions stand on their own merits. They are not
degraded or less important because of his outrageous behavior. They
are also not degraded by what I consider his sloppy experiments and
poorly written papers. See:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreportonar.pdf
It is tough, but you have to look at a claim in isolation. As much as
humanly possible, you have exclude from your evaluation all of your
feelings regarding researcher's personality, behavior, or previous
criminal convictions (if any) or the fact that he is in jail, which
was where Joe Champion -- one of our friends in the lead-to-gold
alchemy business -- periodically resides.
These rouge researchers don't make it any easier to trust them, do they?
Regarding Arata, I hesitate to mention this but . . . of Arata's
supporters has published a cartoon about his discoveries. Toshiro
Sengaku brought this to my attention. The cartoon is sorta cute and
sorta horrifying. The deuterons fusing on p. 5 and producing
love-hearts of helium are cute. The politics on p. 9 are putrid. I am
kind of glad it is in Japanese and no, I will not translate it. You
can probably get the gist of it. See:
<http://dokuritsutou.heteml.jp/newversion2/image2/kakuyugo/solidfusion-newtitle.pdf>http://dokuritsutou.heteml.jp/newversion2/image2/kakuyugo/solidfusion-newtitle.pdf
Page 9 shows Arata upset when he realizes that Fleischmann and Pons
(shown in the thought bubble) are making a bogus claim. The little
cloud of steam coming from his head is Japanese comic-book
iconography indicating being upset, I would say. He is "steamed" as
we say in English.
- Jed
