Stephen A. Lawrence <sa...@pobox.com> wrote:
> That was in previous tests, not in this particular one-hour > > run. I do not know whether Levi et al. observed any long-duration > > runs, but other people have. > > In that case, the "public demonstration" on Jan 14 was unnecessary -- > right? Au contraire, it was vitally necessary. But you cannot easily run a 12-hour public demo with members of the press there, to prove there is no chemical fuel secreted away. The Jan. 14 demo proved a number of things that I have been anxious to see brought out in public, such as the size of the reaction, and the fact that it can be controlled. Rossi and others told me months ago that they had 10 kW-scale reactors. I did not disbelieve it exactly, but I could not fully believe it, either. And even if I did believe it, what good would the information me without a public demonstration? No one else would believe it. Suppose I myself went to see it myself. I would probably be convinced as I was with Patterson, and pretty much with Griggs, but I would be Cassandra again, with knowledge of something that no one else believes. > The proof was already in, if the earlier demos were sufficiently > long and sufficiently tightly run. > > Where does the information come from that there have been longer tests, > and how long were the tests? > >From confidential conversations with people I trust. I am sorry I cannot say more. Until Friday I could say nothing. And even if I had said it, a sensible person would have no reason to believe me. I could hardly believe it myself. Rossi had no credibility then. He has credibility now. I trust Levi and the others. > And do we know what kind of "security" was present at the earlier > tests? The Jan 14 test was before a live audience, and there could have > been no "games" during the test. A test which mostly runs unattended, > on the other hand, may be subject to serious "gaming". > These tests were attended. Anyway, if he interrupted the run it would show in the dataset. Whatever Rossi may have done in his business dealings or personal life, and whatever odd notions he might have about theory or about running Ni at 1500 deg C, I think it is fair to say that he has proved he is not lying about the big issues, and the performance of this system. Okay, I will feel a little more certain when a few more public demos have been done, and the data from Levi and others is published. Anyone would feel trepidation at accepting such a monumental result from what seems an unlikely source. But I would say that anyone who asserts there may be fraud has a large burden of proof at this point. In the 1-hour demo, aside from the hidden chemical hypothesis, all sources of hidden energy input were conclusively eliminated. Enough people have seen the workings of the machine and longer demos that I no longer take that holdout possibility seriously. Perhaps it will take you a little longer to agree. After all, I have been hearing about Rossi and this machine on and off for months. Not much depth of detail, but still, I was primed to take the demonstration at face value. Don't underestimate people like Levi, either. I am sure the hidden chemistry hypothesis occurred to them. > These seem like extremely important questions at this time. > Rossi knows that. I hope there will be other demos. But he may not care enough about public opinion to conduct them. I think he has little regard for what other people think. I am glad he was willing to do even this much in public. For months I thought he would not, and we would never know if the thing is real or not. Now, I think, we have all-but-certain proof that it is. And after all, there is a lot of support for this in previous experiments. Cold fusion is definitely real. Ni-H cold fusion has not been widely replicated, but I have been pretty much convinced it is real for many years, especially with Patterson and Mills/Thermonetics. Nanoparticles are a promising approach, with high reproducibility. All that adds up to indicate that this is not such a great leap forward. This is something we had a right to expect. Sooner or later, someone was bound to get serious and try making a commercial prototype scale device. The only unique ability here is control: Rossi can turn on, modulate, and turn off the reaction. That's a big thing. It is a triumph! But not unbelievable. People have demonstrated various ways to modulate reactions. These methods have not been reliable or fast enough. But we knew all along there has to be a control factor somewhere, because the reaction manifestly does turn on, turn up, and turn off, sometimes quickly. It must be responding to some stimulus. Another reason Rossi can scale up more easily than, say, Arata, is because his Ni material is dirt cheap compared to Pd or Pd-Zr. It would cost a fortune to build a 12 kW Arata device. - Jed
