At 05:57 PM 8/3/2011, Jouni Valkonen wrote:
2011/8/4 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]>:
> I've done a great deal of research on this topic.
Problem is that mere research is not enough, because you need to be
able to do your own conclusions from data and that includes reading
other people's mind from between the lines. This is very difficult,
because we have always only partial knowledge from other people's mind
and there is not much visible words in between lines, but this is also
the most difficult and most advanced task what human brain can
perform, so that it can phenomenally well construct good working
theory of other people's mind and real intentions although data is
grossly insufficient.
It's what normal people do all the time, Jouni.
Sure, it can easily be flawed. It takes
experience. Most of what I've written, though, is
not about other people's minds. I came to a
conclusion of fraud, defined as wilful deception,
after seeing a lot of evidence for it, which I
was always explaining away, as did others.
There is no facts that support your opinion.
Jouni, you say what you do not know.
I am also done my
research and I can say that there is nothing that contradicts the
grand scheme (Isotopic ratios are the strongest argument, but I have
not seen results of final analysis by Swedish scientists.
We have two pieces of evidence on this. We have
the results from the Swedish scientists, a
preliminary report, showing no isotopic
anomalies. And we have Rossi's claim, backed now
by some charts with no explanation that Krivit
carried away. "Strongest argument?" Strongest argument for what?
I'm focusing on heat. Period. Large amounts of
heat. Small amounts, you must be aware, could have chemical explanations.
Krivit also
stated in his #3 report that Nickel-62 enrichment is extremely
expensive, but I think that he does not know what he is saying), but I
admit that I need to dig perhaps too deep into Rossi's mind.
He knows what he's saying. More likely, though,
Rossi wasn't careful and made yet another
mistake. Jouni, what was your education?
Therefore
I am only 40 sure that E-Cat is part of reality!
It is unscientific to say that "I am 70% sure that E-Cat is real." It
is better to say that "I am 40 sure that E-Cat is real!", what meaans
that I am ready to bet for 40 euros that E-Cat is real.
You bet 40 euros, I bet 1. Okay? Jouni, you don't
know how to read what I've been writing, much
less understand what's going on with the Rossi
reactor, and you are not careful about what you
write. "40 sure" doesn't express any particular
level of surety. But if the payoff were 1, it
would express a highly level of confidence. How sure? "40 sure." Right?
Now, if you assessed the probability at 70%,
rationally you would bet 40 euros against a
lesser amount from me. Suppose my bet is X euros.
Forget the charity thing, it complicates it.
Game theory for 40 at stake. Expected position:
Rossi real: 0.7 (40 + X)
Rosse unreal: 0.3 (0)
Overall expectation: 28 + 0.7 X.
It's even to make the bet if X = $17.14.
However, my position, and you have to understand
that I'm not willing to bet on "Rossi unreal,"
there are way to many unknowns, and I've never
claimed that the E-cat is "unreal." What I've
been claiming is that Rossi has fraudulently
exaggerated the tests (mostly by allowing others
to make assumptions that favor him, and he
obviously encouraged that), and that, further, he
appears not to have solved the reliability
problem -- assuming he has anything at all. So
what I'd bet on would be that he fails to deliver by a certain deadline.
Notice, as well, that "fraud" does not mean that
he fails to deliver. It's not surprising, I
suppose, that some people aren't able to parse
this. Fraud only means that he misrepresented the
demonstrations, or deliberately conducted them in a certain way.
He put himself in a position where he must
complete development under the gun, and he claims
to be working 18-hour days. He may well be! These
are the conditions that lead me to expect he is
likely to fail. It's not exactly the fraud. The
fraud indicates a kind of desperation, if it's
not just a habit of exaggeration. (This fraud is
a kind of exaggeration. It's not even necessarily
illegal, in business it's called "puffery." But
it can be illegal under some conditions, where
the false claim is a crucial element of the transaction.)
It is sad that
I do not have confidence to bet 400 euros, because several people
would take the bet, because they are absolutely sure that cold fusion
was debunked in 1989 by MIT hot fusion researchers. Several people has
already promised to eat their hat and if it is not a straw hat, it is
not very healthy for you.
Look, I know that case, extremely well. They are
wrong, but that's not the point. A bet must be
based on a specific outcome, or it's a formula
for endless and regressive argument. Rational
bets (also called "investments") balance expected
reward times probability of success with expected
loss. In 1989 and the ensuing years, a lot of
people and companies bet that cold fusion could
be commercialized. They lost the bet, but that
doesn't mean it was a foolish bet. The question
would be what the probabilities were and the
return if they were successful. The possible
return is very, very high. So even a low
probability of success would make the bet a good
one, as long as they can afford the more likely
loss. Businesses do this all the time.
Your description of what happened in 1989 is
shallow. Yeah, hot fusion researchers were part
of the mix, but Lewis at Cal Tech, for example,
was an electrochemist. The problem was twofold:
first of all, the reaction was really very
difficult to set up, it would take months of
work, with no guarantees. People who got this to
work had to be very patient. They were able to
get respectable levels of reliability, from a
scientific point of view, like about 2/3 with
Miles in his heat/helium work. However, a home
hot water heater that only works 2/3 of the time is completely unacceptable!
Reality and practicality are two entirely
different considerations. The Japanese gave up on
cold fusion not because they didn't think it
worked, but because they realized that this was
going to be very, very difficult, a few million
dollars, or a few hundred million dollars,
weren't going to be enough, they realized.
Reliability is the whole banana here, Jouni. From
the tests, it's really looking like Rossi doesn't
have a *reliable* reactor. He might have nothing
at all, that's within the range of reasonable
interpretation of the data. Until I started
considering fraud, I was saying that it looked
like he had maybe a COP of 3. Compared to the
minimum of 6 he was claiming. That's still quite
interesting! But when I saw Rossi's face when
Lewan captured him apparently adjusting the input
power during the Mats Lewan test in April, I
realized that fraud wasn't just some abstract
possibility. Fraud would look like this. Hidden in plain sight.
It's been said that perhaps he was just turning
down the power because it had started to
overheat. Here's the problem with that: Lewan had
turned away to go look at the hose. Lewan's video
shows no obvious steam coming from the hose. Then
there is steam, much more. Lewan turns back to
Rossi, who is seeing nonchalantly withdrawing his
hand from the heat controls, gazing at the camera
like there is absolutely nothing on his mind. I
could imagine him whistling. Nothing going on
here? Lewan doesn't ask him. That would be rude,
eh? However, the sounds of boiling apparently stop.
Lewan goes over and videos the input current. The
same as before. It had only been a couple of minutes.
If the device was overheating, Rossi would only
know this if the temperature in the chimney
starts to rise, and that only happens if the
device has actually run out of water, so that
input water is being immediately vaporized, most
of the liquid is gone. That would mean that the
device could start to run away, having lost a
great deal of cooling. Rossi would turn down the
power. But wouldn't he tell Lewan? Why not? After
all, this would actually prove full vaporization,
and the temperature reading would be the proof.
And, then, would he *immediately* increase the power back to the same level?
No, this is much more likely: he didn't turn down
the power, he increased it. Maybe he doubled it.
Maybe that's what the band heater is for, to
quickly heat the *water*. (That heater makes
absolutely no sense for controlling the reaction.
The cartridge heater that actually heats the
reaction chamber, yes, that makes sense.) So the
device started steaming, so Lewan could video
some steam! Then Lewan came back. Rossi was
watching for Lewan to turn away from the bucket,
and as soon as he started to, Rossi turned back
down the power. Unforunately, it takes a few
clicks to do that, I think this thing is about 5% per click.
Rossi did not want anyone to realize that he was
adjusting the power. He did adjust it in the
January demo. Radically. But all the other demos
were presented and analyzed *as if the power were
constant.* As far as I'm aware, Rossi never
actually stated it was constant, he just let
people believe it was constant, and he used
constant power in his calculations for Krivit.
For all I know, he might have said, during those
calculations, I don't know the exact words, "Now,
with an input current of [so many] amps, we'd have ...."
Once it's realized that Rossi is adjusting the
power, the fact that in none of these demos,
except for January, was the input power
continuously recorded, will suddenly be seen to be a huge and glaring defect.
But of course it is frustrating that I have no other evidence to
support my claim than my opinion. However I have made a slight
contribution, that I showed a method how it is possible to calculate
accurately enough the real output of E-Cat demonstrations and thus
remove the most presented critical arguments. It is not Rossi's fault
that he exaggerated the power output, but wrong doers are those
scientist, who were unable to do appropriate power output calculations
from temperature value. For example, several people ignored completely
such a basic experimental protocol as calibrating thermometer. This is
unforgivable mistake to do!
There is more than that. Jouni, you are not
realizing something. "Exaggeration" with this
affects the Rossi claim. The whole point of
Rossi, the reason why everyone got so excited,
was the level of the claims and the implied
reliability. Both of those are now seen as unconfirmed.
None of the mistakes that I've seen from
independent observers are "unforgiveable." They
were dealing with something they had never seen
before. Everyone -- including me -- believed that
it was very unlikely that a boiler could produce
very wet steam. Surely this was a minor problem!
But we'd never seen a design like this, with
fixed water flow, practically guaranteeing
overflow water, with the water spilling into the
steam port, so that it would be very rapidly
mixed with steam. And these scientists were not
really familiar with steam engineering, they had
no concept of the volume of steam generated from
a gram of water. Sure, they could look it up, but
the *implications* didn't hit them.
I've come to the conclusion that the Rossi
arrangement is a very effective atomizer. It will
create steam that is possibly above 95% water by
mass. You do know that this steam will still be
very light, right? The density of steam at 1 bar
is about 0.590 kg/m^3, as I recall. The density
of water is 1000 kg/m^3. If we have a kilogram of
steam, the volume would be 1.695 m^3. For the
this steam to become 5% quality, it would be
mixed with 19 kg of liquid, with a volume of
0.019 m^3. The total volume is hardly budged by
the water, it becomes 1.714 m^3. By volume, this steam is almost 99% vapor.
This steam will be at boiling, but it will carry
away far less heat than dry steam.
There will be another effect. If only 5% of the
water is being vaporized, then the steam velocity
will be, seat-of-the-pants roughly, 1/20 of that
generated if all the water were vaporized. It
would be "weak steam." Studies of the steam
expected from full vaporization of the water
claimed by Rossi to be pumped in show very high
velocities, and almost all this steam would reach the end of the outlet hose.
On the other hand, the Mats Lewan test showed
what seemed to be about half the water had
vanished. If the flow rate was constant, then
that would indicate vaporization of at least half
the water. In the other direction, the water in
the bucket would be hot and part of it might evaporate quickly.
It's a mess!
"If the flow rate was constant." If Rossi can
manipulate the heater power, why not the flow
rate? It's been assumed that flow rate changes
would be accomanied by a change in sound. I don't
think that's necessarily true. If I'm correct, I
haven't nailed this down, the pump has two
parameters: the aliquot of liquid pumped per
cycle, and the number of cycles per minute. So
one cannot tell that flow rate has changed from
the clicking, i.e., the number of cycles per minute.
