Physics is natural science. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jed Rothwell To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2011 2:40 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:1 MW plant testing is underway.
That's excellent news. Very open of Rossi. Entirely reasonable. We complain about Rossi's habits, but you have give him credit for allowing a lot of access to this tests, and for giving out a great deal of information. The problem is not that he is unwilling to share data. It is that his tests do not produce good data, and he does not write scientific papers. People have said that Rossi is a liar, or he exaggerates, or he cannot be trusted. As I see it, he has a split personality. When he talks about business or personal matters, I think he gets excited and he blurts out nonsense. I don't take this nonsense seriously. He scapegoats people -- including me. He can be devious, sometimes planting misinformation to cause dissension. I know he does that, because he did it to me several times. However, when it comes to engineering-based technical claims, as far as I know, Rossi is the soul of honestly. He has often made astounding claims that seem utterly impossible. As far as I know, all the ones that have been put to the test turned out to be true. I do not know about that factory heater that ran for a year. Cousin Peter says he cannot believe it. I can't be sure it is real, but I am sure it is unwise to bet against Rossi. I do not think there is a shred of evidence that Rossi has ever tried to use a hidden source of energy, fake instruments, or any other kind of fraud. It would be much harder to do this with his cells and reactors than with any previous cold fusion devices, because the scale of the reaction is so much larger. He is careless with instruments, and sloppy, and this sometimes obscures the results. That is not a deliberate effort to hide results or escape from scrutiny. It is what it appears to be: sloppy. Lots of people are like that. Some geniuses such are Arata are like that. Many programmers write unstructured spaghetti code too. It is not because they are devious or they want to sabotage the project or infuriate their co-workers. It is because they are sloppy. They should be promoted to management where they will cause less harm. Many engineers and inventors have this kind of split personality. Edison is a famous example. He was a "sharp dealer" as they said in the 19th century. Sharp dealing -- cheating, breaking contracts, and taking unfair advantage -- was widespread and considered normal back then. He put on Dog and Pony show exhibits of his inventions. When investors asked him how much progress he was making, he lied so extravagantly, it would have embarrassed a data processing project manager circa 1972, when computer programming was at the lowest ebb of reliability and projects routinely went off the rails. Edison did all of that, but he would never lie to himself, to his coworkers, or in a serious technical discussion. He did not have it in him to lie. Most engineers and programmers do not. It would be analogous to a farmer who neglects to plant seeds and then expects a crop to grow. Every technician in history has known that you cannot fool Mother Nature. I cannot judge Rossi's assertions about theory or transmutations. Theoreticians tell me they are bunk. I suppose they are, but Rossi is unaware of that. They are not lies. I have also learned to believe everything Rossi says about his operational plans. When he said he was building a 1 MW reactor, I believed him. He says he will try to turn it on. I have no doubt he means it. I just hope he does not blow himself up, or get arrested for operating it without a license. I hope that someone dissuades him but I doubt anyone will. If he changes his mind at the last minute, I would never accuse him of lying. A person who does cutting edge research who does not frequently change his mind, his plans, and his entire approach will fail catastrophically. Flexibility is essential to that job, as it is to a general fighting a battle. As Eisenhower said, "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy." You have to respond to things as they are, not as you hoped they would be. I wish Rossi would change course more often, not less often. I think Rossi is careless with instruments because he is old fashioned and he agrees with Fleischmann and me that direct observation is the best science. It is better than proof by instruments and calculation. He does not bother to write down the thermocouple readings, or insert an SD card, because he thinks that the heat continuing for 4 hours is all the proof anyone can ask for. Worrying about the thermocouples when you have a reactor too hot to touch is ridiculous. It is useless nitpicking in the face of definitive, first-principle proof that you can literally feel with your hand. The instruments are the icing on the cake; the real proof in Rossi's best work is visual and tactile observation. That is what Rossi told Lewan and me. Peter Heckert calls this "junk science." We think this is still the best way to do science, as it has been for all of human history. Natural science is the queen of sciences -- physics is not! In natural science and much of biology even today visual observations still rule. People look at animals, plants, rocks and weather. They smell and touch. Newton may have been greatest scientist, but Darwin was a close second, and he never used an instrument or a mathematical formula. All of his work was based on field observation and dissection, followed by analysis. As Francis Bacon said, "we are not to deny the authority of the human senses and understanding, although weak; but rather to furnish them with assistance." - Jed
