Mary Yugo I dedicate this rap song to you and the skeptics in this list: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAYVY2eLMck&feature=related Giovanni
On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 5:24 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Mary Yugo asked a sensible question: Why are these people wearing > overcoats standing next to a 12 kW heater? > > She then said: > > "This is sort of a trivial matter and can't be settled for sure without > cooperation from Rossi or Levi which I am certain won't be forthcoming, > LOLOLOL! I only talked about it for the amusement value." > > That is wrong. You can settle this without cooperation from Rossi. As I > said, you can stand next to a 12 kW water heater for a while, measure > ambient temperature several times over an hour and a half, and you will see > that it does not heat up the room much. > > It also helps to know that people in Europe tend to keep buildings cold. > > As I described here, on December 7 I did a simpleminded, crude test with > water flowing through pipes. This is actually less crude than it seems. I > put some thought into it. I believe it simulates the effects of pipes > placed close together with an air envelope transferring heat from one pipe > to the other. I think I showed that those effects are negligible. They > are so small they cannot be measured with the ordinary instruments used by > HVAC people or by Rossi. With all due respect, I think I did a better job > than Vorl Bek, who addressed the same question but failed to insulate the > heat source. He did not trap the air, so that is an invalid test. > > There is a great deal of value in doing simpleminded tests with ordinary > thermometers to familiarize yourself with equipment of this size and scale. > I think that Yugo and others should try this, even though it makes you feel > like a Boy Scout or a middle school kid doing a science fair project. Yugo > laughs at her own question, "LOLOLOL . . . amusement value . . ." It it not > amusing. It is a good question. But she failed to see that the answer is > pretty obvious. You have to be familiar with water heaters to critique > Rossi's tests. > > I fooled around with water heaters and thermometers at Hydrodynamics, at > Gene's lab, and at home at various times. Just to get a feel for it. That's > the key thing: *get a feel for it*. Learn what to expect. Learn what 12 > kW flame looks like, and what hot water from a 12 kW heater feels like. > > I have also done months of work with laboratory scale calorimeters > operating at ~1 to ~100 W, when I worked with Gene Mallove, Mizuno and > others. That is more demanding. It is more "scientific." You use blanks and > so on, which no one does in HVAC-scale testing. I would not dare critique > calorimetry if I had not done this. Not to say I did such a great job, but > it was an essential learning experience. There are lot of issues such as > fluid mixing, the stability of thermocouples versus thermistors, flow > rates being too low, and so on, which you cannot understand without doing > and seeing. People who have not done hands-on lab work (however badly) > are on thin ice when they critique experiments. That is why I never talk > about mass spectroscopy. I know enough about it to know that I don't know > enough about it. I have translated a book chapter on this, and edited many > papers, so I get the general idea. But I have not *done it*, so I can't > judge it. > > - Jed > >
