On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]>wrote:
> > Is it truly cold and is it truly fusion? Well, it's got to be nuclear in > nature, but until we know what it *is* -- and we don't -- we can't rule > anything out, not completely. > Abd, you bring up some excellent points. What I would love to see are some (very) simple statements that all can agree on that, if tested and found conclusively true or false to everyone's satisfaction, would help to sift between the competing explanations. I think this is the level of basic research you're getting at. I have no problem with entrepreneurs aiming for large effects, but a systematic, controlled investigation of the phenomenon or phenomena is also very desirable. To my mind, some unknown nuclear effect has already been established, and the challenge now is in sifting between the different classes of explanation. This shouldn't be that hard over the medium term if, like you suggest, researchers coordinate their efforts. For example, I would love it if data sets were made available in some repository for analysis, as is done with some biological data sets. Ideally the error ranges would be included, as well as null results. And a common set of units and perhaps some common protocols would be welcome as well, so that it is easier to compare apples to apples. Eric
