Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> First, most people believe Rossi is a fraud and cannot be believed, but > they will nevertheless believe him when he claims his heat results from > transmutation of Ni. I believe those are different groups of people. Where there is overlap, the person is saying "assume for the sake of argument that Rossi is telling the truth . . ." > As Lou suggests, we need a method that produces the effect reliably. This > goal is being sought but it must be based on a useful understanding of the > process. A useful understanding must be based on what has been observed and > how we now know Nature to function. Generally speaking yes, but there have been a few discoveries that were novel and unprecedented, such as x-rays and high temperature superconductors (HTSC). As I understand it, to explain x-rays, physicists had to overturn a lot of established physics. Last I checked, HTSC has not been explained at all. Until we do explain cold fusion, the possibility remains that it has almost no connection to previously established physics. That would be something along the lines of the Mills effect or zero-point energy. I think it goes too far to say that an explanation "*must* be based on what has been observed." Revolutionary discoveries such as the x-ray may be increasingly rare, but we cannot rule them out. To say "how we now know Nature to function" goes too far. It is only how we think we know. It can always be wrong. This is described in many books about the philosophy of science. Physics seldom changes these days, but I think that is a cultural problem. There are no revolutions because the physicists ignore anomalies. - Jed
