While you might prefer the skeptics (actually, they are arguably pseudo-skeptics) to compile such a list until someone does and does it right they can keep bringing up the same objections over and over again. I'd suggest it is your opportunity to take the high-ground on objectivity ...
My $0.02 [mg] On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 7:50 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Mark Gibbs <mgi...@gibbs.com> wrote: > > I've been following the endless arguments about how the tests could have >> been rigged and it seems like every theory has been repeated over and over >> again . . . >> > > I have not gone through the arguments but as far as I can tell, only two > have been proposed: > > 1. The so-called "cheese" idea. As I have pointed out, they would discover > this when they go to measure voltage. > > 2. Shanahan's theory that IR cameras do not work, even when you confirm > them with thermocouples. > > The other objections I have noted were not objections at all. They were > meaningless. For example, Mary Yugo said that one of the tests was invalid > because the reactor was already running when the researchers arrived. So > what? That cannot affect the result. Think about the Pu-238 reactor on the > Curiosity mars explorer. It was hot from the moment the isotope was > separated. The half life is 88 year so it will be palpably hot for hundreds > of years, and measurably hot for thousands of years. You cannot turn off > this nuclear reaction. But that does not prevent you from measuring the > power of the reactor. You start at time X and go to time Y. The fact that > the reactor was running before X and continued to run after Y has no impact > on your measurement. If anything, this bolsters the evidence that the > reactor is not a battery and it has no stored chemical fuel. > > Another meaningless objection is to the use of 3-phase electricity. It is > not harder to measure, and the 2 extra wires are not a "rat's nest." > > A third example would be Milstone's demand that we separately measure the > heat from electricity and the anomalous reaction. That is physically > impossible. Heat all flows together throughout a reactor. As I tried to > explain to him, the only way you can separate two heat sources is when you > can measure exactly how big one of them is. Fortunately, in this case, we > can. There are several experiments such as Arata's where heat comes from > multiple sources including chemical reactions and cold fusion. There is no > way to separate them, except by guesswork. That is a serious deficiency. > > There are also strange, unfounded notions, such as Mary Yugo's assertion > that the temperature at the core of the reactor should be 2 times or 6 > times higher than the heater envelope because the core produces 2 to 6 > times the heat of the electric heater. It doesn't work that way. The > vessels are made of metal which conducts heat easily, so the heat quickly > flows from one to the other. Anyway the temperature does not start at zero > so you would not see "6 times higher" numbers. If you had two reactors side > by side, insulated from one another, all else being equal the difference > between ambient and the reactor core temperature would be proportional to > the difference in power . . . but that is a whole different situation. > > There were a whole bunch of factually correct "objections" that are not > problems at all but rather advantages that should bolster confidence. Levi > et al. deliberately underestimated, going to conservative extremes. Several > skeptics pointed these underestimations if they were problems, and as if > Levi did not notice them. For example, they said the surface area of the > reactor was underestimated because it was treated as a flat plain rather > than a cylinder. Yes, we know. The authors pointed this out. No, this does > not affect the conclusion. > > There were a few backward assertions. That is, statements that are > factually 180 degrees wrong, such as Mary Yugo's complaint that this method > is excessively "complicated." On the contrary it is the simplest > method known to science, with the fewest instruments and only one physical > principle, the Stefan-Boltzmann law. Other methods are more accurate or > precise, but this is the simplest. Also the most reliable once you do some > reality checks and calibrations. > > Then there is the unclassifiable weirdness such as Shanahan's demand that > they publish all of the thermocouple data. The authors said the > thermocouple tracked the IR camera the whole time, staying just about 2 deg > C above it, for an obvious and mundane reason. Okay, so if you want to see > that data set, go to Plot 1, "Emitted thermal power vs time." Print that > out, and draw another line smack on top of the first line. You would not > see the 2 deg C difference on this scale. Shanahan refuses to believe the > authors because they did not print a graph with two lines right on top of > one another. That's hilarious, but it isn't science. > > > but no one who claims it's a fraud seems to be willing to admit they just >> don't know even though they have no actual evidence of fraud and can't >> prove anything. >> > > The evidence for fraud they point to is in Rossi's personality and > behavior. That cannot be subject to an investigation or to a rigorous > analysis by us, because we are not police officers. For Mary Yugo that > boils down to the statement "I don't trust Rossi." I, Jed, don't trust him > either in many ways, but I do trust IR cameras and wattmeters, and I am > sure that Rossi cannot affect them, so he is irrelevant. As I said, he > might as well be on Mars for all the influence he can exert on the > instruments. > > Years ago when wattmeters had discrete components a person might have > secretly opened one and changed the performance to produce fake results. > Nowadays they have integrated circuits. You can't affect the performance > any more than you can with a calculator or a cell phone. All you can do is > wreck it. > > > >> I'd be interested in seeing a breakdown of the criticisms and the >> arguments for and against as a sort of FAQ to add to the test results. >> > > I think it is up to the skeptics to compile such a list. > > - Jed > >
