On Jan 5, 2014, at 3:36 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Edmund Storms <[email protected]> wrote:
Unlike most technologies, even the new ones, a huge basic
understanding is normally in place on which understanding of the new
idea can be constructed. This is not the case with LENR. No one has
a basic understanding how it works. Success has resulted from luck.
In addition, the number of people who have even a rudimentary
understanding is very limited and growing older by the minuet.
No one in China understands it better than anyone in the U.S. The
person who understands it best is Rossi, and he is here.
Rossi clearly does not understand how the effect works. He was lucky
and is now trying to find out why. We have no way of knowing what
the Chinese have learned. The threat is the possibility they will find
out and use this information more effectively than Rossi can. This is
a huge risk that I would expect would be taken seriously, especially
when the cost of countering the risk is trivial.
No effective way exists in the West to teach this limited knowledge
to the next generation - to the scientists and engineers who would
be needed to manufacture the devices.
That is nonsense. Americans are no better or worse at teaching or
learning than anyone else.
You miss the point Jed. I said nothing about the general ability to
learn, which is universal. The problem is teaching knowlege about a
particular subject. That knowledge has a lifetime because a lot of it
is not in print. That which is in print is hard to find and difficult
to understand. This kind of knowledge is taught in university. No
university teaches LENR. Even if you want to start the process, how
many professors do you think are available?
I attended elite universities in the U.S. and Japan. I assure you,
Asian kids are no smarter than Americans, Europeans, Russians or
Africans, and no culture has any special ability to educate people.
A race is on is to acquire this knowledge and Rossi has a head
start. If this knowledge is being acquired and developed in China,
the rest of the world would have no access.
Anything Rossi can discover, others can rediscover. Even if a direct
reverse engineering does not work, no secret of this nature can
remain hidden for long.
I agree, the issue is how long it would take to rediscover the
understanding while China is running ahead.
Of course a Manhattan-type program might speed up the rest of the
world getting the knowledge after China put generators on the market.
R&D into cold fusion will far larger than the Manhattan project. R&D
into transistors was far larger. IBM's development of the IBM 360
computer cost more than the Manhattan project in constant dollars.
And your point is???
If you suggest the device could be reverse engineered, you would be
wrong. If you propose using a lot of bright physicists to figure out
the process, you would also be wrong.
If bright physicists in China can figure it out, I am certain bright
physicists in other countries can too.
We know that more bright physicists are in China than are in the US or
in any other country. If they are given the incentive to study LENR,
which is not given in the West, they will understand it sooner. This
is simple logic you cannot reject.
No major technology can remain secret for long. After Japan opened
up in 1868 and began studying European and American technology, they
caught up with every major military technology in 20 years. They
were 100 years behind. In 1905 they defeated the Russian army and
blew the navy out of the water.
This is not secret technology. This is IGNORANCE about a function of
nature. We are like a person from 1800 who came forward in time and
was confronted with explaining how a cell phone works. How long do you
thing it would take to come up with an answer?
The active region is too unique and too small to allow reverse
engineering unless you know what to look for.
They will figure out what to look for! Or they will hire Chinese
people who know.
Yes, they will try. The issue is scale.
The physics profession has already demonstrated its basic inability
to explain the effect. A physics education is actually a handicap.
First, not all physicists are uniform. I am sure there are many
skilled senior physicists who could contribute to this research.
Yes bright people would contribute if they have the incentive. This
incentive is not provided in the West. Even with incentive, they
would have to learn about the subject before they could make a
contribution. From whom do they get this teaching?
Second, Chinese physicists are not much different from ours. It is
NOT POSSIBLE they will gain some magic understanding that Americans
and others cannot possibly crack. That is not how the human mind
works. There are no cultural or biological differences that would
allow that.
A person does what they are rewarded to do. If people are not
rewarded to study CF, they will learn nothing and make no
contribution. THAT is the issue, not what can be learned in the
abstract.
Third, there is a new crop of physicists every years. After it
becomes generally known that cold fusion is real, for the next
generation the best and brightest of them will go into cold fusion,
just as they went into nuclear physics and semiconductors in the past.
Yes, that is true. I predict this will be too little too late.
Consequently, once the West wakes up and discovers it needs to
compete with China, most of the present information will have been
lost from the West and rediscovering the knowledge will take too long.
The West will wake up to this fact about a week after people in
China do.
Really?? If so, this will be the only example of leadership learning
anything so fast.
This is the 21st century. There are no secrets. If Rossi installs a
dozen heaters in factories in the U.S. -- as he plans to do --
everyone in the world will soon know about it, and they will
understand the significance.
So, what are these enlightened people waiting for. This is like a
person not believing the atom bomb is real until it is exploded in his
presence. The evidence is overwhelming that LENR will be the source
of energy for the future. The country that can industrialize it first
will have a huge advantage. Why must our leaders wait until the
device is on sale at Wal-Mart?
By the time the required knowledge is obtained, China will be far
ahead. But, that is only my opinion based on 23 years of study.
You sound like Wilbur Wright in 1908, when he assured his investors
that no one would catch up to him in less than 5 years, because
that's how long it took him to develop the airplane. Rivals caught
up and surpassed the Wrights in six months.
Yes, this is an argument that is used to counter all arguments. No one
has enough knowledge to predict the future because a few people
failed. It took some one as famous as Einstein to get the government
to believe that Germany was on the way to building an atom bomb. We
have no more Einsteins. Even then, it took months and a great deal of
luck for the claim to be accepted.
It is much easier to recapitulate research than it is to do it the
first time. Especially when you work on a shoestring the first time,
and the second time you have 500,000 of the best experts on earth
working frantically with unlimited funding. That was the situation
with airplanes in 1911 and it will be the situation with cold fusion
soon after people realize it is a real, commercial source of energy,
far cheaper than any other.
Of course this is true. But this is not the problem. The issue is with
timing and scale. These two factors are the difference between a
successful business and a failure. This is the difference between
winning a war and losing. You know this, so why deflect the argument
into irrelevant issues.
The fact that this very serious and plausible situation exists and
nothing is being done, gives little hope that the response later
will be any more competent . . .
Nothing is being done because no one believes it is real!
Exactly right. However, I do not agree with your reason why the
effect is ignored. The researches did everything in their power and
budget to get attention. They set up websites, they made the
information available, they did demonstrations, and they held
conferences. I even testified before Congress. Unfortunately, we never
had enough money to influence a Congressman, which is the method used
by other programs.
Ed
That is partly the fault of cold fusion researchers, who have hidden
their light under a bushel. No one tried to develop airplanes before
1908 because the Wrights refused to fly in front of experts after
1905. One flight lasting 2 minutes long by Wilbur in France was
enough to trigger world-wide belief, headlines in every newspaper in
Europe, and pandemonium. I have no doubt the same is true of cold
fusion.
- Jed
