Edmund Storms <[email protected]> wrote: This is apparently a test of the Widom-Larsen theory. This theory seems to > be the vampire of LENR theories - it can not be killed. >
True and hilarious. I cannot judge theory, but I think the W-L theory become widely publicized and credible more or less by accident. By a series of coincidences. It happens to satisfy some demands made by some theorists. It happens to fit in well with academic politics. It has been enthusiastically promoted by Steve Krivit. Events are sometimes shaped by odd occurrences, or by emotions, or by things like love affairs, or someone with a silly grudge, or someone who showed up an hour late for a meeting. I do not think the W-L theory will last, but for a while it is likely to shape people's thinking about cold fusion, and mass media reporting. In the past, various mistaken hypotheses may have affected the development of technology, such as the phlogiston theory of heat, and Langley's law of aerodynamics. Historians say these things retarded development. I wonder about that. I do not think they had much effect because people did not take them seriously or try to make use of them. - Jed
