From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: A safe distance
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:47:39 GMT

To: >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.sf-bay.org

Greg Kuperberg asks, "Maybe in your research you will stumble across a third
kind of cold fusion that does generate a whole lot of neutrons just like solar
fusion, uncontrolled thermonuclear fusion, laser fusion, and magnetic
fusion do...  Do you wear a radiation monitor in your work?"

I am at a very safe distance. The experiment is in MIT, and I am in Atlanta,
Georgia. My contribution was to pay for the equipment, and analyze the data,
which I downloaded into my computer by phone. However, your point is VERY WELL
TAKEN, and it should be engraved on the wall of every cold fusion laboratory:
SAFETY FIRST.

This is another excellent reason why this work *should* be properly funded,
and *should* be performed in National Laboratories, with safety precautions.
The level of safety and cleanliness at most US CF "labs" I have seen is
dreadful. You cannot blame the workers. They are doing the best they can with
zero money, under trying circumstances, usually in their own homes. Most of
them are professionals who are well aware of the danger, but they cannot
afford the necessary safety equipment. One of them, who has been in the hot
fusion program for 30 years, told me, "my curiosity is stronger than my fear,
I am driven to do this, even though I know it is rather foolhardy under these
circumstances." It is a frightening situation. There have been serious,
unreported accidents. The products of the reaction may not be "commensurate,"
but the 3000 bq/ml of tritium in the recent BARC nickel experiments is a grave
concern to me. In one lab with very powerful CF devices, the radiation alarms
trip so frequently that the safety officer quit. I joked with them, suggesting
that they hire Richard Blue as a replacement. I told them, "he is so convinced
the reaction is impossible, and the products cannot be real, that he will
fearlessly stroll into the abandoned lab, reset the alarms, and vent the gas.
He will think it must be a false alarm, because CF cannot be nuclear." But
actually, this is no laughing matter.

Today I wish was at a less safe distance, because that Unstoppable Force of
Nature Reiko Notoya is back at work at MIT with a new set of cathodes.
Yesterday, at low power, she only got a stable 70% excess heat, with a 7 deg C
Delta T, and at high power she got only about 25% excess, about 5 deg C, also
stable. Still not good enough...

She figured out the problem with the last set of cathodes, by the way. She
opens a small hole in the cathode to connect the power wire. In the lab in
California, they had several brand new cathodes, and they drilled holes in
them. Unfortunately, they used a power drill which apparently sprayed a very
fine mist of lubricating machine oil. They took precautions, but the oil got
onto the surface of the cathodes and degraded performance. The moral of the
story is: before you do an important demo, always use the exact same tools,
and follow the exact same procedures, in the exact same lab, as you did in
previously successful runs. On the other hand, it was good that she did so
much over here U.S., because a dozen top electrochemists got to look over her
shoulder during the preparation of the cathode and at other critical stages.
As Peter H. said, "it was a learning experience." Most of these people have
successfully done the P&F experiment, so they should have no trouble
replicating this one.

DB posted a strange old joke, comparing CF to a village miracle. I suppose the
analogy, or implication, is that the Notoya demo at MIT was the one and only,
make-or-break, last chance to do a public CF experiment, and that since it did
not work very well, the whole business will just disappear off the face of the
earth, because it could not have worked in the laboratory either. DB
apparently does not know the difference between religious miracles, scientific
experiments, and public demonstrations. Since I have spent a lifetime working
with machinery, and I have performed dozens of public demonstrations before
important clients with computers and computer software, I *do* understand
these things. I know that a public demonstration is always somewhat ad-hoc and
unpredictable, no matter how carefully you try to arrange it in advance. I
know that any experiment in a new field of science can fail inexplicably for
reasons that nobody understands -- because it is new science. One or two blown
experiments, or even 100, or 1000, make no difference at all. I have crashed
my computer thousands of times while debugging software. So what? My programs
work eventually, although they fail inexplicably from time to time, as do all
programs.

Technology is not a perfect miracle, it can never be 100% reliable or
predictable. People like DB, who think that an experiment is an all-or-
nothing, absolute proposition, don't have the foggiest idea how real
technological progress is made, how real products are developed, or how real
science is done. That was the first public demo of CF in the US (there have
been several in Japan). It was not the last. This one failed, and the next one
may fail too.

It will not matter if 100 demonstrations fail. These are not exercises in
Public Relations. This was not a press conference either, as a matter of fact,
we threw CNN out of the lab and did not let them film the lecture. Reporters
can sit and take notes, or make audio recordings, just like anyone else, but
we will not allow any more disruption or media circuses in this field. A demo
is a serious, scientific, public session to show the scientific community at
large, and the other CF scientists, what the work looks like. A demo is like a
lecture, only you learn a lot more, whether the gadget works that day or not.
In the early days of aviation, airplanes frequently did not get off the ground
because of engine failures, cracked struts, and so on. Eventually CF systems
will become robust enough to bring out of the laboratory and demonstrate. For
now, the laboratory data alone will convince any scientist smart enough to
know how a thermometer works.


In another oddball exchange with DB:

Me: "An electrochemist said to me, 'a physicist [can't replicate P&F]...'"

DB: "[Agreeing] electrochemistry is not easy. And so it is significant that
most real electrochemists doing electrochemical cold fusion experiments - with
the notable exception of Fleischmann and Bockris - find nothing."

Actually, the particular electrochemist who made that statement had very
little trouble replicating P&F, and he did Mills on the first try. I know
dozens of electrochemists who have replicated P&F. Of course, it takes months
of hard work, and you do not get the kind of control and predictability EPRI
paid $3 million bucks for. I also know dozens of physicists who have
replicated P&F. The trick is: if you are a physicist, go visit an
electrochemist for a couple of weeks, or hire one. If you are an
electrochemist who wants to measure neutrons, go spend some time in the
neutron labs and learn the ropes. Learn some lessons, get some humility in
your heart first, and you will succeed. If you think you such a smart cookie
you don't need any advice from anyone, you are bound to fail. I know many
smart cookies who regularly bolix up their computers and lose vital data
simply because they are too proud and too vain to ask for a little help.

DB does not realize that any "real electrochemist" who gets serious, has the
money, and does palladium CF for a year or two will invariably succeed. Any
electrochemist who does nickel CF for a month will succeed. DB thinks that he
will read about all of the people who have succeeded by looking in the so-
called peer reviewed literature, but this is absurd, because most
electrochemists who have succeeded will never publish that fact. They work for
corporations that would instantly fire them if they published, and they will
never come onto this network and said, "sure, I have done it, and here is how
much heat I got, and here is how you can replicate me." That is about as
likely as a guy from Microsoft uploading the source code for DOS. CF is not an
open, academic, ivory tower discipline, it is top secret corporate hot stuff
-- like the latest RAM chip production technology. DB is looking for reports
in the peer reviewed published literature, which is like looking for hot stock
market tips in your local newspaper. It is last, least likely place to find
any timely information of value.

When P&F discovered CF, they did not publish details, they kept as much of it
secret as they could. They have done everything within reasonable, legal, and
ethical bounds to keep it secret after that. They did not come of the lab and
hand it over to the waiting world, they went and cut a deal with Toyota Motor
Company. They revealed just enough to show they were for real, and to attract
the kind of deal they wanted, from a major player.

Okay, I am businessman - programmer - jack-of-all-trades, and what do I think
of P&F's actions? I think it is absolutely brilliant! Genius! I could not have
done it better in a million years. Is it ethical? Of course! Was it ethical
for Edison to build General Electric? Was it ethical for A.G. Bell to found
AT&T? Naturally, it is ethical to cash in on an invention. It is the most
above board, honorable, All-American, and sensible action imaginable. If P&F
had not done exactly that, no businessman (like me) would ever have taken them
seriously. If they had not kept it secret, and not cut a serious deal, I would
have written them off as flakes and nutcases.

Anybody with an ounce of sense would do exactly what they did. Only, most of
us would not be talented enough to snag a company like Toyota. Somebody here
mentioned -- with a note of disbelief -- that they shut their graduate student
out of the lab. Well, Good Grief! Of course they did! I shut my employees out
of my computer too. If I ever caught one monkeying and prying into source
code, I would fire him immediately, and send the sheriff to his house with a
warrant to search for stolen property that afternoon. I don't let people steal
my livelihood, and P&F do not casually throw away a fortune. This is the real
world, folks. P&F had a secret worth billions of dollars in that room. If they
had not shut out that grad student, they would have been criminally stupid and
grossly negligent. Heck, I would have hired an armed guard. This is not a
game.


Several people responded to my comments about money. Hey, guys, I never said
that money is the ONLY thing that motivates people, I just said that for the
run-of-the-mill, ordinary person, it motivates more often, and more
consistently than other rewards, like the urge to have fun, or to create, or
to exercise power over others. It is the principal motivating force in
society, but not the only one, by any means. Someone here said that Edison
invented some relatively impractical gadgets, not for money. Naturally, he
did, he was a world-class inventor who accomplished more every day before
breakfast that most of us do in a year. He must have invented dozens of purely
scientific devices as well as practical, salable devices. However, his main
accomplishment was building the General Electric Company, which is a profit
making, profit oriented organization if ever there was one.

Also, when I said, "money purifies," I meant that it keeps people on track,
and it keeps them from kidding themselves and lying. If you are building a
gadget, like a computer, you know that you cannot fool the customers. They
will not buy the product if it does not work better than the competition. As
the builder, you know that there is no point to lying or quibbling about
performance. People only pay for real products, they do not pay for the
designer's wishful thinking or silly delusions. When money and jobs are on the
line, it "concentrates the mind wonderfully" as Twain said about a death
sentence. Nobody on earth tests software more exhastively than some poor
S.O.B. who has to go install a package next week. That is why I say, "money
purifies" and keeps you honest.


Tom Droege says, "I do not remember [Jed] previously stating that they used
surgical gloves in assembling their cells."

Oh, I am quite sure I said that explicitly, many times. I say it every time
the subject comes up. In the protocol it is under note # 3, and in the quote
from Noninsky. Use surgical gloves, NEVER the yellow rubber kind.

Tom also said: "It looks like what might be clean for semiconductor work is
not clean for electrochemistry." Definitely right! I have that straight from
the horse's mouth (IBM). They look for different kinds of contamination. Stuff
that bothers one does not affect the other.

The kinds of questions and concerns that Tom is bringing up here illustrate
EXACTLY what I have been saying: there is art to electrochemistry! It is not
in the textbooks, and the only way to learn it is first hand, in the lab, from
an experienced person. That is true of every laboratory science, from physics
to biology. You learn by doing, not by reading e-mail messages. If you try
hard you can probably succeed in the nickel experiment without help, but your
chances of getting heat from palladium are zero to none. You might as well
expect an electrochemist could build a television or a neutron detector
without ever having seen one, and without a textbook, simply by reading
fragmentary e-mail notes. CF just got invented, there are no textbooks yet,
and even the experts struggle with it. We got LOTS of expert help with our
experiments, and they failed anyway. If you insist on working with palladium,
which is doing it the hard way, then at least give yourself every possible
advantage, and get first hand help. Heck, why not just ask someone to make a
cell for you? That's what we did, more or less.

Tom: "I am not willing to accept Jed's command that we disconnect our heads
and copy another experiment exactly when we are not being told what "exactly"
is." 

You don't know what 'exactly' is, but electrochemists generally do. That is
why they get an effect, and you don't. Also because they work at CF full time
for years before they get anywhere, and they have fully equipped labs without
cats (an unfair advantage). If you don't know what 'exactly' is, then go spend
a week in Hokkaido, or the University of Minnesota, TAMU, or wherever, and
find out. Watch, take notes, ask questions, and you will learn. First, copy
the master exactly in every detail. When you succeed, strike out on your own.

I think that it is good for a person to disconnect the head from time to time,
forget the ego, follow orders, and learn from the master. I recommend it.
Perhaps it is an alien, Oriental tradition, but we can all learn from Japan,
can't we? If you want to succeed at CF, act as child would, and begin by
watching, imitating and learning from others. It takes humility, guts, moral
courage, and a sense of humor, but there is no other way to master this new
art, because nobody on earth can explain it yet. It can only be grasped by
intuition, and experiments only work by trial and error. Later, we will make
it into a science.

- Jed


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