From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: The Wrong Spirit
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 06:08:50 GMT

To: >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG

Now that I am fortified with a dinner of chicken stew, let me share some
additional thoughts about Dr. Morrison's portrayal of Notoya's light water
cell. I will leave out the technical details; anyone seriously interested in
them should come over in a few weeks and have a look, or e-mail me. Let me
address the moral spirit of Dr. Morrison's remarks. I feel that his words and
actions work against the true, open, friendly, scientific spirit that all of
us desire, and work hard to cultivate. Here is what I mean: Dr. Morrison
apparently had some legitimate, serious doubts about the Notoya cell. Fine!
Good! He should have strolled right up to Notoya or me and said just said
what was on his mind. Dozens of other people did, including Huizenga. Steve
Jones and Dave did. Any honest, friendly scientist would do that. When Steve
and Dave showed me the problem with the resistance, I said something like,
"Notoya-san has a multimeter in her purse, so as soon as she comes back,
let's ask her to check it." I did. She did. It was okay, only a little off
(Dave was partly right). I don't know if he had a chance to come back and try
the multimeter himself. I hope he did, but if not, maybe next time, or maybe
I can send him a cathode for himself.

Dr. Morrison might say, "I could not ask. I did not know who was in charge of
the cell," That's silly. I was right there! Big as life. You couldn't miss
me. The couch next to the cell was one of the most comfortable in the hall,
and it was 3 meters from a table full of cookies, orange juice and coffee, so
I was usually sprawled there, gabbing and laughing with the NHK crew. On
Notoya's orders, I was guarding the cell against Ikegami, who wanted to turn
up the power to the max and see what would happen. Morrison should have
*asked* me who the cell belonged to. He should have *followed* *up*. Show us
the problem, see if we can fix it. Come back in an hour and see if the cell
is still 14 deg C hotter than the dummy. Follow Up! This is science, the
tools were right there at hand. We would have handed him the multimeter, or
switched silver wires, or swapped power supplies. He should have talked about
the problem with Dr. Notoya. She was certainly recognizable, she was the only
five foot middle aged Japanese lady professor wearing bright red and speaking
Russian in a loud, high pitched voice at the Conference. I did not see any
others that fit that description, and I never have. Notoya and I are both
easily recognized at a distance, and both friendly as puppies.

Dr. Morrison missed the spirit of the Conference. He missed the fun. He
complains about Ikegami's interview in Japanese. Well, why on earth didn't he
come and ask me, or an English speaking Japanese person, to interpret? What
was he afraid of? What language did he expect Ikegami to speak? He got all
worked up about nothing -- it is just paranoia. If he had any concerns about
the content of the interview, I am sure that the NHK people and I could have
set his mind at ease. Japanese National Television is fair and even handed.

And this furtive silly nonsense about us making off with the cell in the
night. For goodness sake! If he had bothered to ask, I would have said, "UPS
took it away yesterday. You can see it again in Cambridge the first week in
December."

Instead of asking, debating, challenging, and promoting an open, honest, fun
dialogue, Morrison slinked back and posted this silly message, weeks later.
The reason I am railing on about this is because is *symptomatic*. It is the
*essence* of the pathology of the so-called "skeptics." They don't have the
right spirit! You don't nit-pick, and secretly look for some little problem,
so you can go home and torpedo people from a safe distance. That is not how
to do science. You have a problem? You have a question? Call us up! Ask! Step
right up and ask for a multimeter. Measure that resistance for yourself.
Notoya probably had a couple spare wires in her bag, we could have double
wired the connection down to the resister. We are open to any suggestion,
except Ikegami's plan to blow the thing up. This was an open, come-one-come-
all, demonstration with a couple of people lounging around next to it,
answering questions, laughing, and eating cookies. There will be another
after demonstration after that, and another, and another. We are not going
away, not unless someone shows us what is wrong with the cell. We are here to
build a generator. We are not hiding. Everyone knows how to reach me,
Ikegami, Notoya, or MITI.

Morrison and many others accuse us of hiding things, and not submitting to
public inspection, of not publishing, or allowing others to judge our work,
but that is crazy nonsense! We are the most open, friendly people around. I
have called dozens of cold fusion scientists. Outside of the big
corporations, most of them send you any papers or raw data you want. They
describe their work and their methods in endless detail, and will invite you
into the lab anytime. Morrison and the other so-called "skeptics" accuse us
of being furtive. They say we hide our work. It is just the opposite; good CF
scientists are bold as brass and willing to let anyone (except Ikegami) mess
with experiments right in front of everyone in the conference. I spend tons
of my own money handing out detailed literature describing every trick and
technique I know about, and Tanaka Precious Metals hands out free palladium.
The "skeptics" refuse to allow us to publish anything! They refuse to look at
the experiments. *They* are running and hiding, not us.

- Jed

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