From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: A Reply to Frank Close
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 01:59:36 GMT

Terry Bollinger has forwarded a very flattering note written about my work by
Frank Close.  I will get it in a day or two as a FD.  I seem to have stumbled 
on a sure fire way to be loved by all.  Work hard to discover cold fusion but 
keep finding nothing.  The true believers love me for trying, while the 
skeptics love me for publishing null results.  

When my brother an I started this work, it was with our eyes open.  We had 
some correspondence that indicated that one of the well known players was 
either a con-artist, or at least an associate of a con-artist.  So we were 
well aware that there might be nothing to find.  I wanted to make sure that at 
least something came of the work.  So while I had enough background to build 
devices to measure any of the nuclear particles, I chose instead to try to 
measure heat.  I consciously did not look at how heat was measured but set out 
to think up my own way.  The idea was that if "cold fusion" did not work out, 
I at least had a chance at developing a new instrument. 

I very much appreciate Frank's comments about how science is really done. I 
quote from the introduction to our ACCF1 paper:

"We believe that it is often very helpful to 
hear of other's mistakes and disasters.  We 
report a few of ours here.  We believe that
the dry impartial style of technical papers
prevents young people from discovering the 
joy of research.  We consciously allow our 
excitement to show while attempting to 
report objectively."

Somehow scientists have decided that good science has to be boring.  It has 
never been boring to the participants, as we all know.  But is is sure dull to 
watch.  I once went to an APS meeting with a physicist friend.  I think it 
was the parity violation meeting.  In any case when we came out of the session 
my friend said "Wow, this completely changes physics".  I did not even know 
that I had witnessed a momentous discovery.  The speaker did not say anything 
special, nor did the audience gasp when the view graphs went up.  I don't 
think science started out this way.  Somehow we got on the wrong track.  There 
used to be fist fights in the British Museum.  

Consider what a high school student sees of life.  He sees good old Neon Deon 
flying madly between sports events - and he strikes out - twice!  He then 
reads in his physics book how such and such experiment was done.  Always a 
perfect logical sequence of events.  He knows he is human, and could not 
possibly do anything so perfect.  So he adopts Neon Deon as his role model and 
practices baseball and football with enough effort to win a Nobel prize.  But 
the competition is so fierce that he never makes a pro team.  So our nation is 
on a downward spiral because we are putting our efforts into non-productive 
goals.  

I have known all along that I was playing a long shot.  But a little effort 
can convert a long shot into a productive effort even if the primary goal is 
lost.  As I have posted, there is already a spin off that is very PC that has 
come about because of the calorimetry work.  Here is my plan: 

a) Discover "anomalous heat" by extending the accuracy of calorimetry.
b) Use this work to develop e-mail collaboration for experimentation.
c) Use this work to expose to the common man how science is really done. 

I started with only a.  Later as I started using this medium it seemed that I 
should publicly declare b).  Frank now reminds me that I believe very strongly 
in c).

Tom Droege

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion