From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: Webb is right
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 23:38:16 GMT

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

Jon Webb puts a great many words in my mouth, and then denies them all. I
agree completely. The following is rubbish and nonsense:

"Basically, you seem to believe every paper published that claims a positive
result for cold fusion, and disbelieve every paper that claims a negative
result." Good Grief no!

"You claim that anyone can get 90 sigma..." That is the craziest thing I have
ever heard. That is like claiming that anyone can build a functional RAM chip
in their basement. If you want 90 sigma palladium results, you must do what
SRI did: hire the best electrochemists in North America, work for 3 years,
and spend $3 million dollars. It does not happen by accident.

"The scientists you cite as skeptics look at the history of cold fusion
experiments and see this pattern over and over: someone claims a positive
result, then withdraws it later (or it just somehow disappears, being
reported at a conference and then never heard from again)..."

I hear from everyone in the field, at regular intervals. Whenever I call or
fax, they tell me what they are up to. Who the Hell are you talking about?

"Or someone claims to have gotten cold fusion to work, then can't get it to
work anymore..." What do you mean "anymore?" Do you mean it does not always
work the second or third time? Naturally. Sometimes you gotta try it again
for weeks or months before it works again. The same thing happens when you
program a computer, or learn to bake a torte. There is nothing unusual,
unexpected or unscientific about that. Anyone who has ever developed a new
product or learned a new skill has experienced that sort of disappointment.

"Or someone tries a cold fusion experiment with apparently careful technique,
and it doesn't work..."

Who did you have in mind? Tom Droege? Me? He has done a handful of
experiments, I have done three. So what? To succeed at Pd CF, you sometimes
have to do hundreds of experiments. You have be prepared to work for years --
full time -- with no results at all. Tom and I are not even in the running.
Tom would have to hire half a dozen people, or 32 people, and spend million
of bucks before he could authoritatively tell us what does or does not work.
Tom is a great guy, but he is not playing in the same league as the Big Guns
who get positive results every time they run the experiment. He and I are
mere amateurs, puttering around part time, and you cannot draw any
conclusions from the handful of meager experiments we have performed.

What is your idea of 'apparently careful technique' anyway? One experiment?
10 experiments? Try 200 and call me back in three years. 'Apparently careful'
to who? I have seen some vaunted, world-famous 'experiments' from supposedly
careful people that were laughable. I could tell in an instant what they had
done wrong: I mean, in one case, they left the cathode half out of the water!
This is not a game for beginners. There is no room in this field for quitters
who stop after one or two experiments without ever consulting with the
experts. Are you saying that because the experiment is difficult, the
phenomenon does not exist? Okay: light bulbs don't exist. It took Edison
years to make a reliable one, didn't it? Airplanes and computer software
don't exist. Recombinant DNA applications, and stable high-temperature
superconductors will never exist. Balderdash!

"As I understand it, you think that cold fusion exists... that it can be done
in a wide variety of experimental situations, ranging from electrolysis of
palladium or nickel to titanium soaked in deuterium gas to outgassing from
palladium plates; that it sometimes produces tritium or He3 or He4 or
neutrons or gamma rays..."

You understand very little, but you got that partly right. I don't know
anything about He3 or gamma rays, though, and you left out the single most
important, most overriding and undeniable product; the key to the whole
riddle:

     Heat

Don't forget that! It is the easiest thing to measure, and the most
conclusive, by far.

- Jed


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

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion