From: Frank Close <FEC%VAX2.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject:  Some comments from Frank Close on recent net news.
Reply-To: Frank Close <FEC%VAX2.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 16:38:20 GMT


Re: Some recent net postings.

"Fleischmann and Pons to Build CF Boiler This Year" (3/27/92). How many
of you had deja-vu as I did? In my cabinet full of memorabilia I found
Deseret News of July 89: "Hot Water Device Percolates in Pons' Lab". Steve
Jones sent me a memo (that I cant now trace) in which "end of this year (89)"
was associated with THAT story. So it seems that CNF is really ecologically
friendly: it is pollution free and recycles.

Thank you to all who wrote me, via the net or privately, about Robert Bass
who had invited me to sue him for having compared the smell of Too Hot To Handle
with the odour of a squashed spider among other things. Sorry Robert,
I am less interested in lining lawyers pockets than in establishing facts. I
 hope only that others gained as much entertainment as I did, however, as
 so many gave me your address could you please reply to my love letters?
 Bass is periodically cited in Fusion Facts (sic) whose editor Hal Fox has been
featured on the net recently with and without typing errors. Those of you who
subscribe to this periodical might wish to correct a typo in a recent edition.
Dieter Britz was quoted, without being consulted by FF, as saying that my
 skeptical position on the reality  of CNF had "softened". The word "not"
 should have preceded that.

Thanks also to Douglas Morrison for his latest update in which he notes
 that FP are alleged to be suing La Repubblica for, effectively,1 million
 dollars each (less, I presume, legal fees) on account of that paper referring
to CNF "fraud" (DROM's translation). I would very much like sight of that
article to see exactly what was written. As I wrote above, I am interested in
establishing the facts and have much unpublished documentation backing up
what appeared in Too Hot To Handle. If  Douglas' story is correct then, like
him, I hope that this action is withdrawn; if it is proceeded with then I hope
 that La Rep. has not been foolhardy and that they will attempt to substantiate
 their publication rather than having an insurance policy pay out of court.
The latter would leave a bad taste all round and shed little if any light
on the truth of the matter (I live in the UK  where the restrictive libel laws
have stifled investigative journalism for years; an extreme example of how this
can lead to abuse came to light with the  recent death of Robert Maxwell.
Anyone prepared to write about Maxwell was duly threatened, and out of court
settlements were made. Maxwell appeared to be vindicated thereby, even as
(it is now generally accepted) millions of pounds were disappearing  from
 his employees' pension fund. Thus an out of court settlement, with no public
 presentation of the issues, need not imply the innocence of the persons
 bringing the suit. Conversely, it would be unfortunate if Maxwell's demon
 were to cause genuinely wronged persons to be tainted.)


So, can some kind person with access to an Italian newspaper library photocopy
the said article and mail it to me at Rutherford Appleton Lab, Chilton, Didcot,
Oxon OX11 0QX, UK.

Douglas' report of the GE paper is also disturbing. I have yet to see that
 paper but hope that there will be some relevant discussion/explanation about
 it on the net, from Dieter, Todd Green et al. Douglas quotes selectively
from it that "The results [FP] report
are inconsistent with the procedures they describe"----"they should have
obtained significant positive heat [in the control ordinary water experiments]"
So how come FP managed to have thermal balance in ordinary water, at the time
of the press conference 3/23/89 (as claimed in FPALH90) if their analysis
should have produced (spurious) excess heat?

One explanation is that they had NOT obtained the results as claimed in FPALH90.
I have discussed this paper with two of the authors, neither of whom could
substantiate this claim as they were not directly involved. Stan Pons never
answered me. Martin Fleischmann however, made the following remark to Carlo
Rubbia at CERN on 3/31/89 (do you remember Douglas?) People who have heard
my CNF talk will have heard this tape and confirm that the question was clearly
put without pressure, and the answer was equally explicit and definitive.
There was no doubt then, nor, I am informed, at Harwell on 3/28/89 that
NO expts with ordinary water had been done. For the interest of net readers
I quote from the tape:
Rubbia: Have you replaced heavy water with ordinary water and if so with what
result?
MF:"I must confess to you that those expts are just going on now and I hope
[to] give you the answer shortly". MF then gave some reasons why they had NOT
 done expts with ordinary water and added that "I accept that we have to".
As FPALH90 makes a claim which is clearly false if MF testimony is true, then
how are we to know which claims are the ones that we are to take on board?

When the ordinary water experiments (of which MF was referring on 3/31/89) were
performed -  THEY GAVE EXCESS HEAT! (or at least, so Stan Pons believed at
the time).   The sources substantiating this are various
and are documented in my book. If GE's analysis is correct, then this explains
the events as reported to me at the time by several people and which formed
the basis of my claims in THTH about the ordinary water saga. It is in part
because of the  fact that both heavy and ordinary water gave similar thermal
(im)balance that I, and others, have always insisted that either there is a
chemical effect or nothing at all. GE now suggest that it is the latter
that is the case.

 Incidentally, I have not seen anyone comment on another interesting
datum in FPALH90 (table2, heat balance). There it mentions 0.8cm rods which
showed thermal BALANCE with HEAVY water!.As I noted in THTH, and as was known
 to Harwell at the time, FP's 0.8cm rods were "dead" (in FP language) -this,
 incidentally, was one of the reasons why FP believed that they had their
 thermal balance right and did not need to make ordinary water controls.
Now look back at your copies of the original FP(H)89 paper: the "gamma"
 ray data was supposedly taken over a 0.8(sic) rod which was not mentioned
 elsewhere in that preliminary note. Today we know that there was no "gamma"
 ray but at the time we were presented with supposed fusion radiation coming
from a cell that gave no heat!  As CNF has involved miracles enough already,
this one is hardly out of line. This remark has little to do with GE's paper but
may be taken on board by H Bauer who was recently asking why people thought the
FP paper was "unscientific".

Apologies for using up so much bandwidth but I dont write very often. I prefer
to read the net and hope that some evaluation of the GE paper will ensue.
I apologise too for posting all of this stuff about 89, at three Easters
remove from the Utah miracle, but as sociologists, historians and commentators
now seem to be getting on the bandwaggon I would like to see their theses
based on facts, insofar as one can discern them. I am having some interesting
discussion with Bruce Lewenstein and he in particular wishes to get the
chronology of CNF recorded accurately. If there are net readers who can add
to the above or, perhaps more important, correct it, then please alert
me or Bruce. The above posting expresses my personal opinions which are not
necessarily those of Bruce, my employers, etc.