From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: What Jones said
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:48:59 GMT

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

Me: "if silver really was almost as resistant as nichrome (taking into account
the different thicknesses of the wires)..."

DB: "Jones said no such thing... They pointed out that power was being
dissipated into the air, but was registered as going into the cell. This
observation has not been refuted.... Please remember, Jed, most people on this
list are technical types - chemists, physicists, computer freaks with a heavy
technical background."

Technical type people know damn well that the only way 6 cm of one wire can
dissipate as much heat as 4 cm of another wire is if both have approximately
the same resistance. They also know that it would take an impossibly thin
silver wire to be as resistant as a 0.5 nichrome wire: at the power levels
seen in Nagoya, it would melt! Beuler and Jones claimed that by moving around
the alligator clips, they measured a high resistance in the silver wire.
Later, they claimed they ran an experiment with two equal resistors: one on
the outside of test tube of water, to simulate the silver wire, and one on the
inside, to simulate the nichrome. They claimed that this arrangement lowered
the temperature by 10 deg C. Actually, the temperature difference in Nagoya
was 15 deg C, so B&J are really claiming that the silver wire was dissipating
*more* heat than the nichrome.

If they are not claiming that the silver wire had the same resistance as the
nichrome, then what on earth did they mean? Why else does a wire get hot and
dissipate heat?

And when you finish explaining that mystery, why were both cells only up to
only 31 C at MIT? According to B&J, if they were at equal temperature, that
temperature would have to be 45 C; because B&J say there was no gain in the CF
cell, but only a loss in the control cell. No gain means the CF cell *should*
have been at 45, and so should the control cell, right? This is simply a lot
of preposterous nonsense! Why don't you, and B, and J, stop dragging out these
crazy red herrings, replicate the experiment properly, and *then* tell us why
the heat is not real. Go Ahead! What is stopping you? Don't give us these
cockamamie experiments with resisters hanging out of glasses, just do the very
same thing Notoya, Srinivasan, Bush, Noninski, and Mills did. You are an
electrochemist aren't you? Are you afraid to try a simple experiment with a
piece of nickel?

Now then, as to your evaluation of my background and knowledge, let me just
set you straight. I do happen to know that resistance varies with different
materials, and that it is a function of the thickness of the material. I
learned that when I was kid, and since I have been working with gadgets,
gizmos and computers ever since, I have not forgotten it. I also learned how
to measure temperature with a thermometer; I learned the laws of
thermodynamics and conservation of energy; and that the temperature of a pot
of water rises in proportion to the amount heat you put into it; and I learned
that a match will not burn for a month of Sundays without consuming any fuel.
You, on the other hand, apparently never learned these simple, obvious and
basic truths, so I know a heck of a lot more about science than you, Frank
Close, and Huizenga put together.
You people have your heads crammed so full of nonsense and esoterica about
neutrons and peer review, that you have forgotten the value of simple and
intuitively obvious experiments. The problem is not that I know too little, it
is that you know too much! You have knowledge galore, you lack wisdom.

- Jed


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