HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: colin@physci.uct.ac.za (COLIN HENDERSON)
Subject: Re: Risk and Dysfunctional Thinking
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 13:06:49 GMT
Organization: University of Cape Town

In article <921216170326_72240.1256_EHL68-1@CompuServe.COM> Jed Rothwell <
72240.1256@compuserve.com> writes:

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


[ ... deleted ... ]

>has with poor Dr. Huizenga. You need to take a deep breath, go back to 
basics,>and try to sort out in your mind some fundamental rules of science.

>Your biggest problem is that you have forgotten the difference between theory
>and evidence. For example, you say: "The 'cold fusion' line is a total crock,
>and I think the majority of the high-heat folks know it by now.  (Evidence?
>Interest in Mills' "hydrino" idea, which is a modified (a) theory...)"

>You do not understand the use of the word "evidence." Data is evidence. A
>theory, like the Mills' idea, is not evidence, and plays no role in judging
>whether or not the phenomenon exists. Mills might have the wrong theory, but
>his data has been replicated by dozens of people at levels far beyond possible
>experimental errors. A theory can never, ever, prove or disprove anything in
>science, only experimental data can do that.

>You go on to say, "you are asking for a MAJOR humdinger of a violation of
>physics." This is totally irrelevant. Ten Million Major Humdingers would not
>make one iota of difference. The only scientifically valid questions are:

>1. What do the instruments show?

>2. What is the signal to noise ratio?

Add to this: (NNNNB)

3. What is your systematic error?
   (a) Do you understand it?
   (b) How big is it?
   (c) How hard have you tried to eliminate it?

Most "sigmas" account for random errors.  They are a bit meaningless if the 
systematic error is far larger.  Vide Tom's measurements earlier this year, 
when he got many "sigmas" of excess heat, and then discovered that the 
systematic errors in his experiment were also of the order of many sigmas.

>The instruments show Delta T temperature differences as high as 50 C, at sigma
>levels greater than 90, therefore CF exists.

As yet, no-one has convinced the experts (except, possibly, McKubre) that 
they have sufficiently addressed point 3. above.  Ergo, we cannot be sure 
that CF exists.

> Nothing else matters,... 

See point 3.

>...  and no
>theory can have any effect on the conclusion ...
                                      [whether or not]
>                                        ...(that) the heat is real, and far
>beyond the limits of chemistry. Theory plays no role in this conclusion
>whatsoever, and cannot be used to attack or defend it.

I agree here.
 

>Please stop confusing
>the roles of theory and evidence. 

We will if you start being a bit more careful about what is evidence and 
what is not.
--

Colog "nku-e-shweleng" the Henderdog
Physics Dept, UCT, South Africa.
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: Cleanliness
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:49:11 GMT

First I would like to congradulate Paul Houle for the "right" answer.  The 
Poynting vector "points" in the directon of the power flow.  The key thing is
that it is a vector product.  Since in the real world the vectors are almost
never at a perfect right angle to each other, corrections have to be made.  Not
bad for a steady state like a pure resistor and a battery, but put a little 
capacity in the system and a little noise, and the answer starts to change. 

It is very interesting that as soon as I started putting up questions about
cell cleaning procedures that Jed Rothwell has now put up a long message on
cleaning.  He also says that they used clean procedures in making their cell.
I do not remember him previously statint that they used surgical gloves in 
assembling their cells.  

So is it possible to separate the successes from the failures by the cleaning
procedures used?  It looks like what might be clean for semiconductor work is
not clean for electrochemistry.  I remember in a discussion with Mills that 
we described a cleaning procedure that brother Lee uses for the preparation of
sheets for Nickel plating, and Mills did not like it.  

So I am willing to accept that this might be a phenomena that requires ultra
purity somewhere.  I am not willing to accept Jed's command that we disconnect
our heads and copy another experiment exactly when we are not being told what
"exactly" is.  P&F as far as I can remember have never said you must use such
and such technique.  They have said "wink" "wink" that some of us will know the
right things to do.  

As far as I am concerned, the invocation against a catalyst in the Ni- H2O
experiments is just garbage until someone can give a logical reason.  

I regularly get better performance fro circuits on two layer printed circuit 
boards than others achieve on 4 and 8 layer boards.  This is because I have 
studied noise, signal transmission techniques, and the meaning of "ground".  So
I guess now that I have to study the meaning of clean.  Then I will be able to
get "clean" cells in my simple plastic glove bag.  I think I will study a while
before doing another experiment.  

Tom Dro

Meanwhile, I would like to hear from electrochemists about "clean".

Tom Droege
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz)
Subject: the due diligence of a parroteer
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:35:46 GMT

    In article sci.physics.fusion:4566 [15 Dec 1992],
 greg@marvin.uchicago.edu (Greg Kuperberg) writes
 with wiry logic:
>>  "Aha!  This is a pressure tactic!"

  Greg.  There was no pressuse, just a simple suggestion for
    a follow-up of diligence.
  If there was pressure, then there would have been a force.
  With your logic (vide infra) and with the vaporesponse
    characterizing the exchange, there has been neither
    displacement, nor energy exerted.
                   ergo: No force.


==  "If I've parrotted the claim, as we've agreed that I have,
==     then it's not my claim to defend.
==                    ***
==   why should I give you any more of an dxplanation than
==   you'v alseady received?  If I don't, you might *choose
==   not to believe me*.
==   What a horror that would be.  It might even drive me back
==   to my real work."

    Greg, as denotated and brought to your careful attention
       "parroting" requires sedulous behavior.

    From Webster's, two quotes now follow [ibid]:
  
    "sedulous [L sedulus, fr. sedulo sincerely, diligently
       1.  diligent in application or pursuit"

    "diligent 
       1.  characterized by steady, earnest, and energetic
           application and effort.  Painstaking
  
  Your logic thus appears to be paradoxical, your banter
   unsupported.

  Perhaps such "parrot-doxical" thinking ought to come with an
  emissions label if it continues into the new year,
  given otr national coming-of-age re: truth-in-labeling.

 
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: HICCUP Fusion
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 20:31:04 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.221424.6404@nmt.edu> houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle) writes:
>In article <1992Dec16.201708.26730@asl.dl.nec.com> terry@asl.dl.nec.com writes:
>>Hi folks,
>>
>>HICCUP Fusion: Hot-In-Cold Cavitation Ultra Pressure Fusion
>>
>>A humorous name, yes, but the suggestion you are about to read for totally
>>conventional Jones-level "hot-in-cold" fusion is entirely serious.  I hope
>>someone out there will actually give it a try.
>>
>>For those of you unfamiliar with the term, "cavitation" refers to the
>>creation -- often via ultrasound -- and subsequent collapse of very tiny
>>bubbles in a fluid.  Exceptionally high pressures are generated as the
>>bubbles collapse.
>>
>
>	Is there any reason why this couldn't be done in,  say,  liquid
>D2?  Would the ultrasound necessarily vaporize the D2 before the cavitation
>process is set up?
>-- 

     It would be very expensive.  Otherwise, no there's no reason.

                            dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                          crb7q@virginia.edu        
Department of Mechanical, 
     Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
University of Virginia                              (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: Cold Fusion Finance
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 20:45:03 GMT

Dieter Britz quotes Fusion Facts:

"... a consortium of Utah and Washington corporations have pledged over $25
million over the next few years ..."

Yea, but how much have they got.  I have this corporation that I use as a 
shield against possible law suits because I make some dumb mistake.  Not 
really a tax shelter as it is Sub Chapter S.  

Environmental Optics Corp. pledges to spend $100 million over the next five
years to promote Cold Fusion research.

You heard it here first folks.  It would be improper and would make you all 
mad if I were to announce it in a press conference, so I quietly present it
here.  

Tom Droege

P.S.  Plans for FY 93 (based on previous years) are to spend $10,000.  But the
year after that ... .
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: Bruce_Dunn@mindlink.bc.ca (Bruce Dunn)
Subject: Re: HICCUP Fusion
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:46:21 GMT

> Terry writes:
>
> One version of the experiment might be as follows:
>
>  1) Start with very pure (ordinary) water.  (You may of course wish to
>     "bypass the middle man" and use heavy water instead, so that vapor
>      pressure water molecules inside the cavitation bubbles will have a
>      better chance of accomplishing something useful by donating D atoms.)
>
>  2) Use vacuum distillation methods to create a container of water that
>     is extremely low in all types of dissolved gases.
>
> etc.
>


        If anyone is contemplating this, talk to a biochemist or analytical
chemist who routinely uses High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).  This
analytical technique pumps 1 or 2 ml of water or organic solvents through
small columns (4 x 250 mm inside diameter) packed with 5 or 10 micron
particles of chromatography material.  The pressures involved are up to 2000
or 3000 psi.  The experience of your friend doing HPLC is useful because:

1)  The water used for HPLC must be very pure - HPLC grade water is sold for
those who haven't the apparatus to make their own.

2)  The water used in HPLC is often degassed before being used.  This is
because the water is often mixed on the high pressure side of the pumps with
high pressure methanol or other organic solvents.  The solubility of gases in
the mixture of solvents is less than the solubility in the original
components.  If solvents are not degassed, bubbles will then form in the low
pressure solvent emerging from the column.  This interferes with your ability
to use most detectors.  Typical water degassing procedures involve:

- using a vacuum with agitation (no distillation involved)
- heating the water to near boiling
- bubbling helium through the solvent (the solubility of helium is slow, and
the resident gas partitions into the helium and is flushed from the
container).
- sonication (cavitation effects create microscopic areas of low pressure,
which encourage gas to come out of solution and rise to the surface as
bubbles)
--
Bruce Dunn    Vancouver, Canada   Bruce_Dunn@mindlink.bc.ca
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: More on the Natoya demo.
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 21:25:41 GMT

I forgot that you still have to collect the gas and compare both gas volume
produced and heating value of the gas.  Gas analysis does not do it.  If we
believe we are making funny hydrogen, then we also have to test that we 
are not making funny exhaust gasses with less than expected heating value.  It
should be hard to burn funny hydrogen so if what is coming off is H2, fH, and
O2 then the fH (funny H) would likely not burn.  Note I have written it as fH1
but we do not know what it would do.  

So I repeat, the Natoya demo is meaningless, even if it "works".

Tom Droege
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: <None>
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 08:28:28 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.191450.282@physc1.byu.edu> jonesse@physc1.byu.edu writes:
>Correction:  my earlier discussion of possible cavitation of deuterium bubbles
>in our original electrolytic experiments and the possible relation of this to
>sonoluminescence and to our claims of low-level d-d fusion in such 
>experiments is posted in "Sonofusion at BYU" dated 10 Dec. 1992 (rather than
>11 Dec).  I hope that others will comment on this posting and Terry Bollinger's
>15 Dec. speculations along similar lines.  We hope to carry out SL experiments
>in D2O in the BYU tunnel laboratory, looking for neutron generation,
>during the next few months.  Stay tuned.

    Will this be in the stable single-cavity configuration like
    that of Crum and Gaitan (c.f. J acoust Soc Am Suppl 87:S141 (1990))?
    Are you set up to observe things other than neutrons?

    The reason I ask is that this configuration presumably allows some
    'focusing' (for want of a better word) of the sound energy into
    a much more localized excitation.  If one is to assume that
    this energy can be further localized to nuclear scales (a further
    miracle beyond the apparently demonstrated miracle of sonoluminescence), 
    one might see x-rays and gamma rays before and while seeing neutrons being 
    kicked about.

                              dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                          crb7q@virginia.edu        
Department of Mechanical, 
     Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
University of Virginia                              (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: greg@dent.uchicago.edu (Greg Kuperberg)
Subject: A serious post, finally.
Organization: Dept. of Mathematics, U. of Chicago
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 17:00:58 GMT

In article <BzEv0E.B9n@world.std.com> mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz) writes:
>    Deiter Britz has done a very credible and great service by his
> magnum opus of compilations.  Notwithstanding that, science is
> systematized knowledge.  People get education from experience. 

There is a very famous incident in the early days of experiments with
weak interactions in which Richard Feynman looked at an experiment
that didn't agree with theory and concluded that the experiment must be
wrong.  He didn't know why it was wrong, but his basic position was
that the theory in opposition to it was a sober assessment of the
implications of many previous experiments and had more credibility
than a difficult experiment.  It was bold and controversial, but
in the end Feynman was right.  There was a subtle error in the data
analysis of the experiment.

In the case of cold fusion, a large number of very good physicists and
physical chemists have looked at the excess heat experiments, often
with the advantage over Feynman of full knowledge of the data analysis,
if not the experimental procedure.  Their conclusion is that they
aren't interested in some BS that can come out of using rusty alligator
clips and throwing out all "bad runs".  To say that they don't have to
do experiments themselves is an understatement.  There is no reason
for them to do their own experiments.  But at first many of them took
Fleischmann and Pons at their word and did their own experiments
anyway.  Although many of them did a first-rate job, they only got
denigrated for getting negative results.

The conclusion of many people in this group is that all these
physicists aren't so smart after all and they are weighed down by
conservatism and establishmentism.  But somehow these very same
flunkies managed to temporarily repeal their titanic inertia and accept
two other revolutions in physical chemistry, high-Tc superconductors
and buckyballs, just as their thesis advisors accepted semiconductors
and their colleagues went to Silicon Valley and made a billion dollars.
Think about it.
From: rauchfuss@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Brian Rauchfuss)
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 17:33:23 GMT
Subject: Re: Words for cold fusion
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion

In sci.physics.fusion, blue@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu writes:

> Jed Rothwell is trying to use words to paper over several weak points
> in the case for cold fusion so let's examine a few of his arguments with
> some words of our own.
> 
> 	<With all due respects, 'All known fusion reactions' does not
> 	<include those reactions which scientists catalogue thereafter,
> 	<or fail to catalogue at all.

I have to point out that Jed Rothwell is innocent of the above script, it
was written by Mitchell Swartz.

BDR

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: greg@marvin.uchicago.edu (Greg Kuperberg)
Subject: Re: a 2 dimensional argument
Organization: Dept. of Mathematics, Univ. of Chicago
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 19:14:10 GMT

In article <Bz90C5.7p1@world.std.com> mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz) writes:
>    Your suggestion would seem to not include the "observed heat" as a
> "quantity of radiation".   Rather than considering that the "heat"
> actually observed may, itself, consist of infrared radiation, and phonon
> radiation (of more than one type), the logic that you purport (and are not
> alone in claiming) decrees to limit how nature must work.  In your forced
> scheme the existence of phonon and infrared radiation requires the
> presence of neutrons (etc., and whatever).  Why? 

Wherefore art thou, neutrons and gammas?

It's not the logic that I purport, it's the logic that the skeptics
purport, and of course I'm not alone in claiming it, since I'm deliberately
parroting what other people say.

You suggest that a nuclear reaction, rather than producing one or two
gamma photons, might produce ten million infrared photons.  You're
right, I overlooked that possibility.  I guess that means my goose is
cooked and my scheme is forced.  Or at least that of the unruly gang of
skeptics, to which I may or may not belong.

The next time I meet someone in the Cold Fusion Skeptics Society, I'll
ask him whether or not there is an orthodoxy yet for whether, why, and
under what circumstances nuclear reactions produce infrared photons.
Also ultraviolet, microwave, and visible photons, as well as phonons,
polarons, magnetons, gravitons, and naked beauty (known as naked bottom
to the crudes in the US).

>    The only such similar couplings of which I am aware of are those
> through Hilbert Space wherein the polarization(s) that a material does
> undergo when wrought with an applied electric (or magnetic field in the
> equivalent) are linked to the conduction(s) which that material also
> undergoes.

Hilbert Space, Banach Space, Lobatchevsky Space, Minkowski Space, Phase
Space, Eilenberg-MacLane Space, no doubt the couplings occur through one
of these spaces.

>   [Given your topology background, one more question.  I assume the field
> has advanced considerably since I was painting donuts almost four decades
> ago to find the chromatic number (7, I think) required to paint a
> maximally-colored-yet-distinct map on its outer toroidal surface.

The chromatic number of toroidal maps is indeed 7, assuming that
countries have no isolated pieces as Russia and the United States do.
I'm told that on a 17-holed torus it's 17.  Two guys with a computer
code claim that it's 4 for the sphere, but I personally think
that the argument has no hole when the surface does, and vice-versa.
From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: Pd - Pt connections
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 17:50:58 GMT

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

Steve Jones notes:

"Note that the wires leading to the Pd plates in Akito Takahashi's xs heat
experiment in Osaka were simply looped through a hole in the top of the each
plate.  The plate and loop of wire were both exposed to electrolytic processes
which could alter the conductivity of the connection..."

There is more to it than that. The Pt wire goes down to the cathode, and loops
around it, as noted here, but he also has a watertight plastic covering over
the Pt, which is split at the end so that it partly covers the plate. It looks
like a gorblimey way to do it, but Gene and I tried several other methods, and
so did Takahashi, and we found this was the best and most reliable method by
far. We trashed two cathodes trying to do things like melt wires on to them.
The wires break off, and the cathode gets discolored, and people say the heat
damages the metal.

We use connections like that in the telephone business all the time, and they
work out okay.

Anyway, the proof is in the pudding. Takahashi got excess heat, and so did
four other people I know who used the exact same method of attaching the wire,
so it sure works!


Steve also emphasizes, correctly, my comment about them alligator clips: "THE
ONES IN NAGOYA WERE PARTICULARLY BAD:  THEY WERE RUSTED. They make a very
poor, unreliable contact..."

Exactly right, and if *you* got a lot of resistance, I bet you were touching a
rusty spot, or a weak spot, or you had the wire crimped, or whatever. When
Notoya moved those clips around, she was very careful to look at the
connection, pull the wire to make sure it was tight, and measure with a meter
afterwards. She doesn't trust those clips any more than I do. You have to
watch those darn things. I prefer the little round copper connectors.

She leased the power supplies from a Japanese version of Lease-a-metric, and
she had to take what they gave her. Those of us who have gone out on technical
sales demos will appreciate her plight! People who want replicate this
experiment are well advised to do it the way she does it in Hokkaido, with the
proper type of equipment.


Now a question from me:

Does anyone out there in the Cybernetic Continuum know how to mill and cut
sintered nickel? The stuff is brittle as heck. If you could recommend a tool,
and a place I could buy or lease that tool, I would appreciate it.

- Jed


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Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: The experimental basis of relativity
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 21:40:51 GMT

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

Thomas H. Kunich asks, "perhaps Rothwell would tell us what experiments
Einstein performed to derive the special theory?"

He did not perform them, Michelson and Morely did. He derived his theory from
their experimental observations, and then verified aspects of the general
theory for the first time with the observations of the solar eclipse in 1919
(I believe it was). If someone had come along and shown that M&M had been
wrong, and that the speed of light actually did vary from point to point; or,
if the eclipse had not shown that light from the stars was "bent" by the
gravity of the sun, then relativity would have been proven false. It would
have been discarded, because science must always be based upon -- and must
always conform to -- observations and data.

Now that CF experiments have shown that aneutronic nuclear reactions can occur
in metal lattices, theories must be devised to explain this. Any theory that
predicts that these reactions cannot occur must be discarded.

- Jed


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Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion