From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: Reply to Jed Rothwell
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 23:38:17 GMT

Jed Rothwell, the trouble with writing so much is that it is like the Bible, I 
can use your words to prove anything I want.

You write:

"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."
(Quote tactfully ended before Jed says "Tom is a great guy ... .")

Speak for yourself, Jed, I am very much "in the running".

Later Jed says "There is no room in this field for quitters who stop after one 
or two experiments ... ."  

Or three, Jed?  You were warned!

Just because I am working at home in my basement, Jed, it does not mean I am 
doing second class work.  I am doing the best calorimetry in the field, even 
if I admit errors of 7% when I do something sloppy.  I bet I have taken more 
measurements, and to higher precision than anybody.  Roughly 10E10 at the last 
count.  With 10E8 recorded.  Most to 16++ bit precision.  I will further bet I 
am in the top 10 in the number of Pd CF experiments performed, and at least in 
the top 20 of Ni - H2O experiments performed.  I estimate 30,000 experimental 
running hours.  That 4A3 in my progress reports means series 4, cell A, 
cathode 3 in cell A.  P&F and Storms (most of Storms D absorption only) have 
run more cells than I have, but I have done more cells than McKubre, for 
example, of the big shots.  I also think I beat everybody in the quality of 
the measurements.  Sure I wish I had a hood and a chemical sink.  But I am 
learning how to work around the chemical problems.  So don't say I am not in 
the running.  Most are not in the running with me! 

Most of the people that you seem to weigh heavily like Nagoya and Takahashi 
are not very convincing to me.  The only good write up that I have seen is 
that by McKubre.  The many watts that you seem to like from Takahashi are not 
very convincing to me.  In fact, the raw data plots from Takahashi that you 
nicely sent can be interpreted as no heat at all (when Takahashi claims 100 
watts or so) by transient analysis.  

Further, it is not clear that 32 people and a bunch of money would help.  (I 
have regularly turned down offers of financial support.  But not help to do 
things.)  I know how long it takes to build a productive group of 32 people as 
I have just done it for CDF.  It takes about 5 years to hire and fit together 
a group of that size.  My guess is that hiring all those people has slowed 
down the effort by P&F to a standstill.  The only hope is that they had a 
number of people with whom they had previously worked that they could persuade 
to join the effort.  

It takes very little time or people to "authoritatively tell us what does ...
work."  No number of people are enough to tell us "what ... does not work."

Here is how it works, Jed.  I figure out how to do the experiment.  Any of the 
schemes under discussion.   Then by the theoretical rules of science I am 
supposed to publish my experiment and the details of how to do it in a 
refereed journal.  Then someone reads it and decides to duplicate it.  If this 
succeeds, then this result is published too, and a few more try it.  After a 
while one of two things happens.  Enough people try the experiment and agree 
that it works until every one in the field knows someone they trust who has 
done the experiment and so all agree that it works, or enough people try the 
experiment and fail so that everyone in the field knows someone they believe 
who has failed.  

Of course, the whole process falls apart when the workers in the field think 
that there are "trillions" of dollars involved since they tend to leave out 
crucial details.

The actual rules of science are somewhat different today.  I write something 
up and fax it to a colleague with instructions to keep quiet about it until I 
can publish the result.  About 30 minutes later, everyone in the world with 
any possible interest in the subject has a copy.  As results are obtained, the 
process continues.  Several years later the first papers appear in the 
journals.  Only slightly exaggerated.  

But Jed, we are not yet even to the stage one fax on Pd CF.  If we count the 
Mills procedure as a stage one fax, then there is the problem that some do not 
agree (like me and I think also Bockris) that it works. 

Jed, you do us all one service, and that is to force us to think a little on 
how science works.  Mostly it is a subject never mentioned in school, at least 
not in *my* educational process of 250 or so semester hours.  So it is good to 
think about it.  How about it out there - Has anyone ever sat in a lecture of 
their major and been told "here are the rules of science in xxx"? 

Tom Droege

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