From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: More Nonsense
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 01:16:28 GMT

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

I really don't have time to be posting these messages, and I promise I will
not post any more of those essays, but I cannot let this nonsense pass
without remark. Frank Close says:

     "Jon Webb has it right: it is a question of which `facts' one accepts."

You both have it completely wrong! It is a question of which "facts" have a
higher sigma level of confidence, and which have been more widely and
conclusively reproduced. You have no choice: you MUST accept those facts
which are plainly, obviously, proven beyond any statistically reasonable
level of doubt. You are saying:

     "It is perfectly okay for me to reject inconvenient facts, I can pick
     and choose the ones I like. McKubre's results, at sigma 90, are not an
     issue: I will only talk about the 1989 work of P&F, and I will never
     mention their more recent work, either."


Also, in a technical note, Richard Blue is correct in saying:

     "Paraffin wax supplied in thin sheets that is routinely used in biology,
     biochem, and related fields... I don't think it meets the Jed Rothwell
     protocol for keeping CF experiments squeaky clean with respect to
     organics.

When I was assisting Notoya at MIT, she sent me over to collect 4 liters of
pure water from the biology lab, and she specifically told me: "do not let
them cover it with paraffin!" Then she decided to come and supervise (I
carried). The other electrochemist observers agreed at once that paraffin wax
sheets would be a deadly contaminant. It is precisely because they know this
sort of thing that they succeed at CF, whereas many physicists fail at first.


Richard Blue also outdoes himself by posting this wretched, ill-mannered,
lie:

     "As to other recent CF news that I would assign to the dust bin is the
     message from Prof. Farrell that Mills is producing 50 Watts of heat with
     2.5 Watts input power - too big an effect to require careful
     measurements.  But, of course, we can't be told anything about how this
     is done!  Perhaps Mills would consider releasing a video."

For the record: nobody in this field has been more open, forthcoming, and
precise in publishing ALL details about their experiments than Dr. Mills. No
one has offered more help to others than Dr. Farrell. No experiment has
worked better, or been easier to replicate, than the Mills experiment.

Think about something Richard. You have published these outrageous, unfounded
statements time after time. Anyone who has read anything from Mills knows
that what you are saying is an outrageous falsehood. You just make this crap
up and publish it without thinking. You attacked Yamaguchi without even
knowing whether he was working with a gas or a liquid! That's incredible! You
did not have the foggiest, vaguest idea what the man was doing, and you
attacked him for being incompetent.

Did it ever occur to you that this kind of silly, irresponsible behavior
might come back to haunt you someday? Did you ever think, for even a second,
what might happen to you if these people turn out to be right?

Now, I am not suggesting you might be sued or anything like that. Heavens no!
You are not hurting anyone but yourself. You are not like at all like these
vicious, lunatic, character assassins Taubes and Britz. For one thing, you
have never accused anyone of wrongdoing. That is very important! For another
thing, when you say "Yamaguchi is using a liquid" or "Mills doesn't tell
anyone how he does it" -- anyone can check the facts and see that you are
wrong. When someone lies about what I supposedly did in Nagoya, that can
never be checked; but when you lie about what Mills has published, anyone can
check the public record. So you are not doing any harm.

Still, doesn't it ever occur to you that you are a making public fool of
yourself, and heading off a cliff for no reason?


Finally, I think John Logajan and Tom Droege are correct:

     "Droege did in fact duplicate the Mills experiment and results and so
     posted those results here.  He then went on to throw additional curves
     at it to see if it would break.  I think his experimental variations are
     much more difficult to pass off than you [Farrell] are letting on...

     To reiterate, he (Droege) *got* excess heat with a recombiner attached,
     as long as the recombiner was outside the calorimeter.  Simply moving
     the recombiner inside the calorimeter (and thus eliminating the need for
     the 1.48*I 'correction') made the anomalous heat disappear."

I don't remember the details, but if Tom's results were less than I*V, it
must have been recombination, just as he says. His experiments seem very
convincing to me, especially since other people have reported recombination
on the cathode. The logical conclusions:

     Tom saw no excess heat, only recombination. He tried to duplicate Mills,
     but he failed. This is not surprising; there are, after all, plenty of
     ways to do this experiment wrong.

     Some other people see substantial recombination on the cathode, but some
     don't. My guess is that it depends upon geometry. If you see
     recombination, some electrochemists suggest you try a larger anode, or
     move the anode farther away from the cathode.

     Other people do see excess heat, since they are far beyond I*V. Since
     recombination can occur, it is best to discount results below I*V.

- Jed


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