From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: Paraffin; recombination
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 18:53:28 GMT

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

No essays, I promise. Just technical notes and a response to Jon Webb:

"The point of the comment about parafilm is that this was what Pons and
Fleischmann (who are electrochemists) said they sealed their cells with in
the early experiments.  So once again we have two classes of cold fusion
phenomena; one which works fine in the presence of paraffin, and another for
which paraffin is a deadly contaminant."

Right, organics don't seem to bother Pd CF as much as they bother Ni CF.
Also, parafilm on top, far away from the electrolyte may be okay. After a
discouraging day, I think I saw Notoya used several sheets of it to seal up
various chemicals that she did not plan to pour out again. She told me keep
it away from the lip of the pure H2O bottle, and the bottle of spare
electrolyte. She, and the other chemists and electrochemists I have watched
do CF, are fanatical about contamination and very precise and practiced in
every move. She acts exactly like someone who has been mixing chemicals for
35 years. As they fiddled with the power supplies, Prof. Smullin muttered,
"measure, measure, measure... I have been measuring stuff for 50 years."


"Well, Farrell is now claiming 2.5 Watts in, 50 Watts out.  He has not
published information about the experiment, nor permitted an unbiased
observer to view it.  It seems to me that this is far less open than many
others have been, including people you've been associated with."

For goodness sake! Give the man some time! It takes months to write a good
paper. Let him get his patents filed. What is the big rush? He has been
completely open, I have hundreds of pages from him. I know a dozen people who
have been in his lab. Heck, I know somebody who dragged a cot in and slept
there. (Ha, ha! He is probably reading this, too,)


"It can't be the case that Mills & Farrell and Yamaguchi and Notoya and Pons
& Fleischmann and McKubre are all right; they have inconsistent experiments."
What on earth is this supposed to mean? What is inconsistent about them? Heat
is heat is heat. They are perfectly consistent.


"Tom got results consistent with Mills's early results (same level of heat). 
So are you now saying that Mills's early results were recombination?"

I have no idea. I suppose that is possible. So what?

I am absolutely positive that his later results are not due to recombination,
because he is getting more 20 times heat out than you can possibly get from
recombination, plus lots of other people have replicated him, and they are
also getting far more than I*V. So, maybe his early experiments did not work,
but there is absolutely no question that his present experiments are.


"I think that if we took a vote here on who was making a public fool of
themselves, you or Dick Blue, you'd lose."

A public vote has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. If you check the
record, and read actual, documented facts and experimental evidence, and you
look at the hundreds of pages that Mills has provided to anyone who asks, you
can see instantly that I spoke the truth, whereas Dick Blue was lying through
his teeth (or just making it up -- which is equally irresponsible). You do
not decide facts by taking votes, you look at evidence. That is true in
science, and it is true in places like the legal system, too. This is not a
popularity contest. I don't care what anyone thinks of me: I have the facts
and the documents that prove I am right, and Dick is wrong. So I win.


"It is permitted in science to give a lower weight to results that have not
appeared in the archival literature, which includes both examples you mention
above.  Has anyone ever published in a journal a result which exceeds I*V?"

What is that supposed to be, some kind of joke? Where do want us to publish,
Nature? Scientific American? They hate our guts! They attack us at every
opportunity, they call us frauds, liars, thieves. How in the world can you
expect us to publish anything when this band of corrupt fools own the
presses? It is crazy. Read Fusion Technology, read the Japanese Journal of
Applied Physics.

Publish, Hell. Give me a break! Look, when I announce a result on this e-mail
board, I put people in severe jeopardy. I can't even put stuff here, and you
expect people to send results to Nature! Many scientists have explicitly
ordered me never, ever to mention their names, because they saw what happened
to Farrell and Notoya. You stick your neck out and announce a positive result
here, or anywhere else, and immediately a band of cranks, lunatics, and ax
grinders attacks you and tries to shred your reputation and get you thrown
out of work. Do a successful CF experiment in the DoE and you are asking to
get fired. This is not some kind of joke, it is real life.

- Jed


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