Music Welcome to the Randy's show. I am J.R.F. Field Coordinator Brian Thompson and with me is James Randy. Good to be here. How you doing? Hang in there, let's say. Just hang it in there. Are you doing something different with your beard? Well, I did have a professionally trimmed. It's very hard to get these beard to be properly trimmed. Most of them just want to hack away at it and make it square or long or whatever. I am looking more like Darwin every day and less like someone not its last legs. But both Darwin and his last legs at 1.2. So, first thing we are going to talk about is this new story that has come out about another gentleman who claims to have created a successful cold fusion machine. So, what do you know about cold fusion? Well, first of all, my only experience with not the creators, but one of the original pair that came up with the idea of cold fusion ponds and flashments. I think it was in Baltimore at a meeting of the American Association of Physics or the AFR. But Carl Sagan was there and Carl and I stood at the back of the auditorium because the night before the conference officially got started, they were actually going to interview problems and flashments. And I was happy to see that Carl and I looked at one another after the first three or four questions and did this kind of thing into the video. And we both came up with exactly the same comment. They were being asked questions from the audience and they were answering them or apparently answering them. But as I said, when I turned to Carl, I said, do you get the same idea that I do? And I said, yes, they're not answering the questions. I said exactly. But they're doing every question they were asked, they're saying, that's a very good question, which is a sure sign that it's not a very good question for them to answer. And they usually start out that way, like complimenting you on your, your astute observation, you see. But what they're really trying to do is say, I'm not pretty going to answer this question and they didn't. They did not address any of the questions that up until that point they had presented with. And Carl and I sort of solved that, have we just turned around and walked out? The reporters outside asked, well, what did you think? And I just looked at one of the reporters and I said, cold, not fusion, and I can't, Carl, chuckle at that, we walked away. But that is my only confrontation with Ponds and Fletchman. They simply couldn't answer questions. As we know, we don't talk about Ponds and Fletchman anymore. But this one is just another one of so many of these stories that come up. And you notice from the text of the article that you sent me there for consideration. He's not really saying anything anywhere. He's playing KG, he's almost saying things, but not quite. So basically the story is this guy, Andrea Rossi. He's a physicist in Italy and he claims to have created a machine that successfully performs cold fusion. He calls it an e-cat machine. And for those who may not know, cold fusion is the fusion of atoms using less energy than what would typically be required, which is basically the interior of the sun. Yeah, and there is low temperature experiments that produce fusion at a slower rate. And not quite as dangerous as we might think, because it wouldn't go up in our faces, so to speak. It may bake us where we're sitting, but it wouldn't go up in our faces like an atomic explosion. Yeah. And I guess if somebody actually did create a cold fusion machine that worked, it would completely redefine how energy was created. Across the entire planet. We would. Absolutely. Yes. So this person is in for a lot of fame and fortune if this thing actually does work. So why don't you think that this is, this is, why isn't this making gigantic news? Well, first of all, I think maybe people are considering the fact that they were burned by pawns of fleshmen because governments, Japan, for example, spent millions and millions of dollars to set them up with their whole laboratory from which nothing emerged whatsoever. But people, people will go for anything if it becomes a business and they're going to sell stock. And I think that's probably the next thing we're going to hear about that they're going to sell stock in their company or this gentleman is going to sell stock in his company, if he owns the thing outright. The idea that is and they'll always be promising something or other. There's always just around the corner in two weeks we'll have the definitive demonstration for you. And it's going to go on like that for quite some time. And then suddenly the stock market in his respect will completely collapse and the investors will lose their money, shake their heads and say, what if anybody else has got a scheme I can invest in? The research behind this machine hasn't been published in any sort of scientific journal yet. According to the article though, there are a few eyewitnesses that have seen it work. Apparently there was a demonstration on October 28th at the university. This might be ironic. I can't say. I'm not going to say one word another whether this machine actually works. I've never seen it. But it was demonstrated at the university of what we would pronounce Bologna. The university. I spotted that. I wasn't going to mention that. I'm glad you did. I'm not sure how they would pronounce it in Italy. Bologna. Is that it? I don't know. Bologna, yeah. I'm not Italian. So yeah, university of Bologna. This was demonstrated. A few people saw it work. Someone who runs a website devoted to alternative energy says that he vouches for it. Yes, of course, because that's his B.O. and Endal. He's got to have something like that. Or he hasn't got anything to cling to. Remember, these people said they saw what appeared to them to be successful demonstration. And what are their qualifications? Did they have any control over the demonstration itself? Did they have any any look at the innards of this thing? No, of course not. Hold on to our secret. You know, until we sell the stock and then we move to to the Southern Spain or wherever. And he says that they don't have to prove this to scientists. They don't have to prove it to anyone but their customers. Well, of course, if their customers constitute a few scientists who might have something to say about that, that might be a different matter altogether. But again, they probably won't allow them to really look at the innards of the thing. All right. So do you think that there's a future for the ECAT machine and Leonardo Cork? I suspect not. I'm always willing to be shown and I can be shown and the world can be shown. But I predict that as I said just to moment ago there that this man will probably go on the stock market. So all kinds of shares and they should all kinds of wonderful reports left and right. And the reports will influence everybody and not everybody, but those who have money to waste and they will invest in it. And then gradually it will become apparent to everybody, maybe it doesn't work. Now that's what I predict. But then I'm not a very good prognosticator. I can't even tell what tomorrow is. But if I look at a calendar, I can figure it out because I depend on authority. But it is a shame that people aren't better informed on matters like this. That they don't actually go through the trouble of calling in a scientist. They call it scientist, scientist, scientist, scientist until they get one who says, well, no, it's not impossible. Oh, that's what I want to hear. They just want to get some sort of reassurance because they don't really want this to be true, Brian. They need it to be true. They need something they can spend their money on or invest their faith in or their emotional security or whatever they have to invest. They really need something like this. And these people who invent these things almost overnight, they know that. They understand human psychology. The Randy Show is a production of the James Randy Educational Foundation. To learn more about how we promote science and critical thinking, go to Randy.org.