Posted on 04/13/2002 4:02:13 PM PDT by Diogenesis
Seems the Official reports have recommendations along the lines of "We're on to something here" and ".....more funding is needed in the area of ...."
Entrepreneurial inquisitiveness is easily squashed in bureaucracies.
Is that the Brazilian Chemist of similar last name?
Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind a project manager, researcher out there or at the lab or San Diego getting a sluch fund so he can devote time to his profession and truly develop research that strikes to the core of his studies. I recognize that alot of time, the system just isn't there that actually supports that insight.
I've actually found that when I've devoted less than 5 hrs of sleep per night for 20 years and spent at least 4 hrs a day on particular projects in my spare time on topics completely disjoint from my paid profession, that much to my surprise, I've actually excelled beyond the performance of professionals paid to perform in those fields.
And it's understandable. Most of our time at work get's tied up in either bureaucratic or systemic issues which have little to nothing to do with our professions. Even working in strictly research positions or as a full Professor at a world league institute, it's tough to be able to devote 4 hrs a day to any project or topic for any extended period of time.
If this guy is just trying to get some funding to use to perform that study, great, more power to him. Unfortunately, I've also bumped into 10 times the number of similarily ranked persons who will use the same language without any honest intention of actually solving or studying the problem,...they're simply yes-men attempting to form their abilities in their own empires to appear of worth to others.
The comments in the paper indicate they may have some skills to address the problem, but the portions presented as a paper are IMHO insufficient to properly frame the problem/s.
Ari
Here's a good example/indicator of the research quality. Some history of science and philosophy is required here. To some extent, the comment indicates the wrong question is being asked. The purposes of most electrochemical investigations related to earlier foundational research in the electron, or more precisely 'charge'. Language and the etymology of the measurable quantities is very important.
I also had the same findings when I researched the field back in the mid 80s, but considered it was simply due to my lack of knowledge. I still take the view that many of the same functions or functionals associated with Cold Fusion are a bit convoluted and that rather than believing no research has been performed, I tend to believe the research exists but just poorly expressed and buried or imaged into different multivariate domains.
Self-discharge of batteries is a simple case, because one can either address the solid state, nicely ordered and simplified identifiable materials,....or electrochemical batteries in a wet bath,...assuming media with again homogenous properties or properties describable and identifiable with a very limited number of variables.
Much solid state theory associates surfaces with an energy value. Electrochemical energies with ionic, charge transport. Calorimetry with temperature change and kinetic energy leaving the remnant in enthalpy or entropy, but the domain of Cold Fusion can complicate multivariate processes between these states, where the terms used to measure and quantify the systems are originally defined by these basic processes and assunmptions.
It's funny. A lot of comments are made here in jest or half baked seriousness. When one rigorously studies these things, I've had some weird encounters which are probably more phenomenal than the damned phenomena being studied. Considering that's the same domain as the Philly Experiment, it does make you wonder sometimes,...or at least is tempting.
So here's one for ya,..for those who read these threads and comment on science and supposed revolutions in science or maybe even CTs regarding concealed information and Sci-Fi ranging to the occult.
What do you think about parallel worlds/universes?
Say you're in the real world lab. Observe something static which is by chance, extraordinary, make notes about it because it surprise you. Then a bit later, you re-encounter the same environment and measurable situation only to discover that what you had previously expected actually exists, but the change of state from your last observation to this recent one is so inexplicable that a parallel universe would make more sense. You discount the situation thinking your memory failed you and obviously the previous condition didnt exist, but then per chance discover your notes of measurements previously taken confirming the initial paradox you believed existed.
Anybody run across this type of phenomenon. Sortof like a Truman Show movie scenerio. Or possibly gives credance to philosophers like Berekely's "if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound" query,...a gnostic impression. Appeals to a possibility that some things can be thought into physical existence. Any physicists bump into this sort of paradox?
Your nastiness is only matched by your sophomoric knowledge.
The government should just put cold fusion on the same level as other inventions.
Yankee ingenuity, not governmental assistance, will solve the problems.
Is that not a good thing?
Cars have not displaced trains.
Technologies CAN fit together.
My sophomoric knowledge leads me to believe people who resort to conspiracy as explanation of events tend to lack patience and understanding of complex situations or refuse to accept the pedantic. Then again, I do not believe experts who have been given authority in their respective power structures are the only ones qualified to discern in their fields.
I wonder how those who continually win in this world seeking to remain independent of God will fare if they actually get their desires.
from : http://www.padrak.com/ine/NEN_5_2_6.html
TEXAS A&M REFUSES SEMINAR (ON COLD FUSION)
By John Kirsch (staff writer), "Panel Speakers Draw Criticism from Some A&M Faculty Members," Bryan-College Station Eagle, 15 April 1997, pp A2, A7.
... SUMMARY
An alternative energy seminar featuring Dr. John O'M. Bockris, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, was denied the use of the Engineering/Physics Building on the night of Friday, April 18, on the grounds that the credentials of its four speakers were questionable. The listed participants were Drs. Bockris (Texas A&M) and Pat Bailey (of the Inst. for New Energy), J.J. Hurtak of the Academy for Future Science, and graduate student Todd Hathaway, who was also an organizer of the seminar. No University funds were being used for the event.
The faculty spokesperson quoted by the newspaper was Frank Cotton, also a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M, who told the reporter that faculty members and administrators had forced the cancellation of seminar plans after learning who the speakers were. "They're all kooks and charlatans," Mr. Cotton was quoted as saying. ...
... Bockris' research in such controversial areas as cold fusion and low-energy nuclear reactions has drawn criticism from his fellow faculty members for several years. The newspaper mentioned that the Web site for participant J.J. Hurtak provided information on ordering a UFO video [which possibly the University faculty thought was condemning evidence against him].
Book Review by Mike Epstein
Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion Gary Taubes, Random House, NY, 1993. Hardback, 503 pages.
"Gary Taubes took an axe
Gave Pons and Fleishchmann forty whacks
And when he saw what he had done
He gave John Bockris forty-one."
(with apologies to Lizzie Borden)
Gary Taubes begins this book on a witch hunt and never lets up. What could have been the definitive nail in the coffin of low-level phenomena in deuterided solids (a current and politically correct name for cold fusion), becomes instead a collection of hard facts diluted with opinions and innuendoes. Taubes is a scientific journalist who "studied physics at Harvard", but how could anyone who studied physics say "gases ... are unable to support a high enough concentration of ions to conduct electricity." Perhaps Mr. Taubes would like to test his assertion in the next thunderstorm? Perhaps he has never seen a neon sign? And yet this is one of the shreds of evidence he uses to indict a Pons and Fleischmann manuscript on gas-phase electrochemistry. This is not to say their papers, which he describes as "dead wrong to recklessly interpreted" were not. I can't tell, since he makes it extremely difficult for the reader to confirm the assertions, providing almost no references in the entire book.
"Bad Science" follows the misadventures of cold fusion advocates and skeptics from 1989 to 1992, from the ecstatic beginning through the rapid demise. It also examines in great detail both the scientific and personal lives of the major players in the drama: Pons, Fleischmann, Jones, and Bockris. I suppose Mr. Taubes felt that the only way to explain the mass delusion of so many scientists was to provide a psychological basis for the phenomena. And you know, he’s right! When you start looking at scientists as human beings and not as computers on legs, you also start to realize their fallibility.
The book is a treasure-trove of great quotations:
The Vernon Hughes law of low-level statistics ("Despite the fact that a three-sigma effect appears to have a 99.73 percent chance of being right, it will be wrong half the time") is used to examine the level of confidence at which scientists publish. Steve Jones is quoted to say "if 4 sigma publish."
The wager of Blaise Pascal, who renounced a life of science for one of faith ("To bet on the existence of God and to be wrong is to lose little or nothing. To wager correctly that there is a god is to be rewarded with an infinity of infinitely happy life ... if you win you win everyting, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then; wager that he does exist.") is used to explain why so many jumped on the cold fusion bandwagon.
As the Cal Tech electrochemist Nathan Lewis said, "If cold fusion were true, electrochemists would all have funding beyond their wildest imaginations ... an electrochemist’s wet dream!"
But perhaps the most telling quotes are from Fleischmann ("If you really don’t believe something deeply enough before you do an experiment, you will never get it to work") and Bockris ("Negative results can be obtained without skill and experience.") Indeed, I found the most valuable part of this book to be the close examination of how those without skill and experience, or even with skill and experience, got positive results when none existed.
Finally, perhaps the most vilified person in the book is John Bockris, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M. While many know Dr. Bockris from his distinguished career in electrochemical research, others will recall the recent media examination of his transmutation experiments (see Academic Freedom or Scientific Misconduct?). Taubes notes that Dr. Bockris' research group kept the cold fusion balloon aloft by claims of tritium in their cold fusion cells, and points an accusing finger at a Bockris graduate student, presents circumstantial evidence of fraudulent spiking and claims a cover-up.
Perhaps the most puzzling question in the book was why Eugene Mallove, the outspoken supporter of cold fusion is mentioned only briefly and in a positive tone by Taubes. Very strange, since Mallove rakes him over the coals for his tritium accusations against the Bockris lab in his pro-cold fusion book, "Fire from Ice" (Wiley, 1991) published two years before.
There are few winners in "Bad Science." Taube’s witch-hunt finds plenty of victims, and few are innocent. I found the book easy to read and quite enjoyable, although when I finished, I wasn’t very satisfied. Perhaps the scientist in me resented the intrusion into private lives, or maybe it was just the absence of adequate references and documentation. I highly recommend "Bad Science", but also suggest you read it carefully with a skeptical eye.
Just messin with ya
Academic Freedom or Scientific Misconduct?
An editorial by Mike Epstein, originally appearing in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol 8/1, 1994.
Universities often tolerate all sorts of faculty member activity under the guise of academic freedom, but apparently they draw the line at alchemy. At least they do at Texas A&M, where distinguished professor of chemistry, John Bockris, is under fire for reportedly accepting $200K and a guest researcher to carry out alchemical experiments which have been variously described as transmuting lesser metals into gold and silver (Begley, 1994), changing mercury into gold (UPI, 1993), or turning silver into gold (Pool, 1993). A petition signed by 23 of the 28 distinguished professors at Texas A&M called on the university provost to strip Dr. Bockris of his title as distinguished professor. The petition follows a letter written by 11 full professors in the chemistry department (out of the department's 38 full professors) calling on Dr. Bockris to resign and remove the "shadow" he has cast over the department. The petition from the distinguished professors said "For a trained scientist to claim, or support anyone else's claim to have transmuted elements is difficult for us to believe and is no more acceptable than to claim to have invented a gravity shield, revived the dead or to be mining green cheese on the moon. We believe that Bockris' recent activities have made the terms 'Texas A&M' and 'Aggie' objects of derisive laughter throughout the world..."
Dr. Bockris categorically denies any allegation of scientific misconduct. He has had a long and distinguished career in electrochemistry, authoring or editing 15 books and more than 600 papers. He also ardently supported the work of cold fusion researchers Pons and Fleischmann, and headed research teams at A&M that claimed to have reproduced the positive cold fusion results. Later, his fusion work (as well as that of others) was criticized by an internal review as a "breakdown of scientific objectivity."
According to media sources, the alchemical experiment was directed by Joe Champion, a "self-described researcher and inventor from Tennessee", who instructed Bockris and his assistants in the proper procedures. In four separate experiments, they ignited a mixture of potassium nitrate, carbon, and various salts to produce small amounts of gold. However, once Champion left Bockris' group, they could not get the technique to work. Dr. Bockris has also expressed interest in "low-energy" nuclear reactions such as the production of heat and the formation of calcium from potassium during the electrolysis of light water on nickel, the formation of iron from carbon in an arc under water, and nuclear changes in biological organisms (Bockris, 1993), which has not likely endeared him to his colleagues.
I do not agree with Dr. Bockris' theories, particularly those dealing with elemental transmutation by electrolysis or biological mechanisms. Much, if not all can be explained by contamination and bad analytical chemistry (Epstein, 1994). However, I would remind those who seek his ouster or demotion that their actions threaten the core of academic freedom. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, but no one should be punished for attempting to provide that proof. (Note: Dr. Bockris was eventually found by a four-professor panel to be NOT GUILTY of violating Texas A&M standards in proposing, conducting or reporting controversial research.)
http://world.std.com/~mica/cftrefs.html
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