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Cold Fusion For Christmas?
ECat Site ^ | Dec 15 2011 | Admin

Posted on 12/17/2011 9:08:40 PM PST by Kevmo

I doubt it.  Not this year anyway.  However, after a seemingly disappointing period of no significant news regarding the cold fusion saga, mid-December has found this story once again springing to life.

Last week Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney mentioned cold fusion in an interview with the conservative publication the Washington Examiner link.  As Governor Romney stumbled and bumbled and actually showed a poor grasp of the matter, it was likely that he was briefed about the matter by one of his “handlers” and encouraged to mention it in the interview.  It is also likely that his associates have spoken to Republican colleague, Massachusetts state senator Bruce Tarr, who invited Andrea Rossi  to Massachusetts for exploratory talks a couple of weeks ago.  The nature of his Governor Romney’s (ex of Massachusetts) indicate a “trial balloon,” a statement made to gauge public interest and reaction.  Yet, given in the context of his statement, a run for the Republican nomination to be a presidential candidate, his mere mention of the term  “cold fusion”  I think is significant.

I also need to point out here that the only two American politicians to mention cold fusion to date have been conservative Republicans, Governor Romney and Senator Tarr.  One would have reasonably expected the subject to have been broached first by more liberal political figures like the President or independent  Senator Bernie Sanders, or even a libertarian like Ron Paul, but so far they have remained remarkably silent about the matter.  Of course, as mentioned in the previous article here, the President has his hands full with the Solyndra solar scandal, so perhaps it is thought prudent that not make any mention of something as controversial as cold fusion.  I do not know what the excuse for the others is, with the “others” including a vast liberal portion of the Democratic party who have adopted green energy as part of their political mantra.

One segment of the U.S. Government who have not been so silent about cold fusion/LENR is the US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) .  They have been working on this technology for nearly 20 years, with much of that research being led by Dr. Pamela Moiser-Boss.  In a video from 2009 that has just surfaced in the blogosphere, members of this organization, including Dr. Boss, give a quite an extensive and informative presentation regarding their cold fusion/LENR work.  That video is now available in the sidebar video player.  In this video, members of SPAWAR explain this phenonomon AS A FACT.  There is absolutely no equivocation with regards to their belief that this technology is real.  Let me state that once again to reiterate…MEMBERS OF THE U.S. NAVY’S SPACE AND NAVAL WARFARE SYSTEMS COMMAND UNEQUIVOCALLY  STATE THAT COLD FUSION/LENR IS A FACT!

Interestingly, at the outset of this presentation, given at the University of Missouri in 2009, a SPAWAR spokesman states:  “We currently call it low-energy nuclear reactions.  That may not be any more accurate than the term cold fusion…”  I only bring this us because some in the blogosphere of late have gone to great lengths insisting that this is LENR not cold fusion.  I find these efforts a complete waste of time in the context of the greater discussion.  There are a host of mainstream scientists and journalists (a majority actually) who out of sheer ignorance continue to argue that this whole phenonomon is “junk” or “pathological science” and refuse to acknowledge data and evidence to the contrary.  I strongly feel efforts should be directed at educating the ignorant with facts that refute mistaken notions instead of having largely pointless arguments about what terms to use to describe a very real technology.

Speaking of the aforementioned, and moving on to more important developments in the evolving cold fusion saga, the New Energy Times has recently posted an article entiled “Shell’s Interest Indicates Major Shift for LENR.”   I think the title of the article speaks for itself.  I would strongly encourage all to read this article.  It is important because it not only indicates that large and powerful corporations are taking notice of this technology now but, according to the article, Shell did successful research into this field as far back  as the 1990s.

While it is curious that NASA kept silent about successful cold fusion research dating back to 1989, it is not really surprising that a major oil company has.  What is more surprising (or maybe not) is that Shell has decided to look into this again.  I think it indicates a continuing undercurrent of interest of entities that extend far beyond the world of the narrow-mindness and ignorance of so many that claim to be in-the-know.

I would note that if you do plan to read the Shell article, I would do it sooner rather than later as a commenter has already requested that this article be taken down because apparently this information was confidential and its disclosure has been deemed “highly inappropriate.”   The article also includes a new slide show (in PDF format) presentation that was part of NASA’s September 22 LENR workshop.  This information documents in more detail NASA’s 1989 cold fusion experimentation.

As the grand finale to the new information that has emerged regarding cold fusion this Holiday Season, is a report of the Coherence 2011cold fusion conference held in Rome, Italy on December 14.  This report was provided by Daniel Passerni of the 22Passi blog and may be found here.  The report includes links to 10 presentations provided at the conference.  Unfortunately for us Anglophones, this treasure trove of information is mostly in Italian. However, I have gone ahead and provided links to this information below for those who understand the language.  These links can also be found at the link provided above to the 22Passi blog.  The link has above is for the Google translated version of the page and it contains some important information in and of itself.

Perhaps of most interest are reports that Italian physicist Francesco Celani is now doing some very robust cold fusion work.  He reports cells now operating in the 200% excess heat range for periods of weeks!  He has been working with a variety of materials, including platinum and palladium, but seems to be getting the best results with…..nickel and hydrogen.  Apparently he has worked very closely with Japanese researcher Yoshiaki Arata, whose public demonstration of his work in 2008 has served as the impetus, it is felt, for many other researchers including Andrea Rossi and Brian Ahern.

There is a lot of information buried in these reports and I would encourage all to take at them as much as possible.  Admittedly they are hard to read because the Google translation is inexact.  However, one tidbit that is of interest is a report that Ahern and Rossi worked together on a project for the U.S. Department of Defense since 2008!  It is not clear how long this relationship latest or its extent.   This is of course contrary to statements made by Rossi that he has never met Ahern and may provide a background for some of the contention between the two.

The whole Coherence Conference actually deserves an article of its owns but, unfortunately, time does not permit this right at the moment.  The busy Holiday Season and personal matters prevent me from discussing it further at this time but I hope to have more to say about at a future date.  I expect Tom Baccei to have some insights about it and to bring them to his articles in the coming days.

I just want to offer a public word of thanks to Tom Baccei for the content he has provided to this site in recent days.  His contributions have been a great help to me personally and, by the look of the site page view counter and comment box, many of you are enjoying his contributions as well.  I think he is bringing a refreshing take on this whole saga and I look forward to his continued contributions in the coming days.

Reference materials from Coherence 2011

  1. Slides presentate da Ubaldo Mastromatteo (STMicroelectronics) a COHERENCE 2011

  2. Slides presentate da Paolo Pasquinelli (Università di Pisa) a COHERENCE 2011

  3. Slides presentate da Francesco Celani (Infn Frascati) a COHERENCE 2011

  4. Slides presentate da Yogendra Srivastava (Università di Perugia) a COHERENCE 2011

  5. Slides presentate da Sergio Bartalucci (Infn Frascati) a COHERENCE 2011

  6. Report di Vincenzo Valenti (COHERENCE 2011)

  7. Ambiente e Dispositivi a Fusione Nucleare Fredda: componenti a doppio uso? di Giuseppe Quartieri e Piero Quercia (COHERENCE 2011)

  8. Ambiente e Dispositivi a Fusione Nucleare Fredda: componenti a doppio uso? Reazioni magneto-nano-biofisiche LENR in biologia – Si tratta di fusione Nucleare Fredda e trasmutazioni biologiche? di Giuseppe Quartieri e Piero Quercia (COHERENCE 2011)

  9. Neutroni virtuali e miniatomi in reazioni LENR (comunicazione di Lino Daddi a COHERENCE 2011)

  10. Produzione spontanea di Ca da parte di piante di avena cresciute in assenza ambientale di tale elemento,Università di Milano – Pirelli Labs S.p.A. – IDROCONS, s.r.l (2007)

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3 Responses to Cold Fusion For Christmas?

  1. Nixter says:

    The main point of interest here is the steadily increasing amount of data corroborating the LENR phenomena. Like most people I have been ignoring this matter since 1989, because some the top Physics professionals said it was bunk I put it on the back burner as wishful thinking. Then in 2009 I see the 60 minutes piece, that was real eye opener, when Rob Duncan vice chancellor of a Missouri Physics institution looked at current LENR work, he had an awakening and became an advocate of LENR research, that was interesting. Since then I have been waiting for possible confirmation from the larger experimental, physics community, and here we are approaching 2012 with this type of information trickling in from widespread, reliable sources and credibility is gaining steadily. Of course, we are not there yet, but LENR is gaining momentum as a viable energy solution, the final outcome is yet to be reached, but if Andrea Rossi actually sells functioning units to legitimate end users and they work as advertised, it’s game over for the entire Energy sector and humankind enters a new era.

  2. Burt says:

    200 percent? That is COP 2 right? I thougt we passed that level long time ago….



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Politics; Science
KEYWORDS: cmns; coldfusion; ecat; lenr
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To: Wonder Warthog
I'll take that as a no.

Scientists have been able to accurately calculate rates of reaction and energy output for muon catalyzed cold fusion for 50 years. It looks like that's not the case for your pathological science.

41 posted on 12/20/2011 6:42:04 AM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Moonman62
"Scientists have been able to accurately calculate rates of reaction and energy output for muon catalyzed cold fusion for 50 years. It looks like that's not the case for your pathological science."

Let's see. Fifty years....that would mean that the scientific basis to make such calculations originated around 1960. The muon was discovered in 1936. So to develop the capacity took about forty years. And research into the properties of the muon wasn't artificially impeded by an active campaign to deny funding or academic positions to any who dared to do such research.

The Pons/Fleischmann experiment was in 1988. So CF should be due to reach that level of theoretical prediction capability around 2025. Given the current rapid strides being made in understanding the mechanisms of LANR in spite of the artificial barriers currently in place on such research, I think LANR will beat out "muon catalyzed CF" by quite a few years in reaching that capability.

Oh, and here's a trivia tidbit for you......what was the ONLY proven case of fraud in cold fusion research??? (Hint...it's NOT Rossi).

42 posted on 12/20/2011 7:41:35 AM PST by Wonder Warthog
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To: Wonder Warthog
From Wiki:
Andrei Sakharov and F.C. Frank [3] predicted the phenomenon of muon-catalyzed fusion on theoretical grounds before 1950. Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich[4] also wrote about the phenomenon of muon-catalyzed fusion in 1954. Luis W. Alvarez et al.,[5] when analyzing the outcome of some experiments with muons incident on a hydrogen bubble chamber at Berkeley in 1956, observed muon-catalysis of exothermic p-d, proton and deuteron, nuclear fusion, which results in a helion, a gamma ray, and a release of about 5.5 MeV of energy. The Alvarez experimental results, in particular, spurred John David Jackson to publish one of the first comprehensive theoretical studies of muon-catalyzed fusion in his ground-breaking 1957 paper.[6] This paper contained the first serious speculations on useful energy release from muon-catalyzed fusion. Jackson concluded that it would be impractical as an energy source, unless the "alpha-sticking problem" (see below) could be solved, leading potentially to an energetically cheaper and more efficient way of utilizing the catalyzing muons.[6] This assessment has, so far, stood the test of time.
So it only took a year from the first observation of muon catalyzed cold fusion in 1956 to accurately explaining it theoretically. The quackery you promote is way behind that timetable.
43 posted on 12/20/2011 7:57:04 AM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Moonman62
"So it only took a year from the first observation of muon catalyzed cold fusion in 1956 to accurately explaining it theoretically. The quackery you promote is way behind that timetable."

Ah, so it's NOT "all about Rossi", is it. In your mind, ALL cold fusion if fraudulent. Glad you finally officially outed yourself.

Oh, and you didn't answer the question I asked about what was the ONLY proven instance of fakery in CF research.

44 posted on 12/20/2011 9:51:28 AM PST by Wonder Warthog
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To: Kevmo

Dang it all. I just got back from a biz trip to Europe. I love how my company thinks it’s doing me a favor, a couple of days before Christmas.

If I had had time to make it down to Bologna, I would have written Rossi requesting a meeting. He seems to have no problem talking to folks and my bona fides should at least have gotten me in the door.

I would liked to meet him to sus him out.

Now, before people say he’s a con man and of course I would have been impressed by him that is not true.
We have four options here:
1) The E-Cat is real.
2) Rossi believes the E-cat is real.
3) Rossi believes in the E-cat but he feels with more money spent, he can make it work.
4) He’s a scammer and knows it does not work and is merely scamming for cash.

Nevertheless, meeting someone when you have the experience I have in these situations, I feel I could either say with confidence (keeping in mind that this is only my opinion based on a lot of experience) whether he is an out and out con-man. Eliminating that leads to end of discussion or if not, then on to figuring out whether 1,2,3 is the case. I would prefer #1 to be the case, #2 would mean he is either not measuring the output correctly or something else but he believes it works so even with this option, it eliminates him from being a con man although it would be nice to have independent tests done to eliminate this option. #3 is where I believe Randall Mills is with Black Light Power; he knows something is there but can’t scale it up to be useful and he has spent millions and as far as his operations seem, they’re on the up and up.

I would have loved to meet Rossi; I’ve been to Italy many times and know how to deal with them besides being married to one...
On one of my free days I could have possibly made it down there but I didn’t know what day that would have been and it is rude to pound on someone’s door and ask to speak with Rossi and possibly get a tour.

I’ve got to go, I think, in March so I might build in some time and make an effort to meet him. If nothing else, it would be interesting.


45 posted on 12/20/2011 12:28:38 PM PST by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: Wonder Warthog
Ah, so it's NOT "all about Rossi", is it. In your mind, ALL cold fusion if fraudulent. Glad you finally officially outed yourself.

It's fraudulent to equate it to other energy production methods and I've explained why.

46 posted on 12/20/2011 5:08:45 PM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Moonman62

This will be my standard post to moonboy that says you’re not worth trying to have reasonable discussion, also says “buzz off” & doesn’t leave crickets. But if it offends you to the point that you get it removed like my prior innocuous citation then I’ll have to come up with some other ‘ignore button’ post.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/2800058/posts?page=55#55
To: Moonman62

This means I have nothing more to say to you about LENR. Bye.

55 posted on Sunday, October 30, 2011 4:41:07 PM by Kevmo (Caveat lurkor pro se ipso judicatis: Let the lurker decide for himself)
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47 posted on 12/20/2011 5:26:27 PM PST by Kevmo (When a thing is owned by everybody nobody gives value to it. Communism taught us this. ~A. Rossi)
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To: Lx
1) The E-Cat is real.
2) Rossi believes the E-cat is real.
3) Rossi believes in the E-cat but he feels with more money spent, he can make it work.
4) He’s a scammer and knows it does not work and is merely scamming for cash.

Or he could be like George Costanza: It's not a lie if you believe it's true.

48 posted on 12/20/2011 5:38:07 PM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Royal Wulff

If there were anything to it, it would have been observed before now.
***The Pons-Fleischmann excess heat effect has been replicated more than 14,700 times.

https://springerlink3.metapress.com/content/8k5n17605m135n22/resource-secured/?target=fulltext.pdf&sid=xwvgza45j4sqpe3wceul4dv2&sh=www.springerlink.com

Jing-tang He
• Nuclear fusion inside condense matters
• Frontiers of Physics in China
Volume 2, Number 1, 96-102, DOI: 10.1007/s11467-007-0005-8
This article describes in detail the nuclear fusion inside condense matters—the Fleischmann-Pons effect, the reproducibility of cold fusions, self-consistency of cold fusions and the possible applications

http://www.boliven.com/publication/10.1007~s11467-007-0005-8?q=(%22David%20J.%20Nagel%22)


Scientific American

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=when-scientists-sin

1. Jed Rothwell
11:52 AM 6/20/10
Shermer says that Goodstein concluded that cold fusion was most likely a case of scientists who “convince themselves that they are in the possession of knowledge that does not in fact exist.”

Cold fusion has been replicated in over 180 major laboratories, by roughly 1,500 professional scientists. These replications have been published in roughly 800 papers in mainstream, peer reviewed journals such as J. Electroanal. Chem. and Japanese J. of Applied Physcis. J. He of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates that the effect has been observed in roughly 14,000 experimental runs (Front. Phys. China (2007) 1: 96 102).

Many of the results were at low signal to noise ratio, but others were high, such as heat from 10 to 100 W, and tritium at 50 times background (Los Alamos, Texas A&M) up to several million times (BARC).

Most of the researchers who have reported positive results are senior, distinguished experts, such as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, government of India, and the experts at Los Alamos in charge of the Tritium Systems Test Assembly and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at Princton. Only senior researchers can get funding because of academic politics.

When a result has been widely replicated at high signal to noise ratios and reported in the literature, that result is real, by definition. There is no other standard of reality in science. If it were possible for hundreds of scientists in hundreds of laboratories to be wrong, the experimental method would not work, and no result would be meaningful, and science itself would not work. If Shermer and Goodstein would substitute some other standard of truth, and ignore replication and peer-review, they are engaged in some form of faith-based religion or a popularity contest, not science.


49 posted on 12/20/2011 5:41:38 PM PST by Kevmo (When a thing is owned by everybody nobody gives value to it. Communism taught us this. ~A. Rossi)
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To: ZX12R

So... you guys can call yourselves seagulls but if I do it the posts get removed by the admin moderator.


50 posted on 12/20/2011 5:43:29 PM PST by Kevmo (When a thing is owned by everybody nobody gives value to it. Communism taught us this. ~A. Rossi)
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To: Wonder Warthog
The problem with your research is (as usual) you are ASSUMING things you flatly don't know, and did not bother to find out. Specifically, whether or not the degrees/requirements have CHANGED in the time period between 1975 and today. The Italian comment I quoted says specifically that they HAVE changed, and that the degree that Rossi has was, at one time, the highest degree offered at Milan, but is no longer so. That commentor doesn't get into specifics as to what current degrees/requirements are. And in fact your own U. of Milan link ALSO says that the university made major changes in degrees and requirements in the 1990's, but doesn't give specifics as to what things were chaned FROM.

There is no indication that Rossi's degree isn't perfectly legitimate for the time and place granted. Other than, of course, your imagination.

Your problem is that you want so badly to believe that Rossi is genuine that you're willing to overlook just about anything that contradicts that belief.

So what if the Italians changed their laws specifying requirements for a degree? It's highly unlikely that such changes were very substantial as far as actual work required for a given degree. I especially doubt that the requirements for PhDs were made MORE strict than when Rossi supposedly attended university.

It also doesn't help your case to quote an Italian as saying that until 1986, the highest degree offered was a Master's. That is, in effect, saying that it was impossible for Rossi to even get a doctorate.

Last, I will reiterate that the degree Rossi claims to have earned from the U of Milan, the "Dottore Magistrale in Filosofia", is a Master's degree in Philosophy. It not only is not a doctorate, it isn't even a science degree. I don't know about you, but I've never dealt with philosophers in the lab. It appears to me that the specific degree name was selected so as to convey the impression that Rossi has a level of education that he does not; the Italian words for "Master's degree in Philosophy" sure do look like the English words "Doctor of Philosophy". Too bad (for Rossi) that we have Google and can check these things out.

51 posted on 12/20/2011 7:48:48 PM PST by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: Moonman62
Except for that creepy letter that conjures up memories of Rathergate.

Just out of curiosity, I looked at that letter again. Right above the signature line, it says "IL CAPO UFFICIO SEGRETERIE FACOLTA UMANISTICHE", which translates into English as "HEAD OF THE HUMANITIES FACULTY OFFICES". That leads to another oddity to ponder. Why would the Humanities department verify a degree awarded by the Physics department? (Answer: because the degree being verified is, in fact a Master's degree in Philosophy, not a Doctorate in any science.)

52 posted on 12/20/2011 8:05:35 PM PST by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: exDemMom
Our funny little friends at WIKI have a piece on Italian Academic Degrees and until recently you could only get ONE DEGREE TITLE in Italy ~ the Dottore.

You might want to read about that before getting too terribly excited one way or the other.

Wiki says that this often confuses foreigners.

53 posted on 12/20/2011 8:19:24 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Moonman62
Moonman, a big question. When Tycho Brahe figured out that comets existed outside the "celestial spheres" (this is back in the 1500s) did he also realize that sometimes large rocks (aka meteorites) strike the Earth, and sometimes comets strike the Earth, and when they do they leave surface deposits of various isotopes of Iron, different crystaline forms of iron, nickel, copper, silver, lead, GOLD, etc.

He was reputed to be worth 1% of the total wealth of Denmark. His cousins in Sweden were in control of the affairs of state during most of his life (he lived in Scania then under Swedish authority although he was a Danish nobleman).

He had a GOLD NOSE.

Why I'm asking is simple ~ I'm trying to tie him into some gold mining ventures that appear to have been lost to history, and whether or not he figured out that non glacial gold can be found where stones from space strike is very important.

BTW, I am certainly not going to tell you the nest steps, but you're a smart guy and should be able to reference some information to clue me in on this.

54 posted on 12/20/2011 8:28:03 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
Our funny little friends at WIKI have a piece on Italian Academic Degrees and until recently you could only get ONE DEGREE TITLE in Italy ~ the Dottore.

You might want to read about that before getting too terribly excited one way or the other.

Do you mean this Wiki article? It corroborates everything I said.

"Dottore" means "doctor", "master", or "graduate". In the context of education, the third definition is probably the pertinent one. The Ph.D. is a "Dottorati".

Although I found plenty of references to the education reform (the purpose of which was to standardize education across Europe), I have found nothing that says only one degree was offered previous to the reform.

55 posted on 12/20/2011 10:24:40 PM PST by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: muawiyah
Why I'm asking is simple ~ I'm trying to tie him into some gold mining ventures that appear to have been lost to history, and whether or not he figured out that non glacial gold can be found where stones from space strike is very important.

BTW, I am certainly not going to tell you the nest steps, but you're a smart guy and should be able to reference some information to clue me in on this.

Sorry. I'm too busy trying to figure out why when you drop buttered toast it always lands on the floor buttered side down.

56 posted on 12/21/2011 3:25:02 AM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: exDemMom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_honorifics THIS ONE


57 posted on 12/21/2011 6:26:10 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
Two words in and I knew it was from you.

Geordi:(two minutes of techno-babble) we're ready captain:

Picard: Good work, warp 5, Engage:

I think you spent too much time in the hospital watching Star Trek TNG between ect treatments.

58 posted on 12/21/2011 7:21:02 AM PST by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: muawiyah
What that article says is that in Italy, people earning a Master's degree used to be called Doctor. Since the explanations in that article were somewhat muddled, I followed a link to this article about the Italian Master's degree (Laurea), which explains things a little better. That article says that a Laurea is something between a Bachelor and a Master's degree, and that the doctorate was added in the mid-1980s.

So, again, we have evidence that Rossi does not have a doctorate, since at the time he (allegedly) attended university, it was not even possible to earn a doctorate in Italy (according to that article). (I should point out here that Rossi isn't claiming to have a Laurea--the degree he claims to have is a Dottore Magistrale, which is a Master's.) That still leaves open the question of how someone getting a degree in philosophy has any of the theoretical or practical knowledge necessary to do physics research. I can confidently say that I have never seen a philosopher in a laboratory (although I've seen that many Doctors of Philosophy, including myself, work in labs).

59 posted on 12/21/2011 7:59:25 AM PST by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: exDemMom
Again, there's a difference between the American understanding of "philosophy" and the Classical understanding of the same term.

It's like this ~ many people imagine they have a legitimate college degree because they have studied hard sciences, or accounting.

They don't ~ unless you have an A.B., where you must almost universally pass a foreign language requirement.

In addition, following the classical divisions of education you almost immediately notice that SOME have no doctorate ~ never did ~ never will.

When I was in school you had to have 18 hours of a foreign language to earn an AB (or BA) ~ my degree is written in latin BTW. Then, to get a Masters in the College of Arts and Sciences you had to pass a reading course in a third language.

A doctorate required passing a reading course in a fourth language.

I was on that track for a while, and built on high school latin to take college Spanish and graduate level French, and went ahead and worked on Italian and Rumanian to see if I could get ahead of the program.

Rossi ~ or almost any person in Italy selected to go to university, would have graduated with knowledge of Latin, Italian, probably French or German, and certainly by 1975, English.

There's his bad accent BTW.

Back then not everybody got to go to university ~ so all those graduates of their universities were "special".

For quite a long time Continental European University level studies were more like the Upper Division in American universities (those 300 and 400 level courses) and many Master's programs.

The university track students were wrapping up Freshman and Sophomore college level materials in the equivalent of highschool.

Rossi's 3 or 4 years of university study is the rough equivalent of 5 or 6 years of American University study in an Engineering program.

60 posted on 12/21/2011 8:59:49 AM PST by muawiyah
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