NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/physics/fusion/3115

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 5.3 KB | 100 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!pacbell.com!tandem!zorch!fusion
From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: Reply to Jed Rothwell
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Scott Hazen Mueller)
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 23:38:17 GMT
Lines: 88

Jed Rothwell, the trouble with writing so much is that it is like the Bible, I
can use your words to prove anything I want.

You write:

"Who did you have in mind?  Tom Droege?  Me?  He has done a handful of
experiments, I have done three.  So what?  To succeed at Pd CF, you sometimes
have to do hundreds of experiments.  You have be prepared to work for years --
full time -- with no results at all.  Tom and I are not even in the running.
Tom would have to hire half a dozen people, or 32 people, and spend million
of bucks before he could authoritatively tell us what does or does not work."
(Quote tactfully ended before Jed says "Tom is a great guy ... .")

Speak for yourself, Jed, I am very much "in the running".

Later Jed says "There is no room in this field for quitters who stop after one
or two experiments ... ."

Or three, Jed?  You were warned!

Just because I am working at home in my basement, Jed, it does not mean I am
doing second class work.  I am doing the best calorimetry in the field, even
if I admit errors of 7% when I do something sloppy.  I bet I have taken more
measurements, and to higher precision than anybody.  Roughly 10E10 at the last
count.  With 10E8 recorded.  Most to 16++ bit precision.  I will further bet I
am in the top 10 in the number of Pd CF experiments performed, and at least in
the top 20 of Ni - H2O experiments performed.  I estimate 30,000 experimental
running hours.  That 4A3 in my progress reports means series 4, cell A,
cathode 3 in cell A.  P&F and Storms (most of Storms D absorption only) have
run more cells than I have, but I have done more cells than McKubre, for
example, of the big shots.  I also think I beat everybody in the quality of
the measurements.  Sure I wish I had a hood and a chemical sink.  But I am
learning how to work around the chemical problems.  So don't say I am not in
the running.  Most are not in the running with me!

Most of the people that you seem to weigh heavily like Nagoya and Takahashi
are not very convincing to me.  The only good write up that I have seen is
that by McKubre.  The many watts that you seem to like from Takahashi are not
very convincing to me.  In fact, the raw data plots from Takahashi that you
nicely sent can be interpreted as no heat at all (when Takahashi claims 100
watts or so) by transient analysis.

Further, it is not clear that 32 people and a bunch of money would help.  (I
have regularly turned down offers of financial support.  But not help to do
things.)  I know how long it takes to build a productive group of 32 people as
I have just done it for CDF.  It takes about 5 years to hire and fit together
a group of that size.  My guess is that hiring all those people has slowed
down the effort by P&F to a standstill.  The only hope is that they had a
number of people with whom they had previously worked that they could persuade
to join the effort.

It takes very little time or people to "authoritatively tell us what does ...
work."  No number of people are enough to tell us "what ... does not work."

Here is how it works, Jed.  I figure out how to do the experiment.  Any of the
schemes under discussion.   Then by the theoretical rules of science I am
supposed to publish my experiment and the details of how to do it in a
refereed journal.  Then someone reads it and decides to duplicate it.  If this
succeeds, then this result is published too, and a few more try it.  After a
while one of two things happens.  Enough people try the experiment and agree
that it works until every one in the field knows someone they trust who has
done the experiment and so all agree that it works, or enough people try the
experiment and fail so that everyone in the field knows someone they believe
who has failed.

Of course, the whole process falls apart when the workers in the field think
that there are "trillions" of dollars involved since they tend to leave out
crucial details.

The actual rules of science are somewhat different today.  I write something
up and fax it to a colleague with instructions to keep quiet about it until I
can publish the result.  About 30 minutes later, everyone in the world with
any possible interest in the subject has a copy.  As results are obtained, the
process continues.  Several years later the first papers appear in the
journals.  Only slightly exaggerated.

But Jed, we are not yet even to the stage one fax on Pd CF.  If we count the
Mills procedure as a stage one fax, then there is the problem that some do not
agree (like me and I think also Bockris) that it works.

Jed, you do us all one service, and that is to force us to think a little on
how science works.  Mostly it is a subject never mentioned in school, at least
not in *my* educational process of 250 or so semester hours.  So it is good to
think about it.  How about it out there - Has anyone ever sat in a lecture of
their major and been told "here are the rules of science in xxx"?

Tom Droege