The cold fusion horizon • Hacker News Board

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#41

Post by marshray » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 10:51 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #34

mizzao wrote: post #4

I understand the argument about the sociological reputation trap, but a little more reading about Rossi's research turns up some very fishy evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer In particular, the copper supposedly generated by the fusion of hydrogen and nickel has an isotopic composition very similar to that of natural copper, rather than what one would expect from byproducts of nuclear reactions.…

And that is, what I think is Rossi's biggest problem. Very showy, very secretive. The explanation I've heard is that he has something which works (for some definition of works) but doesn't know how it works or why. And because of that he is walking around afraid that if too many details get out about how it works then someone smarter then him will jump in and patent/publish the why and then be forever known as the pe…

Another possible explanation is:

He is really not very good at measuring energy input and heat output. He built something and confused himself into thinking it was producing more energy than it consumes. He took some money from investors to develop the technology. He spent much of the research money, eventually to realize that his device does not, in fact, produce energy. His investors now want their money back and he is concerned they are going to break his legs.

So at this point he has no choice but to maintain his original claims for as long as possible. Appearing now to be bumbling and incompetent may be preferable to appearing accurate and precise with measurements.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#42

Post by joe_the_user » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 10:52 PM UTC

One big argument against free energy at low temperatures is that if it was possible then the natural world would have already discovered it.

The other argument is that if someone has a free energy device, they actually shouldn't need to convince anyone, they could just hook it to the grid, get paid for the power, use the money to build more devices, repeat until they had a serious power company. And then they start bargaining.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#43

Post by kryptiskt » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 10:53 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #38

PeCaN wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence? As far as I can tell the only 'fraudulent' thing they did was jump to the conclusion of "WE MADE ENERGY WITH COLD FUSION" when they probably should've announced their result with "looks like we have some unexplained heat". They most probably were, however, understandably rather excited.

Producing even a little heat with fusion produces a lot of nasty radiation. As in kill everyone in the unsheilded room within a few seconds. Based on the amount of unexplained heat they produced fusion would have been extremely radioactive, however they did not treat there setup as an extreme radiation hazard. Which suggest they did not think there would be any fusion. PS: Here are some pictures for a device expected…

They were chemists, not physicists. They were completely out of their depth when thinking about physics. From what I read in Frank Close's book they jumped the gun when they learned about Steve Jones (who wanted to explain Earth's He-3 with cold fusion), and they didn't want to risk losing credit for their major discovery.

Obviously they were no saints and did lie and massage data when it all crumbled. But they behaved far more like blinkered true believers than frauds.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#44

Post by paganel » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #18

msandford wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I hope you see the irony in your comment, and why the first reply was a little incredulous. I'm not defending Rossi, BTW. The odds are very, very, very good that it's another scam. But it's not impossible that he's on to something and that's exactly what the article's author points to, along with lamenting how tragic it would be if cold fusion turned out to be real and we wasted 20 years not pursuing it because…

I am wondering if we read the same article. The author uncritically cites already-discredited studies in favor of the E-Cat without noting the doubt that surrounds them, and only mentions fraud as being so improbable as to effectively dismiss it. He is apparently literally salivating over his expectation that he will be proved right. FWIW, I know cold fusion is not definitively ruled out by physics, I would be thrill…

I know almost nothing about cold fusion and theoretical physics in general, but as a guy who has read some Popper and Hume I'll chime in with an obviously subjective opinion, and say that after reading all the HN comments and parts of the article the first thought that came to my mind was this: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

Interestingly enough that exact quote is present in TFA, but in a manner that makes it debatable:

> This is not to deny that there is truth in the principle popularised by Carl Sagan, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We should certainly be very cautious about such surprising claims, unless and until we amass a great deal of evidence. But this is not a good reason for ignoring such evidence in the first place, or refusing to contemplate the possibility that it might exist

Paragraphs like this one remind me of a work-colleague of mine, who I try to convince from time to time during our cigarette breaks that aliens have not visited our planet and that they're not just "about to arrive", impending asteroid apocalypse be damned. At which point she almost always responds to me like this: "paganel, yours are valid opinions, but we cannot refuse to contemplate the possibility that one day they may arrive". This also reminds me of how early Christians actually believed that the second arrival of Christ was just around the corner. Whatever this guy writes about and whatever he believes in, it is not about science.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#45

Post by jon_richards » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 11:03 PM UTC

I dislike the whole opening about "superluminal neutrinos". That announcement was asking for others to identify the issue with the testing rig, as they figured there was one but could not find it themselves. As far as I know, the only ones to claim the existence of superluminal neutrinos were the media.

I agree that there is an unacceptable stigma against certain fields of research (look at how long it is taking to test the EM drive, which has been reproduced how many times already?), but I don't see a problem in not believing someone already convicted of fraud when they claim to have discovered something but won't let you see how it works.

Until findings are reproduced, I give this the same level of credibility I give this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEJtsC5sVZA

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#46

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 11:05 PM UTC

marshray wrote: post #41

ChuckMcM wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is, what I think is Rossi's biggest problem. Very showy, very secretive. The explanation I've heard is that he has something which works (for some definition of works) but doesn't know how it works or why. And because of that he is walking around afraid that if too many details get out about how it works then someone smarter then him will jump in and patent/publish the why and then be forever known as the pe…

Another possible explanation is: He is really not very good at measuring energy input and heat output. He built something and confused himself into thinking it was producing more energy than it consumes. He took some money from investors to develop the technology. He spent much of the research money, eventually to realize that his device does not, in fact, produce energy. His investors now want their money back and h…

A reasonable guess, the only counter factual is that a number of people who are not fools seem to have convinced themselves that there is something there but they don't know what.

And as the article points out there are a number of labs around the world that have independently seen results that were anomalous with respect to the current understanding of how things should work chemically. So if nothing else there is a really good parlor trick in there somewhere, but even tricks need an explanation.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#47

Post by powera » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 11:05 PM UTC

"There are credible reports that a 1MW version of his device, producing many times the energy that it consumes, has been on trial in an industrial plant in North Carolina for months, with good results so far." - This. This is why scientists are skeptical. "Is there a plant" isn't a hard scientific question. We don't need or care about "credible reports". It's there or it isn't. And if you refuse to admit one way or another, you're almost certainly lying about the whole damn thing.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#48

Post by powera » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 11:07 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #28

dkbrk wrote: post #19

I think there's definitely a cultural problem where the outcome of an experiment is associated with the reputation of the scientist who performed it. We see this in the bias to publish only positive results - as though if an experiment did not make findings of significance it is a failing of the scientist who performed it - and we see this in the reluctance of many scientists to investigate that which would be very s…

The NASA EmDrive research is what I thought of, as well. I found the vehemence and personal nature of the attacks on those results to be surprising, disappointing, and beyond the bounds of typical rational skepticism. Sure, it will probably turn out to be nothing, but NASA is not trying scam us. Not every investigation of weird results is a scam.

If this is such a credible or important result, why are none of the articles about it ever from NASA or quoting NASA?

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#49

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 11:09 PM UTC

api wrote: post #36

ScottBurson wrote: post #23

Great article. I'm not going to defend Rossi, but what happened in 1989 was a travesty. Yes, Pons and Fleischmann were premature in their annnouncement. But they didn't deserve to be made pariahs, and there were others whose careers were destroyed for so much as publicly entertaining the possibility that cold fusion might be made to work. Edward Teller, on the other hand, was old enough not to care: Around 1992, McKu…

Big science is made out of meat like everything else and suffers from all the same biases and cognitive blinds and fallacies. Scientists are genetically 99.9% identical to new age woo woo peddlers and quacks. Science is more rational because it cultivates more rational methods, but not because it runs on better hardware.

Big science is made out of meat like everything else

I take it you're referring to: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#50

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Dec 22, 2015, 11:12 PM UTC

kryptiskt wrote: post #43

Retric wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Producing even a little heat with fusion produces a lot of nasty radiation. As in kill everyone in the unsheilded room within a few seconds. Based on the amount of unexplained heat they produced fusion would have been extremely radioactive, however they did not treat there setup as an extreme radiation hazard. Which suggest they did not think there would be any fusion. PS: Here are some pictures for a device expected…

They were chemists, not physicists. They were completely out of their depth when thinking about physics. From what I read in Frank Close's book they jumped the gun when they learned about Steve Jones (who wanted to explain Earth's He-3 with cold fusion), and they didn't want to risk losing credit for their major discovery. Obviously they were no saints and did lie and massage data when it all crumbled. But they behav…

Blinkered true believers and frauds differ only in one aspect: intent. I've met some 'true believers' and the common element was that they believed enough to risk other people's funds but not enough to risk their own. That makes it a very fine line between a true believer and a fraud, thin enough for me to bin them equally. It doesn't matter to me because I can't look into someone's head to figure out which of the two it is, no matter what they say or do, true believers may very well be frauds and people who you think are frauds may end up being true believers.

In the end, the only thing that matters is results.