Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The cold fusion horizon

aeon.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 198 posts

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#51

Post by tommoor »

yc1010 wrote: post #31

That reminds me, whatever happened to that perpetual energy machines from those "Steorn" lads from Dublin? edit: never mind I see they are still around somehow (and managed to waste millions in process) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn http://orbo.com/ ------------ "Welcome to the online shop for Orbo technology, home of our "never die" battery technology-based products. We're excited to move towards bringing the…

Ah yes.. If I'd invented a source of perpetual energy, this is exactly how I'd commercialize it too: http://orbo.com/products/ophone

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#52

Post by jacquesm »

This article is funny. It tries to do an end-run around any criticism of the subject matter by constructing an elaborate piece of work to establish that if you don't agree with the basic premise of low energy nuclear reactions there must be something pathologically wrong with you.

And you are not only suffering from a defect, no you are doubly wrong, because having LENR would be such a great thing for the world.

For me it is simple. If someone shows up with a working LENR device (or even any device, who cares how it works as long as it is safe) that really outputs considerable power and they are willing to sell me that power at a rate that is lower than what my electricity company charges then I'll be more than happy to sign up. Until then they, their investors and promoters should do what they can not to raise expectations beyond those that they can readily prove, no matter what the benefit to mankind and no matter how many scientists got unfairly (if so) railroaded for fudging their numbers and defrauding investors.

Cold fusion, zero point energy, unicorns.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#53

Post by marshray »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #46
marshray wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's very common for people who are totally not fools to get sucked into free energy scams.

This is one of the better ones being demonstrated at the technical univeristy of Delft I believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHW6b1aFPfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKCEceWs-Gc

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#54

Post by vinceguidry »

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.…

> It also doesn't help that Rossi has been convicted of fraud for purportedly inventing dubious devices in the past. In particular, he "created" a system for turning toxic waste into oil, but this turned out to be just dumping the waste into the environment.

I feel like if someone has done this once, anyone taking them seriously again, deserves to lose their shirt. What, he suddenly reformed and is now doing real science? In what universe does this happen?

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#55

Post by rdtsc »

Based on watching videos and reading about other stuff he's done:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_%28entrepreneur%2...

I vote for this being a scam. A very clever scam but another scam.

There is in fact whole cottage industry centered around energy and battery technology. The audience for this is not us or other scientists but investors. It is about demos, videos, secrets, lots of tubes and wires, flickering lights, acting like they just discovered free energy and will revolutionize the world of physics. The goal is to make people with money believe you.

In general, just because people have money doesn't mean they also know science and thus many are targets of scam artists. But the "art" part in scam art is to also pick an area that is not too confusing (brain surgery, genetics, something too theoretical, etc) or too hard but something seemingly simple -- "we make energy", "we have a new battery", "a device that produces more energy than it consumes" etc.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#56

Post by rdtsc »

Based on watching videos and reading about other stuff he's done:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_%28entrepreneur%2...

I vote for this being a scam. A very clever scam but another scam.

There is in fact whole cottage industry centered around energy and battery technology. The audience for this is not us or other scientists but investors. It is about demos, videos, secrets, lots of tubes and wires, flickering lights, acting like they just discovered free energy and will revolutionize the world of physics. The goal is to make people with money believe you.

In general, just because people have money doesn't mean they also know science and thus many are targets of scam artists. But the "art" part in scam art is to also pick an area that is not too confusing (brain surgery, genetics, something too theoretical, etc) or too hard but something seemingly simple -- "we make energy", "we have a new battery", "a device that produces more energy than it consumes" etc.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#57

Post by marshray »

vinceguidry wrote: post #54
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.…

> It also doesn't help that Rossi has been convicted of fraud for purportedly inventing dubious devices in the past. In particular, he "created" a system for turning toxic waste into oil, but this turned out to be just dumping the waste into the environment. I feel like if someone has done this once, anyone taking them seriously again, deserves to lose their shirt. What, he suddenly reformed and is now doing real sci…

He seems to characterize the charges as being more 'tax fraud' stemming from environmental damage caused by his failed effort to develop a more efficient waste incenerator.

Maybe he was scamming investors too, but he seems to be able to spin it in a way that plausibly he was not.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#58

Post by marshray »

powera wrote: post #48
snowwrestler wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I thought it was 99% an independent effort and a NASA lab just let them use their vacuum balance test chamber.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#59

Post by rdtsc »

jacquesm wrote: post #52

This article is funny. It tries to do an end-run around any criticism of the subject matter by constructing an elaborate piece of work to establish that if you don't agree with the basic premise of low energy nuclear reactions there must be something pathologically wrong with you. And you are not only suffering from a defect, no you are doubly wrong, because having LENR would be such a great thing for the world. For…

Yap. This is almost certainly a scam. As long as there are rich people, there will be scam artists selling them "cold fusion", "infinite energy machines", it is fascinating to watch these happen.

This also creates an interesting market, just like scam artists look for marks that other scammers have deceived, there is probably someone taking notes which investors are buying into the story. Those people would be good targets for the future. "Hey psst, I got a this scientist friend working for NASA that is building a flying car running on weak nuclear force energy, he just need a bit of funding".

Post reply on HN