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The cold fusion horizon

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Re: The cold fusion horizon

#131

Post by nickpsecurity »

sebringj wrote: post #37

At first I was like please die, cold fusion from Adobe. Then I was like oh. Nevermind.

As you say it, I notice some parallels. A small team promotes ColdFusion as a revolution that goes against standard practices and is totally better. Most call bullshit on that with some uptake and research. A fringe builds new tech on top of ColdFusion & replications (open-source). All kinds of new, proven stuff comes out of both mainstream and comp sci over the decades. Occasionally, sales people still crop up talking about ColdFusion as a real benefit for developers. They've seen people kick ass with it.

Then, the rest of us were like: "Oh, nevermind."

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#132

Post by nickpsecurity »

intrasight wrote: post #103

I am confused as to the author's justification for seeming to give credence to a thoroughly discredited person. It would have been a better article if he had just stuck with "the science says it is possible just not probable" instead of discussing Rossi. And no mention of Pistol Shrimp - I am disappointed.

Why Pistol Shrimp? Other than them being cool as heck if the claims about them are true.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#133

Post by rdtsc »

chc4 wrote: post #68
joe_the_user wrote: post #42

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…

I'm not sure that argument against it holds up. For all we know some Deuterium and Palladium are hanging out in the cosmos undergoing fusion, and we would have no idea about it. There are real room temperature fusion methods[0] that can also happen in nature, but even if that method was break-even it doesn't mean Mother Nature would exploit it due to the difficulty of starting the reaction. Getting paid for power and…

> Getting paid for power and getting enough seed money to build more generators does involve convincing people,

He is clearly not trying to convince anyone serious by disallowing scientists to measure using their own equipment and on their own terms and conditions. Energy production is not hard to measure and people have been metering electrical enenergy for many decades now.

So far is obstructing and preventing such scrutiny. He is trying to convince only rich people to give him money. If you look at that as his goal, he is doing all the right steps in that direction.

> He even started his own energy company, iirc, and has been selling self-contained "generators" to people.

How many people have bought and used his device to generate power?

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#134

Post by sandebert »

Considering this intersects Rossi, the E-Cat reactor and Sweden, it might be interesting to know that Rossi and his claimed invention is quite controversial in Swedish media.

Searching for his name on Sveriges Radio (Swedish Public Radio): http://sverigesradio.se/sida/sok.aspx?q=andrea+rossi

...gives these results (with my very short translated snippets):

  ---------------
Blind faith in cold fusion (2014-05-27)

"Andrea Rossi claims his machine works using cold fusion, yet scientists cannot look into the machine or get all test data. Even though this, established Swedish physicists have written positive reports about Rossis machine."

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/375904?programid=412

  ---------------
Scientists helped suspected con-man to sell miracle machine (2014-05-27)

"I realize he's using us."

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&arti...

  ---------------
Negative results were never published (2014-05-28)

"Andrea Rossi's alleged miracle machine, the E-Cat reactor, has been tested at Uppsala University. But no results of the test or the circumstances surrounding it have been published. Even at the [Swedish] Natural History Museum has an important study been made to suggest that Rossi's allegations are not true. Again, nothing have been published."

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/375957?programid=41

  ---------------
Andrea Rossi paid air plane tickets for Swedish scientists to Italy (2014-05-30)

"The visit resulted in a very positive report"

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&arti...

  ---------------
Swedish scientists on paid trip for E-Cat reactor (2014-06-17)

"A believer ignores all arguments. Despite all the warning bells a half-dozen researchers at Uppsala University and the Royal Institute of Technology continue to cooperate with Andrea Rossi to try to find out about his alleged power device email catalyst functions."

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/396095?programid=412

  ---------------
All of the links above contains the actual radio episodes, in Swedish only though. There are more articles about him in Swedish media, these are just from our NPR. And please understand that my translated snippets are just meant to give a small taste of the content of the radio episode, you obviously need to listen to it go get the full content. :)

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#135

Post by jacquesm »

ScottBurson wrote: post #95
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…

> 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. It's really quite the other way around: the opponents of LENR research have treated everyone working on it as if there were something pa…

I'm not aware of any scientist that 'opposes LENR', I am however aware of a lot of scientists (and lay-people for that matter) that are skeptical of Rossi. And most scientists will take a much harder look at anything LENR related before committing their names and reputations to it leaving the field wide open to the fringe, with predictable results.

It's not dis-similar to how people working on AI would call it anything but AI for a decade or so in the IT business. The AI winter had a very good reason: being oversold makes a field toxic.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#136

Post by jeffdavis »

Cacti wrote: post #125
vinceguidry wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Wait, what? I thought this was about the science and the results, not about the person.

That's true as long as everyone is acting in good faith.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#137

Post by mahranch »

XorNot wrote: post #106
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…

No, no there is not. Because 100% of the time so far in cold fusion, no one has built a device that actually works or subjected it to tests which would prove it does. Rossi is a fraud. His public tests always mysteriously wind up involving him tinkering with the device, and involve people he has prior relationships with.

Yeah, I don't get this. To overcome the Coulomb barrier at room temp (source: http://zidbits.com/2015/05/how-does-fusion-power-work/) is akin to claiming you built something which goes faster than light. That's why the term "cold fusion" has such a stigma attached to it, it's literally on the same physics defying level as perpetual motion machines.

Because of the stigma attached to the term cold fusion, they have now switched to calling it "low-energy nuclear reactions" or LENR. It's the same exact thing, just a fancy new name to attract naive & moronic investors.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#138

Post by mahranch »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #81
rdtsc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> ""cold fusion", "infinite energy machines"" I don't think it's fair to lump those two together. I think we all accept the energy potential in fusion is there, and it also seems possible that the most efficient way to tap that energy is one we have yet to fully understand. The most efficient method could be found under the 'cold fusion' umbrella, and even if these methods turn out to be a different process than fusi…

> I don't think it's fair to lump those two together.

Heh, I disagree. I hold almost the exact opposite view and believe it is perfectly fair to lump those two together. Cold fusion requires overcoming the Coulomb barrier at room temperature. Do you have any idea how impossible that is? It's just as impossible as accelerating an object faster than light, or me spontaneously quantum tunneling through my floor into my basement. So yes, perpetual motion machines, unicorns and cold fusion all belong to the same area of science and deserved to be lumped together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulomb_barrier

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#139

Post by ZenoArrow »

grogers wrote: post #115
ZenoArrow wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ""cold fusion", "infinite energy machines"" I don't think it's fair to lump those two together. I think we all accept the energy potential in fusion is there, and it also seems possible that the most efficient way to tap that energy is one we have yet to fully understand. The most efficient method could be found under the 'cold fusion' umbrella, and even if these methods turn out to be a different process than fusi…

Sonofusion was also fraudulent: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091123/full/news.2009.1103.h...

You missed the point. I said even if the process turns out to be something other than fusion, interesting phenomena like sonoluminescence are still worthy of study anyway.

Same with this E-Cat stuff, clearly there's something we haven't formally explained yet going on, and the experiment has been shown to be reproducible, sounds worthy of study to me, even if it turns out to be a different process than fusion, and even if it turns out it can be explained without changing our scientific models.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#140

Post by ZenoArrow »

mahranch wrote: post #138
ZenoArrow wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ""cold fusion", "infinite energy machines"" I don't think it's fair to lump those two together. I think we all accept the energy potential in fusion is there, and it also seems possible that the most efficient way to tap that energy is one we have yet to fully understand. The most efficient method could be found under the 'cold fusion' umbrella, and even if these methods turn out to be a different process than fusi…

> I don't think it's fair to lump those two together. Heh, I disagree. I hold almost the exact opposite view and believe it is perfectly fair to lump those two together. Cold fusion requires overcoming the Coulomb barrier at room temperature. Do you have any idea how impossible that is? It's just as impossible as accelerating an object faster than light, or me spontaneously quantum tunneling through my floor into my…

You mentioned the Coulomb barrier makes this impossible. Can you comment on this story about Edward Teller?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10780632

Seems to me it's not proven beyond doubt that it's impossible. Furthermore, even if it does prove to be impossible it could turn out to be a 'useful mistake' if new science needs to be developed to explain the phenomena that were once labelled as 'cold fusion', that's what interests me more, I don't really mind what it's called.

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