1995.04.30 / Barry Merriman / Re: Highlights of the Fifth International CF Conference Originally-From: barry@starfire.ucsd.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Highlights of the Fifth International CF Conference Date: 30 Apr 1995 05:20:28 GMT Organization: UCSD SOE In article <1995Apr27.124603.2198@plasma.byu.edu> writes: > Jed Rothwell writes: > "When I talk about the need to put aside the palladium heavy water approach > ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ > and try other methods instead, scientists often misunderstand me. ... > I say we need to drop it temporarily, and to concentrate instead on what > works spectacularly well today. We must build 20 kilowatt > light water reactors so we can convince the world that cold fusion is real. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > That will bring in rivers of money -- oceans of money. " > > If anyone can get 20 kilowatts of *fusion* power using *light* water, > I'll gladly shave my head. No way. I'm in on that one---I'd certainly shave my head to see that. > (Hey, I thought we sent Tom Droege to > investigate the Griggs device, and he found that claims of 'excess heat' from > this machine were terribly exaggerated Well, more accurately, he found that claims of {claims of excess heat} were greatly exagerated---i.e. Griggs doesn't back off from the numbers, but he also does not make such claims with great conviction. Of course, all TD actually saw himself was an 8% excess run, but I gather that was simply because he didn;t really go there to observe the experiment itself. -- Barry Merriman UCSD Fusion Energy Research Center UCLA Dept. of Math bmerriman@fusion.ucsd.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome) cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Barry Merriman / Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Originally-From: barry@starfire.ucsd.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Date: 30 Apr 1995 05:23:27 GMT Organization: UCSD SOE In article browe@netcom.com (William Rowe) writes: > Jed implies the easily detected heat puts the Patterson cell in the same > category as heavier than air flight. I would argue this isn't the case. If > instrumentation is needed to observe the effect then error bars are > needed. > -- Well, more broadly, our eyes are intruments themselves, but we have an intuitive understanding of the limits of their resolution, and in the case of the A bomb or flight, it was clear the observed effects exceeded the error bars on our eyes. -- Barry Merriman UCSD Fusion Energy Research Center UCLA Dept. of Math bmerriman@fusion.ucsd.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome) cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Paul Koloc / Re: POLL: How long till power plants? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: POLL: How long till power plants? Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 06:23:04 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article awc@slcawc aug.ipp-garching.mpg.de (Arthur Carlson TOK ) writes: >In article pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >> In article >awc@slcawc.aug.ipp-garching.mpg.de (Arthur Carlson TOK ) >writes: >>>>>>>>>(and so on, regressively) >> >Current experiments are limited to a few seconds every ten or twenty >> >minutes (although I believe JET and Tore-Supra have had discharges >> >over a minute), sometimes by power supplies and sometimes by flux in >> >the ohmic heating coils. Such things are easy to extrapolate to a ^^^^^^^^^^^ >> >reactor grade plasma. By a reactor grade plasma, I assume you are including one operating in commercial (long period) mode. So I ask again: " from an engineering point of view, how valid is this [extrapolation]." To which you glibly reply: >Incomparably more valid than an extrapolation from a spark in a garage >to a rocket to Mars. Oh? the tokamak will also have primary application as a drive source for space propulsion?? And what about that other facet of that remark?? Just a spark? But - it is one that produces a stable, high internal energy strongly compressible (and heatable) magnetoplasmoid? One which doesn't have the "wall problem" created by surrounding the highest temperature plasma in the universe with some of the coldest matter in the universe (cryo-cooled mags). Was this a cheap shot, my friend? >> Well for example, there is a large torque on placed on the toroidal >> field coils, and although stress is relieved through cross members, >> the constant loading and unloading will take its toll. >Exactly. The cyclic forces related to thermal and magnetic stresses >are relevant, well understood, and dominated by the occasional total >shutdown rather than the cycling forced by inductive current >drive. "Wall deterioration" is irrelevant here. True in that "Wall Deterioration" is a separate nightmare for the tokamak. However, "the WELL understanding of" cycle loading stress, doesn't make it less a problem. This is especially true when it is wedged between a number of other crucial ISSUES that demand engineering attention and physical space to solve. All of which solutions can interfere or compete with having a free hand to utilize your "WELL understanding" of one aspect to enable a fully satifactory solution of that problem alone. NOTE: System engineering, isn't exactly the most successfully utilized discipline in development the tokamak concept. If it were, then it is likely the tokamak would be a PLASMAK(tm) like embodiment. The other point you might have missed, is that even cycling axisymmetric loading stress isn't that much of a problem compared with the twisting torques and "bolt popping" stresses developed in loading and unloading the tokamak coil system. Further, the cooling and particle (neutron) absorption media could also be conducting, and could couple image currents within it, which not only wastes heat, but can develop additional stresses. In conclusion I don't think you are taking these matters seriously. There is a better way, and after all, I'm only trying to point it out to you. It's not that often that professionals at your intermediate institutional level will listen. So you are to be commended for that. >> I'm certain of that, but the difficulty with leaky tritium, is that >> it can easily be "detected", that is cause a "click" for someone >> counting "geigers" ;-), and that person could be any semi-educated >> greeny with access to a press. With some people, no level is >> "acceptable". So good luck on that problem. >I'm sure we can count on your help to correct public misconceptions >about the dangers of tritium. I'm having enough trouble just getting you chaps out of a technology that creaks a lot and may end up putting out just a whiff of "smoke" with no real sustained burn. And just why do you insist on going with an obsolete technology that generates tritium in the first place when you don't have to do so and can have something as simple and developable as a PLASMAK(tm) generator. Do you want your family breathing, drinking or eating oxidized version of tritium? Tritium oxide or Tritocarbons maybe fine outside the body, but in multiatom molecular forms, it can easily enter the body, become part of its structure, and then leisurely lay back while whisky ages in Kentucky, and generate genetic abnormalities due to it's "weak" but not quite harmless particle activity. Any brain tumors around Jet chaps or PPPL chaps? No. good .. well guess it's too early to tell .. yet. >-- >To study, to finish, to publish. -- Benjamin Franklin What was it Franklin said about the "SPARK" of creativity? >Dr. Arthur Carlson >Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics >Garching, Germany >carlson@ipp-garching.mpg.de When your FLAGGING ship starts to list, consider jumping to one that's not; flagging or sinking that is. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Paul M. Koloc, Bx 1037 Prometheus II Ltd, College Park MD 20741-1037 | | mimsy!promethe!pmk; pmk%prometheus@mimsy.umd.edu FAX (301) 434-6737 | | VOICE (301) 445-1075 ***** Commercial FUSION in the Nineties ***** | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Alan M / Re: Highlights of the Fifth International CF Conference Originally-From: Alan@moonrake.demon.co.uk ("Alan M. Dunsmuir") Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Highlights of the Fifth International CF Conference Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 08:52:24 +0000 Organization: Home In article: jedrothwell@delphi.com writes: > He is smart though. He knows that if you are going to make wild, absurd > unsuportable claims about electric motors magically interfering with > dial thermometers and thermocouples, or water at 100 deg C which looks > like it is boiling but it isn't, then the last thing you want to do is > put your claims to the test in an experiment. Well, you've long since figured that one out over wild unsupportable claims about over-unity performance, Jed. -- Alan M. Dunsmuir [@ his wits end] (Can't even quote poetry right) I am his Highness' dog at Kew Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you? [Alexander Pope] PGP Public Key available on request. cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenAlan cudfnAlan cudlnM cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / a bandyopadhyay / FS:ADVANCED PHYSICS BOOKS Originally-From: abandyop@manganese. (akash bandyopadhyay) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: FS:ADVANCED PHYSICS BOOKS Date: 30 Apr 1995 01:06:17 GMT Organization: University of Notre Dame Hi, FOLLOWING ADVANCED PHYSICS / PHYSICS RELATED BOOKS ARE FOR SALE No. Name Author(s) Condition Price 1. Numerical Recipes in Press, Teukolsky, NEW $35.00 FORTRAN (2nd. Ed.) Vetterling,Flannery 2. Original Floppy-Disk Same as Above NEW $18.00 of Numerical Recipes in FORTRAN (2nd. Ed.) 3. Numerical Recipes in Same as Above NEW $35.00 C (2nd. Ed.) 4. Physical Cosmology Peebles NEW $35.00 5. Quantum Field Theory Ryder USED $15.00 6. Quantum Field Theory Itzykson, Zuber USED $22.00 7. Mathematica in Action Wagon NEW $18.00 8. Field Theory of Fradkin NEW $35.00 Condensed Matter Systems 9. Collective Effects in March, Parrinello Used $18.00 Solids and Liquids 10. Linear Algebra Hoffman, Kunze NEW $25.00 (2nd. Ed.) NEW books are BRAND NEW, and NEVER USED. The folppy-disk of Numerical Recipes in FORTRAN is UNOPENED. Prices are negotiable. Shipping and handling charges are NOT inclded with the prices. Buyer have to pay the shipping etc. charges. If interested then please send e.mail to abandyop@iron.helios.nd.edu Thanks, Akash Bandyopadhyay. abandyop@iron.helios.nd.edu cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenabandyop cudfnakash cudlnbandyopadhyay cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Paul Koloc / Re: POLL: How long till power plants? 2062 Tell me you joking? Help Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: POLL: How long till power plants? 2062 Tell me you joking? Help Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 08:31:53 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <3nlqm6$14l@curly.cc.utexas.edu> johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb) writes: >In article , >Paul M. Koloc wrote: >>In article <3mjkog$46a@curly.cc.utexas.edu> johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb) writes: >John: >So let me see if I have this straight, the Plasmak "Onion" consists of a >small core that is at thermonuclear temperatures. Just outside of this core >is a high magnetic field region that contains a very high pressure "mantle" >gas which is at about ionization/recombination temperatures. Not quite, but partially correct. Outside this Kernel plasma toroid is a strong field (depends on bounding pressure and topological structure such as helicity) and NOTHING but photons, hotter ones out bound from the Kernel plasma, and cooler inbound ones from the Mantle. Then beyond this gap .. . NEXT comes the Mantle ... . BUT the field embedded in it is considerably less (just a few percent of the energy density of the vacuum field) Can we make a song out of this to the tune of "dem bones, dem bones" > . . . . The mantle is >supposed to be very thin and amazingly insulating. The mantle is also dense >enough to be optically thick and it is a transport barrier. The Mantle is "thin" relatively, say a couple or three centimeters in air -- minimum. BUT, it can be very thick if it is fusion heated. The other difficulty about canned comments is that if compression heated, the particle inventory need not increase much and therefore the Mantle will be "distance" thinner when strongly compressed. But it will be optically "thicker", because of "pressure (density) broadening". Now if we speak of a higher Z PMK such as air, then the Kernel radiates more and it is much much cooler than if it were composed of hydrogen and helium. However, the air case is optically thick along certain lines, so it is "tuned", that is the Mantle receives this tuned blackbody emission from resonances from the unstripped Kernel. In a Fusion low Z application, the ohmic heating is stronger due to higher density and low bremsstralung losses, so the temperature goes way up. Say 200 ev for d-^3He, and 1200ev for p^11B. > Outside of the mantle is normal gas that is undergoing periodic > compression expansion. Well, I suppose that could be done, but the plan now is to just "slap it", perhaps with a two stage "dc" compression. crunch...CRUNCH which actually will sound more like "kablak" spoken quickly. >This compression is communicated through the mantle to the core by >pressure balance and this is the prime "initiator". The core plasma is >heated to ignition conditions by compressive heating. About 10 percent by formation and thermal ballistics to compression params, and then the rest by compression heating. Although, for d^3He, the compression heating to say 40's keV will be continued by alpha particle heating and some ohmic up to 70-75 keV the low neutron yield burn temperature. >Now I haven't received the papers Paul talks about below, but let me go out >on a limb and make some comments. hopefully the papers will come soon and I >promise to make an effort to look at them. I Used an old APS address .. try there. They haven't sent it back >1) Never underestimate the power of compressive heating. Take for example in >TFTR today. It is a big and costly thing to get 20 MW of heating power from >NBI. This is really a technological feat of which they should be proud. >However, compare this to compression heating. discharging a capacitor bank >in a pulsed device like a pinch and you can get compressive, or adiabatic >heating over 100 MW without much trouble. The issue is that compressive heating >is by its nature pulsed. So pinches had gobs of heating, but the shot lasted >for microseconds while TFTR last for seconds. So compressive heating is an >easy way to high power input, but only in pulsed mode. >2) What about interchange instabilities? If you are undergoing strong >compression, then your statement about the direction of gradients doesn't >seem correct. It seems that you will have exactly the same problem that the >ICF guys do with Rayleigh-Taylor modes. The ICF guys compress systems with uniform internal energy densities. Think of soap bubbles, blow on them and they can recover. This is with just a squidgion of higher pressure within the film. In a Spheromak/PMK config, the toroidal axis pressure is 10 to 12.5 times the boundary pressure, so these things are compression SUPER BALLS. Which no doubt makes the system look like a good explanation for bounding or bouncing Ball Lightnings. Basically a deformation by locallized surplus surface pressure causes a deformation inward where the flux within is stronger with inverse radius ^2++ so that eventually the pressure is balanced. That deformation would be hardly noticeable even if one blasted it with an discharge from an air rifle at point blank range and unloaded (without a pell or bb in the chamber). They make some good air rifles in Germany. So maybe Art and Bruce can go hunting Kugelblitz and report back to us. :-) >Even if the compression is fast, it >must be so strong that the growth rate is still short compared to the As I said a PMK is R-T stable, so such heroics aren't necessary. >3) The concept of the mantle seems a bit schizophrenic to me. On the >one hand I seem to be hearing that it is thin and can support huge >temperature gradients. Not very temperature huge!! It is photo ionized, and not in thermal equilibrium. This is true only of the innermost layer, up to the "divergence layer". >On the other I hear that it is dense enough and >thick enough to be optically thick (i.e. traps the outgoing light). I >think there is a pickle here. You see, optical thickness is a function of the oscillator density, and since it is dense there are many, but along certain resonances there are a HUGE number, and it is in these bands where the optical coupling takes place. Further remember we are at atmospheric pressure and so the lines smear a bit, and aren't so narrow. >If it is optically thin, then the >ionization/recombination boundary is going to radiate like gang busters and >the core will cool much too fast. Where it is optically thin it (Kernel) DOESN'T radiate. but .. as you say it (Mantle) doesn't absorb much either, so it's a draw. This is the pre compression case. At fusion burn we have megawatts per cc (10 Mw/cc). So we DISAGREE on one point, and AGREE on the other. >That means to me that you must intend this >boundary to be outside of the "mantle" or at least in its outer edges. If that >is the case, then the inner part of the mantle will be completely >ionized. Therefore you must rely on the rather weaker absorption mechanisms >in the continous spectrum rather than the strong resonance line absoprtion >paths for light capture. No I don't, simply because the Kernel "doesn't radiate like gang busters" off resonance. >This means the mantle must be even more dense and >thick. The mantle is then going to have to have quite an energy inventory. It has an energy inventory, but it conserves it. And remember the rule if it's a good radiator, it's a good absorber. >While you may say that in steady burn this will come from the core, one seems >to have a starting problem of how to get the required energy into a mantle. Not with the gigawatts we put into it. It's a SNAP! so to speak. Imagine giving your last line to a lightning bolt flashing about an inch from your private on board sperm bank. >4) The ionization/recombination boundary can still be subject to instability. >Yes it is possible to find profiles that are stable, but in my experience >they are rare and special. Well, .. thank you, I think so too. >They don't just naturally happen. I suspect this >is one of the reasons that ball lightening is so controversial. Usually, no >stable configuration is seen. I imagine it must burn the egos of some of the MHD chaps. No wonder they don't believe it. Probably should take therapy or talk to Kadomtsev or Rosenbluth. >However, in some cases stable fronts are >formed and they can exist for a while (on an energy transport time). However, >late in their life they slowly evolve to a profile that is not >ionization/recombination stable and in a fraction of an instant they go "pop" >out of existence. 50 % of the cases, the others just run out of gas and flicker upwards like a flame, somewhat reminiscent of a "Jacob's ladder", only just a very few inches at most. >I promise to try to read the papers and I will try to comment on these 4 >points. Look, make certain I have your correct snail, I think I'm using one from the APS which is years old. So go there and check for mail. >I think we are talking on the same wavelength here now. However, dense, >quiescent gas (ddg) is not an insulator for radiation either. You must either >have an absorber or even better a reflector. Now what I think I hear you >proposing is that the mantle will be dense and thick enough to be an absorber. >Well this still means that the core will lose its radiative power to the mantle >almost instantaneously. Wha .a a is this "almost" stuff.. compute it. Remember it is has stored energy. .. a sort of magnetic battery, and that's keeping ohmic heating going. Also, Since the electrons are energetic, that could play a part in generating non-thermal equalibrium ionization even in the Kernel at start up. But I think you are too generous with the radiation rates from thin Kernel plasma ... well thin before compress .. n = order 10^16p/cc. where as the Mantle plasma is much much thicker nearly 10^19 and higher at the out-edge. >Now given this big heat source into the mantle, how >does it get rid of the energy in steady-state --- i.e. what is the power >balance. Well, If I had to answer, I would say by thermal conduction. Not a smidgen of thermal conDUCTION, out from Kernel. Nor is there the conVECTION through the Mantle. The weak field in the Mantle also surpresses electron (thermal) diffusion about 3 orders. > .. . And >given no other information, I would say that most of the energy would flow >OUTWARD, not INWARD, so the core still cools rapidly. Outward, and fast or slow, it's in the mind of the beholder. But it's balanced by ohmic heating, because if it cools the only tranport mechanism (radiation) is quickly shuttered a bit until the ohmic heating catches up. (Why? because the cooler the plasma is the more dense and resistive to plasma thermalizing current electrons). >Now Paul seems to suggest >that there is some anisotrpic configuration that will make the effective >thermal conduction much less in the outward direction than in the inward >direction. I.E. there is some sort of insulator just outside the mantle >that keeps the heat directed inward. Not true, there is in fact not only some moving radially outward (net) but also some moving azimuthally toward the poles where it is expelled in a jet through natural divertor action (net outward). >Now this is a neat idea (at first glance) >but I don't see how it occurs. The devil is in the details on how to get >this thing to happen. But it's bogus and based on a misunderstanding. -- Sorry about that. >However, suppose for a second that this outer insulator is available. What >does that imply? Well it seems to me that it implies that in steady >state, the mantle is as hot as the core. Look, the core radiates big time, >depositng energy into the optically thick mantle. The mantle them thermally >conducts energy back into the core (without convection according to Paul's >hoped for operating mode) without any energy proceeding outward. What then >is the mantle equilibration temperature? What you said is illogical. After all, the Mantle is heated from the core (primarily). So heat must flow outward. The Mantle's equilibrium "temperature" is a range, since it is a thermal radial gradient just like in a tokamak, except more pronounced. > .. .It seems to me based on very >fundamental thermodynamics that interacting systems will equilibrate at the >same temperature. So the entire mantle is heated up until it becomes part of >the core. If you want a mantle to be cooler, then there must be heat flow >outward, or you must turn off (or reflect) the radiation. If you do it in >many stages, the same seems to hold. Equilibration isn't that fast. And remember when the fuel is burned, the plasma blanket is strongly heated and "plasmatized", so it's useful to "dump it" through the FLUX CONSERVING inductive MHD generator to pull energy out of it. Only cyclotron radiation is reflected. Also energy is returned through blanket thermalization which in turn does drive higher chamber pressures and continues or extends the compression and fuel burn in the PMK. >John: >This is the big IF. In the sun, we have hundreds of thousands of kilometers >for the photons to bounce around before they escape, but in Plasmaks, we have >at most centimeters. Using the insulation analogy, if the sun uses the >fluffy pink fiberglass insulation, then plasmaks will need a super >asbestos. And it takes order billions of years to get out the sun. So??? How long do we need. Take a pair of gloves and put them on your hands, and wait to see how long it takes to heat up the outside of them a couple of degrees. Or just say cheezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. :-) Yep a fusion burn was cycled ah ... a well maybe would you believe order 60 burns were cycled during that long one second stretched out smile of yours?? Need asbestos?? Not at all. Just dead dense gas. And that it has. Even an atom bomb can't penetrate air quickly except with X-rays. The shock won't get to you before you are killed by your own hair exploding!!! Now do you see why we have bald people in our gene pools? :-) >-- >John W. Cobb Quietly Making Noise, Pissing off the old Kill-Joys > -Jimmy Buffett +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Paul M. Koloc, Bx 1037 Prometheus II Ltd, College Park MD 20741-1037 | | mimsy!promethe!pmk; pmk%prometheus@mimsy.umd.edu FAX (301) 434-6737 | | VOICE (301) 445-1075 ***** Commercial FUSION in the Nineties ***** | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / jedrothwell@de / RE: Jones' hypothesis on E-quest helium Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: Jones' hypothesis on E-quest helium Date: Sun, 30 Apr 95 11:31:15 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Richard A Blue writes: >As I understand it, most of the volume in which the helium >is thought to be produced is filled with D2O. Helium >disolved in the D2O or any other material in the cell >is as likely a source for the detected helium as any >contamination that may enter the cover gas directly. That is incorrect. The helium in the metal and the water were both sampled. The level of helium in both was many orders of magnitude too low to cause contamination at 500 ppm in the gas. Furthermore there is no mechanism that would have caused a release of gas when there was excess heat, but no release when there was no excess heat. The amount of helium in the metal before use in the experiment (from samples cut off and reserved) is so low that it would have taken several tons of metal to hold as much helium as was detected. Blue should realize that the people doing these experiments at E-Quest, Los Alamos, SRI and elsewhere are not fools. They know how to do experiments of this nature, and they know how to measure and take into account contamination. The experts at E-Quest and Los Alamos of told me that Steve Jones is completely wrong for many obvious reasons, including the ones I listed. Neither Jones nor Blue has seriously addressed these reasons, so I take it they admit they are wrong. - Jed cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenjedrothwell cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Richard Blue / What's wrong with H2O cold fusion? Originally-From: blue@pilot.msu.edu (Richard A Blue) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: What's wrong with H2O cold fusion? Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 16:25:33 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway The notion that D2O is not essential to the cold fusion process has reared its ugly head again, but cold fusioners don't seem to recognize the full implications of this fact (to use the tern loosely). Our leading cold fusion advocate, Jed Rothwell, is not troubled in the least by the Cravens claims. In fact this experiment with a power output of 1 watt was, for Jed it seems, the most significant result of the recent international conference. Does the Cravens experimental claims actually support and strengthen the entire scientific basis underlying cold fusion claims? I would suggest that it demonstrates the remarkable weakness of the case being made for cold fusion. Those who want to maintain the position that cold fusion research has a place in legitimate scientific research have tended to distance themselves from the "over unity" crowd who believe that some basement tinkerer is going to knock the props from under the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. Thus it is generally accepted that "excess heat" must come from a source even if that source is not yet identified. We then come to the "beyond chemistry" argument. If the power level observed exceeds some threshold value the source must be something other than a chemical reaction process. Common sense (at least among those suitably well educated) then suggests that a nuclear reaction process must be considered. In keeping with the spirit that there are some basic laws of physics to be considered the fusion of deuterium seems a reasonable prospect for the reaction most significant to the production of excess heat. This is basically where things stood back in 1989. However, there has always been some difficulty in the completion of the train of thought with solid evidence for the products of a fusion reaction. If you have to guess about both the initial and the final ingredients of the cold fusion reaction what can you claim to know about the process? If in addition you have no workable theory to explain any process what is it that keeps this debate alive? There are some among us who may hold the view that theories to support deuterium fusion as the source for "excess heat" do have sufficient merit to keep the cold fusion debate alive. But what about a theory for cold fusion fueled by H2O? OK you heavy hitters on the cold fusion theory team when are you going to step up to the plate and take a swing at that one? Dick Blue cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenblue cudfnRichard cudlnBlue cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Harry Conover / Re: All technology takes specialized, esoteric knowledge Originally-From: conover@max.tiac.net (Harry H Conover) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: All technology takes specialized, esoteric knowledge Date: 30 Apr 1995 16:53:48 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company Jed, your post makes it crystal clear that you haven't a clue and consistently confuse basic science (the discovery of knowledge) with technology and engineering (construction of an experiment or a device/machine). Often you appear unable distiguish between experiment and theory, and frequently appear to lose sight of which of these is the driver, and which is the driven. In this case, you seem unable or unwilling to distinguish between the esoteric and the scientific -- entirely opposite poles of the knowledge spectrum. The esoteric knowledge of the alchemists enabled them to turn base metals into gold (not), while scientific foundations of engineering and technology led to the development of electric generators and motors, internal combusion engines, aircraft, electric light bulbs, mercury thermometers, atomic bombs, and, yes, ever Fermilabs confirmation of the 'Top Quark.' By contrast, esoteric knowledge has given us dowsing, mind reading, astral projection, and the para-sciences (with not a germ of a value in the entire lot). CF has yet to demonstrate it exists as basic science, yet alone showing that it has any potential whatever as a basis for technology. Still, fools such as yourself continue to extrapolate use as a massive energy source -- even though you are clueless with regard to even the most fundamental properties of this largely hypothetical phenomenon. Speculation is wonderful, but realize the speculation unfounded in scientific principle has a name -- Science Fiction. Realize that this is the realm of your writings and speculations. I can only hope that your enthusiastic ignorance is not contagious, and that naive individuals are not drawn to foolish investments in "esoteric CF technology" based upon your ravings! Harry C. jedrothwell@delphi.com wrote: : conover@max.tiac.net (Harry H Conover) writes: : : "The notion that specialized, esoteric knowledge is required to : replicate a fundamental scientific effects is, on the face of it, : laughable." : : Don't be ridiculous, Conover. Consider how much specialized, esoteric : knowledge the people at Fermilab require to observe the top quark. That is : about as fundamental as any scientific effect can be! Think about how much : knowledge and hard work it took to make the atom bomb or the hot fusion : reactor. Here are some other devices that replicate fundamental scientific : effects, which took terrific amounts of knowledge and years of effort to : produce: : : The telescope. Without Galileo's brilliant work on optics, it would have : remained a toy for another century. Nobody then or now could easily master his : texts. Jed, I suggest that you take time to read a book on introductory geometrical optics. Galileo's invention of the telescope was a monumental event, and his ideas in astronomy shaped the science that was to follow. However, I have never before seen his work on optics described as "brilliant", and he likely lacked an understanding of why the telescope worked as it did. At any rate, his understanding was insufficient to extrapolate his discovery into a similar physical configuration having an entirely different function and use -- the microscope. : : Watt's steam engine. Your point is? : : The mercury thermometer. Perfecting that took the skills of Joule himself! : Again, your point is? : The electric motor. Again, your point is? : : The transistor. A perfect example of how an emerging solid state theory led to the develop of a practical invention. You might try to find an old copy of "Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors" by Shockley et al. It may help to open your eyes to the icreasingly important mother/daugher relationship of physical theory to invention. [Jed's list of additional inventions and philosophical mutterings snipped for bandwidth.] cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenconover cudfnHarry cudlnConover cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Harry Conover / Re: info on hair care Originally-From: conover@max.tiac.net (Harry H Conover) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: info on hair care Date: 30 Apr 1995 17:04:10 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company RichardFre (richardfre@aol.com) wrote: : I will be glad to mail anybody the latest information on Hair. I have : devoted my entire medical practice to : hair loss. please send SASE to Dr. Dilon Ellis, 155-21 Cherry Ave, : Flushing, NY 11355 I've discovered a simply way to prevent hair loss: Skip-over Jed Rothwell's postings. This helps to prevent pulling your hair out. :-) Harry C. cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenconover cudfnHarry cudlnConover cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.27 / Travis Stone / Re: Questions from a Newbie Originally-From: stone@cwis.unomaha.edu (Travis Stone) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Questions from a Newbie Date: 27 Apr 1995 13:54:18 GMT Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha (Faculty/Staff CWIS) jedrothwell@delphi.com wrote: : To get a sense of where the field is today, I suggest you read my : report on the Highlights of the Fifth International Conference, under : the thread of that title. I _did_ read your report. I started up with this newsgroup by reading every post concerning that Fifth International Congress, and it went quite a long way towards answering at least _one_ of my questions, to wit: is CF still using palladium in heavy water? And the answer seems to be: yeah, pretty much so. I also came away with the impression that there is a fair number of people who take CF seriously enough to be doing extensive experimentation and---just as importantly, in my book---theoretical work, trying to cobble up a coherent theory that could explain what might be going on in the beaker. So rest assured, I read _your_ stuff, and I read Steve Jones' stuff, and anybody elses' stuff on that congress with great interest. : You will find that Taubes was wrong, the field : did not die after all. Read the book a little more carefully next time, and : compare it to the peer reviewed published papers describing the same : experiments Taubes attempts to describe. I'm currently in the process of doing so right now. The next one up to bat after "Bad Science" is "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century" by John R. Huizenga, a chemistry prof at the University of Rochester in sunny New York. I reckon Huizenga might be a bit more reliable in terms of discussing factual matters of the chemistry and physics involved than Gary Taubes, so it ought to be interesting. And as far as "the field dying out"---well, that's what I'm here to find out! I've heard rumblings that people are looking into CF seriously here and abroad, but I'm not satisfied with rumblings; I wanna KNOW. And the answer appears to be "yes, research into CF is _still_ going on, and yes, strange/positive results are being seen." But I also wanna know: what do _experts_ think of all this? What's the majority opinion of electrochemists, "regular" chemists, and physicists who have taken (or are taking) a serious look at these anomalous results? I'm a mathematician by training, but I've taken a fair amount of chemistry and a pretty fair amount of physics in the course of my studies, and phenomena such as CF interest me....But I recognize that I'm rather short on the specialized knowledge needed to form a really fair opinion on the matter, so I seek the insight of others more "in the know" in order to satisfy my curiosity. And insofar as CF (or HF, for that matter) goes, I reckoned that my "journey of a thousand miles" begins with an initial step consisting of reading sci.physics.fusion and asking questions! :: You will see that in every case, : he made gross errors. Since his book has no footnotes and since none of : the CF scientists I know actually talked to him, I have to conclude that : he wrote an entire book about a field of science without actually reading : any scientific papers or observing experiments. Right now, I'm not 100% sure exactly _who_ Taubes actually spoke to in writing his book. I'll have to take a more careful look at it in that regard. Now, which CF scientists have _you_ talked to? (I want to see if I recognize any names in either Taubes' or Huizenga's books.) : This is, shall we say, an : extraordinary and unusual method. It is like going to review a symphony : orchestra with your ears plugged up and a towel around your head so that : you cannot hear or see anything. The result is a highly imaginative work : of fiction, but it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the actual scientific : work. Well.....I don't think you can really, honestly classify Taubes' book as a "highly imaginative work of fiction"; I think he was perfectly factual in describing the null results of experiments carried out in places like Harwell, MIT, Georgia Tech, and others. And I suspect he didn't make up _too_ many of the quotes he attributed to people like Chuck Martin and Steve Koonin. And his description of basic fusion theory certainly wasn't fiction---albeit very simplified. If Taubes sinned in any serious way, I'd have to agree that he did so in oversimplifying the descriptions of experimental set-ups; for it's in the details of such setups that a reader could perhaps glean some insight as to what might have been going on within those beakers. Ah, well; maybe Huizenga will do a better job! I appreciate your taking the time to reply to my post, Jed. Muchas Gracias! T.R. Stone University of Nebraska-Omaha stone@cwis.unomaha.edu cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenstone cudfnTravis cudlnStone cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / jedrothwell@de / Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Date: Sun, 30 Apr 95 16:07:05 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) William Rowe writes: "Now consider the Patterson cell. Jed states this provides a 2-4 degree temperature difference. I would agree this does not take very sophisticated instrumentation to detect. However, I can't detect a difference this small without some instrumentation and I doubt that many could. This is a thoughtful comment, but Rowe is missing the point, perhaps because I did not state the point explicitly enough, and I did not show how my thesis relates to the Patterson work. Rowe implies that when you rely on instruments, you cannot perform a definitive experiment. That is incorrect. It is true that many definitive experiments do not require instruments. The Turbinia boat race and the atom bomb are good examples. But many other famous experiments *did* require instruments, yet were equally definitive. I listed one example: Marconi's long wave transatlantic radio transmission. The proof was indirect. The people performing the experiment were totally dependent on instruments. They could not see radio waves directly, they could only hear the "dit, dah" of the Morse receiver (just as you can only reliably detect 2 deg C temperatures in the Cravens experiment from the mercury thermometers, thermocouples and thermistors he uses). That first, short transmission from Europe might have been random solar noise, or instrument error, or a person with a radio five miles away. But, we know that is not the case, because thousands of messages were sent in following days, and the radio operators in Europe were the only people who knew the contents of those messages. In Marconi's case, indirect proof from the instruments is just as convincing as direct proof from the flash and shock of the atom bomb. Other indirect but utterly convincing famous experiments have depended upon things like the telescope, the spectrograph, the weight scale, and the calorimeter. Galileo needed a telescope to observe the moons of Jupiter, but he was still certain they orbit that planet and not the sun. We all believe the First Law of Thermodynamics, even though nobody can "feel" energy being conserved. Every measurement of fuel consumption and energy conversion made in the history of science has depended upon instruments. No direct observation is possible. You can get a rough feeling for the level of power produced by a burning candle or a ton of coal, but you could not begin to prove that a given mass of fuel always produces the same amount of energy just by watching a candle or sitting next to a fire. You must measure the energy with instruments. Until people did that, competing models like the caloric theory seemed plausible. There is a spectrum of experimental evidence that ranges from subtle (like the top quark) to utterly definitive (like Marconi's transmission). In general, the fewer instruments you rely on, and the simpler the instruments are, the more direct and convincing the proof is. There have been thousands of cold fusion experiments, and they fall all across the spectrum. Some produced weak results that were extremely difficult to detect. These are at the subtle end, down with the top quarks. They require careful attention to error bars, and some require extensive statistical processing. Some of the excess heat results and many neutron results fall in this category. Many of these experiments from places like SRI were superbly done. They include elaborate statistical error analysis and error bars galore. No "skeptic" has ever dared to challenge them, so they *did* prove the issue. Others CF experiments, like the Cravens CETI test, produced far more pronounced effects. These are at the Marconi end of the scale. They prove the issue too, without resorting to sophisticated error analysis. Science at both ends of the spectrum has proved that CF is real. I myself prefer the robust Marconi style work, but a person looking for incontrovertible proof of CF will find both types. Let me add that neither Cravens, CETI nor I have had a chance to publish the details of that experiment. It will take me a few months to do that. Rowe and the others cannot know why I think it is such a good experiment, since they do not have ESP. Until they get a chance to read a detailed description of the work and see the schematics, photographs and data, they will have to reserve judgment. "Jed implies the easily detected heat puts the Patterson cell in the same category as heavier than air flight. I would argue this isn't the case. If instrumentation is needed to observe the effect then error bars are needed." This is simply not true. No error bars were needed to be sure Marconi got a signal from Europe, or Morse got the first long distance signal from Baltimore to Washington ("What hath God wrought?"). In both tests, observers depended upon instruments, and everyone knew that telegraphs were susceptible to noise, static, and false transmissions. They knew those were real messages because of simple but all-important scientific concepts: the signal to noise ratio and information content. That term "signal to noise ratio" originated with telegraphy and telecommunications, which still provide excellent, thought provoking examples of what it means. To give a modern example, when you see a television picture on your screen, you can be sure that 99.99% of the pixels are good data. You do not need to perform a statistical analysis of the bits to be sure that the picture is not random noise from static interference. You can tell by looking, even though you are completely dependent upon instruments. All of us depend upon instruments in countless ways, so much so that we forget how little we can observe without them. When you measure 0.45 volts DC with a modern digital voltmeter, you know it is not 4.50 volts or 0.16 volts. You cannot feel electricity, but modern meters are so reliable that you do not need any manufacturer's specs or error bars to be sure. No sane scientist would assert that voltmeters can be wrong by a factor of 10 in the 1-volt scale. (At the millivolt scale that is possible: 0.004 might be 0.040.) The likelihood that all of the meters and computer boards used to measure voltage in the Cravens experiment by various people are *all* wrong by a factor of 5 or 10 is so small it can be dismissed, even without reference to error bars. We all know where, approximately, the error bars are for such common instruments. The same is true for a laboratory grade mercury thermometer. When it rises two degrees C, you can be *absolutely certain* that is not caused by random movement of the mercury, light playing a trick on your eyes, a bubble, magnetic fields, or any other artifact. It is true that in order to measure this temperature rise with the Cravens setup, you must depend on instruments. A 2 deg C with a 10 ml flow is a shade too small to sense with your fingers (and you can't dip your finger into the fluid well at the end of the thermometer anyway). But no sensible person will have any rational doubt the temperature rise is real, because everyone knows that mercury thermometers work well enough to measure 2 deg C differences. Back in 1848, J. P. Joule fabricated mercury thermometers capable of measuring temperature differences as small as 0.01 deg F (0.005 C). All performance charactoristics and calibration techniques for these instruments were established back then. All sources of error (like bubbles) are known and can easily be detected by any experienced person. Furthermore, the Cravens temperature measurements are backed up with two other temperature sensing devices: thermistors and thermocouples. These are far more accurate and precise than mercury thermometers, although they also more susceptible to noise and various finicky problems. The combination of the three make the results unquestionably real: robust but relatively insensitive instruments combined with fine tuned modern instruments capable of 10 to 100 times better resolution. People who do not believe these temperature, flow, and electric power measurments have no rational basis for their doubts. They might as well doubt whether a voltmeter can tell the difference between 1 volt and 10 volts. They might as well claim that a modern telescope cannot see the moons of Jupiter, even though the very first telescope ever designed by a scientist saw them in 1609. - Jed cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenjedrothwell cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / jedrothwell@de / Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Date: Sun, 30 Apr 95 16:08:19 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Kennel writes: "There is of course a "prima facie" test for these gizmos. As obvious as the Wright brothers, that turbine powered speed boat and the A_bomb. Have it produce long term net excess electrical *power* without external power inputs." Yes, obviously. But limitations of Carnot efficiency and heat to electricity conversion techniques preclude that. Anyone familiar with the CF literature will know that today's devices are not capable of that kind of performance. To demand such levels of proof now, at this stage in the development of the technology, would be exactly like demanding that the Wrights fly from Kitty Hawk across the Atlantic Ocean nonstop, or that the very first fission reactor at the Univ. of Chicago be big enough to produce electricity for the entire city. That first reactor produced one watt (about the same as the Patterson cell), but to a scientist it was just as convincing as a 200 MW power reactor. There is no rational, scientific reason to reject the calorimetric results, or to demand such impossibly high levels of proof. When establishing the existence of a phenomenon, a scientist should look for rock solid experimental proof, not a miraculous leap forward in technology. To a scientist, calorimetry *should be* enough. "Skeptics" demand demonstration devices at this stage because they know that this will require millions of dollars more, and they know that most CF scientists don't have that kind of money. They hope to raise the standards to such an absurd, unrealistic level that no CF scientist will ever be able to reach it. This game is called "moving the goalposts." Every time the CF scientists get close, the skeptics uproot the goalposts and demand even more proof than before. They forget about their previous "bottom line" standards. Last year Huizenga said he would only accept helium results from Rockwell, and Morrison said that KEK was the one true laboratory that you can really depend on. When Rockwell found 500 ppm and KEK observed boiling events and published rock solid proof of CF, these "skeptics" quickly changed their tune and rushed to set new standards. Incidentally, when the Wrights did fly, and when Parson raced his boat, the "skeptics" of that era jumped to move the goalposts. Okay, they said, maybe people can fly after all, but no airplane will ever carry a passenger! They said that six months after the Wrights carried their first passengers. They claimed that turbine engines cannot be scaled up to drive a craft larger than a torpedo boat. A few years later turbine driven ocean liners crossed the Atlantic in record time. - Jed cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenjedrothwell cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / jedrothwell@de / Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Date: Sun, 30 Apr 95 16:15:10 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Barry Merriman writes: >Well, more broadly, our eyes are intruments themselves, but we have an >intuitive understanding of the limits of their resolution, and in Yes, and some of us depend upon artifical lenses, all the time from morning to night. Glasses, I mean. I cannot see a thing without the aid of optical instruments first invented back in the fifteenth century. You might say that a man wearing glasses is a proto-cyborg. Everything he sees is modified by a technological instrument -- a shaped lens. We forget that we would be blind to most forces of nature without instruments. We take them for granted to the point where we get the illusion we are seeing them first hand. When you measure voltage, or program a computer to add two numbers you do not actually see anything first-hand. You see the flickering screen display and you take it for granted that it represents the state inside the computer, but it is actually indirect evidence, and Lord Knows it could be wrong! - Jed cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenjedrothwell cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Harry Conover / cmsg cancel <3o0fua$ev9@sundog.tiac.net> Originally-From: conover@max.tiac.net (Harry H Conover) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: cmsg cancel <3o0fua$ev9@sundog.tiac.net> Date: 30 Apr 1995 20:59:33 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company Article cancelled from within tin [v1.2 PL2] cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenconover cudfnHarry cudlnConover cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Matthew Austern / Cold fusion: when will it be time to give up? Originally-From: matt@dogbert.lbl.gov (Matthew Austern) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion: when will it be time to give up? Date: 30 Apr 1995 21:23:57 GMT Organization: University of California at Berkeley It has now been six years since Pons and Fleischman reported "cold fusion" in electrochemical Pd-D cells. I was excited at the time; but my excitement died away pretty quickly. I didn't see the sort of followup-up work and confirmation that would have convinced me that we were seeing anything real. [Just for the sake of pedantry, please note that when I say "cold fusion" I'm talking about P&F-style electrochemistry. I'm not talking about the undeniably genuine phenomenon of muon-catylized fusion.] I've seen the latest ICCF reports; to me, it doesn't seem that cold fusion is on any firmer ground now than it was the day that P&F held their press conference. So I've been wondering: supposing that no new evidence ever appears, that there is no new progress, when will the believers decide that enough is enough? This is what the current situation looks like to me: [+] A few groups report weird results from electrochemical cells. [+] Most groups that try to replicate those results see nothing weird, just normal electrochemistry. [+] Of the groups that see something weird, that "something" could be anything: neutrons, gammas, tritium, He(3), He(4), or just slightly more heat than they think they ought to get. Even among the groups with positive results, it's rare for two groups to see the same thing. [+] Most groups aren't even using the same experimental setup. Sometimes the positive results involve Pd, sometimes Ni. Sometimes they use D2O, and sometimes (!) H2O. [+] Genuine replications are either rare or nonexistent. By a "genuine replication" I mean two groups that use the same experimental setup and get the same positive result. [+] There aren't any theories that can explain all of the positive results, or even a decent fraction of them. [+] The mainstream scientific community has no interest in cold fusion. Of the few scientists who have looked at the subject at all, most have concluded that the positive results are simply the result of experimental error. [+] There aren't any major companies selling cold fusion-based products. [+] Cold fusion technology is not the basis of any industry. When you put this together, it looks to me like what you have is nothing. I suppose some people are assuming that this situation will change: someday there will be the definitive experiment, or Toyota will start selling something so remarkable that experiments aren't necessary. But what if that doesn't happen? What if ten years from now, or twenty, or a hundred, the experimental situation is still a mess, the scientific community still thinks that cold fusion is just a delusion, and cold fusion technology remains economically negligible? When will it be time to give up? -- Matt Austern matt@physics.berkeley.edu http://dogbert.lbl.gov/~matt cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenmatt cudfnMatthew cudlnAustern cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / He CMA / patterson and griggs patents? Originally-From: s3861@msoe.edu (He of the Non-Life CMA) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: patterson and griggs patents? Date: 30 Apr 95 16:19:02 CST I wish to research the Patterson and Griggs devices, what they do, and percisley how they do it. (or what their supposed to do, and supposed to do is 8) Does anyone know of a source on the net? If not how would I referance them to our librarian? Chris Anderson EE Undergrad Milwaukee School of Engineering. s3861@odo.msoe.edu cudkeys: cuddy30 cudens3861 cudfnHe cudlnCMA cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Bruce Hamilton / Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Originally-From: B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Why Some Experiments Don't Need Error Bars Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 21:36:38 GMT Organization: Industrial Research Limited In article <3nv6sf$b8f@deadmin.ucsd.edu> barry@starfire.ucsd.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: ... >Well, more broadly, our eyes are intruments themselves, but we have an >intuitive understanding of the limits of their resolution, and in >the case of the A bomb or flight, it was clear the observed effects exceeded >the error bars on our eyes. Would you take the word of a blind person that flight had occured :-). We do calibrate our senses, and we only accept the evidence from people we expect to be impartial and honest. We don't take as much for granted as we used to - consider the decline of religious beliefs and the increase in scepticism of "unexplained phenomena " as education increases in societies. We don't trust our eyes completely, we combine them with other senses to assess events. Who would believe seeing a totally silent plane? Experiments need error bars if you wish to convince impartial observers, even flight/no flight. Who has heard of Richard Pearce? At one stage ( 1970s?) the Royal Aeronautical Society was assigning him the credit for first powered flight. One of his problems was the lack of credible technical witnesses that could verify the degree of control. ( granted there are other issues about his claim - eg the amount of control, and the dates ) Flight/no flight became "controlled powered flight", thus requiring an assessment of the amount of control. The more contentious the claim, the more important the error bars, and almost every scientific experiment slould have them if claims are to be believed. Tom's trip told us the most important thing about Griggs was that overall error bars could not exist - because they had not yet determined them. No matter how much huffing and puffing, until the results are comprehensively reported with acceptable error analyses, impartial observers are going to remain sceptical. The absence of error bars neither confirms nor denies any claim, but their presence is mandatory if any claim is to convince interested, educated, and impartial scientists or citizens. Bruce Hamilton cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenHamilton cudfnBruce cudlnHamilton cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Sales Hype / WYSIWYG Maple for MS-Windows Originally-From: info@sciword.demon.co.uk (Sales Hype) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: WYSIWYG Maple for MS-Windows Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 22:41:00 +0000 Organization: Scientific Word Ltd. Announcing the release of Version 2.01 of Scientific WorkPlace (WYSIWYG-type Maple-plus-LaTeX for MS-Windows). It *is* commercial software, however. For our free information pack just Email us your postal address. Cheers, Christopher -- Sales Hype, Scientific Word Ltd., UK Tel: (+44) 1978 823088; Fax: (+44) 1978 823066 Email: info@sciword.demon.co.uk cudkeys: cuddy30 cudeninfo cudfnSales cudlnHype cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.05.01 / A Plutonium / Prayer to our Maker,sing Miss Saigon, THE LAST ELECTRON OF THE Originally-From: Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.engr,sci.physics,sci.physics.f sion,sci.physics.electromag,sci.chem,sci.bio,sci.math Subject: Prayer to our Maker,sing Miss Saigon, THE LAST ELECTRON OF THE Date: 1 May 1995 00:24:11 GMT Organization: Plutonium College THE LAST NIGHT OF THE WORLD from Miss Saigon (5:08) Placido Domingo sings with Carly Simon What a beautiful and rich mix of voices, two voices of comparable quality will go to sing THE LAST ELECTRON OF THE WORLD. Although, I would like to hear it from these two, especially Placido since I like foreign accents of english, it sticks in the good crawl longer (that's meant to be a compliment). Any of us, all of us, can be ever so lucky as to have our works placed at the altar of our Maker. Any song, especially religion songs were created for the sieving, the weeding out of those that will qualify into passing on as a Plutonium song. In other words, to have your song, or your work, plutoniumized is the maximum you can do to it-- Atom Now this is one of the most beautiful songs I have heard in a long time. The words below cannot describe the rich mix of voices and flair on individual words such as "you", or in my version "Pu" and like in "I will take you I'll go with you" Very, very beautifully sung song and the ending is superb with what sounds like sprinkling of stardust -- very apropos since the bits and pieces of the 94th electron are the stars, galaxies-- they are electron dust. Ending of the sprinkling of electron dust--- very very beautiful In a place that won't let us free In a life where nothing seems real I have found you I have found you In a world that's moving too fast In a world where nothing can last I will hold you I will hold you Our lifes will change when tomorrow comes Tonight our hearts drown the distant drums And we have music alright Tearing into the night A song played on a solo saxophone A crazy sound, a lonely sound A cry that tells us love Goes on and on Played on a solo saxophone Its telling me to hold you tight and dance like its the last night of the world On the other side of the Earth there's a place where life still has worth I will take you I'll go with you You won't believe All the things you'll see I know cause you'll see them all with me If we're together well then We'll hear it again A song played on a solo saxophone A crazy sound, a lonely sound A cry that tells us love Goes on and on Played on a solo saxaphone Its telling me to hold you tight and dance Like it's the last night of the world Dreams were all I ever knew Dreams you won't need when I'm through Anywhere we may be I will sing with you A sound A crazy sound, a lonely sound Played on a solo saxaphone So stay with me and hold me tight and dance Like its the last night of the world Get two artists like Domingo and Simon and sing my rendition THE LAST ELECTRON OF THE WORLD In a whole that won't let us free In a life where reincarnation is real I have found Pu I have found Pu In a world that's moving QM fast In a world where only QM will last I will hold Pu I will hold Pu Our lifes reincarnated when it comes Superdetermined in the Nucleus by Protons And we have QM alright Nuclear energy might Spontaneous fission big banged Atom A atom totality, a atom whole A physics that tells us all Goes on and on Atom superdeterminism Its telling me to hold Pu might and accept like its the last word of the world On the other side of 5f6 there's a place where life still has worth Pu will take you Pu go with you You won't believe All the things you'll see I know cause you'll see them all with me If we're together well then We'll see atoms again Plutonium 231Atom Whole A atom totality, a atom whole A atom progression Goes on and on Atom superdeterminism Its telling me to hold Pu might and accept like its the last word of the world Quantum Mechanics were all I ever knew Quantum Mechanics all you need to get through Anywhere we may be We will learn PU 231PU Atom totality, Atom whole Plutonium Atom Totality Whole So stay with me Protons and reincarnate my soul into, into the next world cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenPlutonium cudfnArchimedes cudlnPlutonium cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.04.30 / Dougatlake / Re: POLL: How long till power plants? Originally-From: dougatlake@aol.com (Dougatlake) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: POLL: How long till power plants? Date: 30 Apr 1995 21:32:07 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) I am a pilot and a substantially published author desiring to transition from paper to electrons. Would appreciate referral to e-publishers or e-literary agents for my newest novels. As compensation for the referral, I will pay you a one-time referral fee of 15% of my first advance. If e-publishing is anything like paper-publishing, based on past advances, my first e-publishing advance should be in the neighborhood of $100,000. Should you desire to and be professionally able to adequately represent me as a literary agent to e-publishers, I will pay you 15% of advances and royalties received from any and all book publishing contracts negotiated by you. Earnings from my previous books have exceeded $300,000. cudkeys: cuddy30 cudendougatlake cudlnDougatlake cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1995 ------------------------------ 1995.05.01 / A Plutonium / Pictures of me, Archimedes Plutonium in the web Originally-From: Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.engr,sci.physics,sci.physics.f sion,sci.physics.electromag,sci.chem,sci.bio,sci.math Subject: Pictures of me, Archimedes Plutonium in the web Date: 1 May 1995 01:11:39 GMT Organization: Plutonium College Since my sojourn from the Internet for much of April, a friend of mine Serge Elnitsky has taken his valuable time to show me how to put pictures on the World Wide Web. The direct address is http://coos.dartmouth.edu/~elnitsky/AP.html This shows three pictures of me on "The Plutonium page" Pu,PLuto, bless Serge Elnitsky to The Fields of Elysium. Atom cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenPlutonium cudfnArchimedes cudlnPlutonium cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1995 ------------------------------ processed by cud.pl ver. 0.5 Mon May 1 04:37:03 EDT 1995 ------------------------------