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On December 04 2011 21:35 Kurr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2011 01:35 BallinWitStalin wrote:
I kinda figure that this is a scam, basically because of how the guy is going about conducting it.
If you have this technology (which is basically cheap, low-cost energy that doesn't produce CO2), if you're keeping that shit a secret, you're just a giant douche. This technology would revolutionize the world, make energy affordable for all, stop climate change, ocean acidification, emissions pollution, the list goes on. It would end energy monopolies, too, something that would have profound impacts on the world.
By letting everyone know how to do it, you would literally be remebered as the most revolutionary figure in the science world and real world for centuries. You'd still be able to make your millions, just by being so ridiculously famous. It's crazy, because if I made this technology, the benefits would be so revolutionary for the world that I would feel a moral imperative to actually get it out there as fast as I can.
Plus, you'd go down in history as one of the most famous people on the earth (and is a really awesome way). Who the hell wouldn't want that? I mean, for christ's sake, that's why so many people are following this. The potential of this technology is mind blowing, which is why people are hangin off this dudes every word. So why not just blow everyone's mind?
This is either a scam, or this guy is just the biggest douchebag on the planet (actually, it's probably both). You have technology that could change the world. Instead of taking a year or 2 to make sure you become incredibly rich, you would just give it away? I think I would kill myself if I ended up doing something so stupid. No joke. People are so suspicious of this guy lol... I mean, just wait and see. No reason to start calling him a scammer until we see proof either way.
Thanks for making this post. I agree with you that he's just protecting his assets, it's completely irrational to conclude that he's a scam (or a douchebag) just from that.
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On December 04 2011 22:18 Fyodor wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2011 21:35 Kurr wrote:On December 04 2011 01:35 BallinWitStalin wrote:
I kinda figure that this is a scam, basically because of how the guy is going about conducting it.
If you have this technology (which is basically cheap, low-cost energy that doesn't produce CO2), if you're keeping that shit a secret, you're just a giant douche. This technology would revolutionize the world, make energy affordable for all, stop climate change, ocean acidification, emissions pollution, the list goes on. It would end energy monopolies, too, something that would have profound impacts on the world.
By letting everyone know how to do it, you would literally be remebered as the most revolutionary figure in the science world and real world for centuries. You'd still be able to make your millions, just by being so ridiculously famous. It's crazy, because if I made this technology, the benefits would be so revolutionary for the world that I would feel a moral imperative to actually get it out there as fast as I can.
Plus, you'd go down in history as one of the most famous people on the earth (and is a really awesome way). Who the hell wouldn't want that? I mean, for christ's sake, that's why so many people are following this. The potential of this technology is mind blowing, which is why people are hangin off this dudes every word. So why not just blow everyone's mind?
This is either a scam, or this guy is just the biggest douchebag on the planet (actually, it's probably both). You have technology that could change the world. Instead of taking a year or 2 to make sure you become incredibly rich, you would just give it away? I think I would kill myself if I ended up doing something so stupid. No joke. People are so suspicious of this guy lol... I mean, just wait and see. No reason to start calling him a scammer until we see proof either way. Thanks for making this post. I agree with you that he's just protecting his assets, it's completely irrational to conclude that he's a scam (or a douchebag) just from that.
Scientists estimate we have about 4 years to change our behaviour before the damage is irreversible, I'd say holding back a clean way to make energy "only" 2 years are a pretty big deal. Not that this thing exist either way.
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If this technology is real, some other scientist will eventually realize how the reaction works. Rossi might be a good inventor, but if there are literally hundreds of talented researchers working on this, I doubt he'll be that far ahead of the pack. In fact, I would say that the lack of a similar invention that has come up in the last year (as far I'm aware) is a good argument for why this might be fake.
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Scientists estimate we have about 4 years to change our behaviour before the damage is irreversible, I'd say holding back a clean way to make energy "only" 2 years are a pretty big deal. Not that this thing exist either way.
No. There isn't a step jump in "damage". The figures quoted tend to be "to avert more than 2 degrees warming by 2100" or similar. That some warming will happen is inevitable, and every tiny bit of CO2 we emit increases that.
Also there is no permanent damage to the Earth from climate change. Historical CO2 levels and surface temps were much higher and they came down to present levels slowly over time. The threat is to /current/ ways of living, and current animals/plants. If and when warming occurs we will adapt at some cost, and some species will go extinct, and the extent of that is under our control..
Oh just repeating that this is a scam by endless delaying of peer reviewed results.
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On December 05 2011 22:39 Grumbels wrote:
If this technology is real, some other scientist will eventually realize how the reaction works. Rossi might be a good inventor, but if there are literally hundreds of talented researchers working on this, I doubt he'll be that far ahead of the pack. In fact, I would say that the lack of a similar invention that has come up in the last year (as far I'm aware) is a good argument for why this might be fake.
That seems like a very uncertain way of deciding what's fake or not...
Besides I did see this the other week:
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3353181.ece
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Again, there is not much that legitimizes the claims of a new clean energy source in here. The PDFs are from a website that calls itself "New Energy Times", which seems to just be a cold-fusion (and similar phenomena) propaganda website.
Going into the second PDF, which you labelled as "particularly interesting". First, the guy starts with his CV, which is extremely uncommon in presentations. Turns out he's an engineer with a bachelors degree and a ton of experience with engineering stuff. From his CV there is no indication that he knows anything about fundamental physics or research & development other than an alleged 5 years of being a "Free Energy Investigator" as a hobby. And while he is probably very good in his own field of expertise, I (currently doing a PhD in physics) question his knowledge on the matter at hand.
What follows is a short history overview of Rossi's activities. Not very interesting. I would expect that he'd first discuss the actual device/invention. Next slides are a description of how the device is supposed to work. You mix nickel that has been ground to appropriately sized flakes (why is the chosen size appropriate? Plot of flake-size versus energy output? Lost of data missing) and that has been "enriched" (why? how?) with hydrogen which is supposed to become mono-atomic (hydrogen comes in molecular form with 2 hydrogen atoms per molecule normally and apparently they need it in atomic form. Why? How do they do this?). Of course, this alone isn't enough. That's why we have to add the secret ingredient, the catalyst, of which no details are available at all.
Further in: "In spite of the low quality demonstrations no one has yet to completely dismiss Rossi’s work as a total sham." Completely reversing the burden of proof. If you make extraordinary claims, you need to back it up by extraordinary evidence. The author himself admits that the demonstrations so far have been poor and that Rossi doesn't allow various kinds of measurements from being performed.
This ends the Rossi story of the presentation. He continues on with a part on another "scientist" who has worked on such a miracle-machine. First a long historic overview (22 years! And still no mainstream attention for it, I wonder why) and then some vague description of the setup. Plenty of plots that seem irrelevant, where the only plot of interest is one that shows emission of gamma-rays (photons).
Next up is a comparison between the two devices. There are many crucial differences. One of which is really funny: In one device the hydrogen is being used up, in the other not at all. Completely conflicting stories. Both devices have one major thing in common (other than claimed energy-production etc...): They both need a secret ingredient that only the creator knows. Right.
Then he goes to talk about the implications. All related to propulsion and spacecraft. Because free unlimited energy isn't of any use anywhere else. He talks a bit about future plans, tests and implementations. None of these plans involve working out how (if) the friggin thing actually works. Yup, lets put a totally unknown device into one of our spacecraft because this friendly gentleman who's not telling us what's in the box promises it'll work fine.
In the end he gives some references and in the correct form demanded by the community of pseudo-science, they're all YouTube links. Oh, except for one weblink to the previously mentioned New Energy Times.
There's a reason that this stuff isn't mentioned anywhere in mainstream science. It. Doesn't. Work. NASA gives its scientists quite some freedom and apparently does little to reign in these types of "hobby projects" from its employees. Don't trust something because it has a fancy name attached to it. Especially NASA, it is far from the leading research institute it once was. As a somewhat relevant anecdote, a colleague of mine read a paper from a NASA scientist in a reputable journal regarding his field of research and it was so full of errors in even the basic understanding that the estimate of the value that was being calculated in the journal was a million times too high. Several researchers published very critical replies to this paper independently.
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Rannasha you would make a good smear journalist, but a terrible investigator. You're more interested in spewing venom than to understand or even read the material.
Not mentioned in journals? Read the damn slides or lenr-canr.org. But I guess that website is to be distrusted too because it doesn't fit your preconceived ideas right?
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Actually, Traeon, I think he hit the nail on the head. He seems to have read over the slides quite well, and came up with rational objections/questions directly in response. Questions that seem like they need an answer to me.
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On December 06 2011 00:46 Traeon wrote:
Rannasha you would make a good smear journalist, but a terrible investigator. You're more interested in spewing venom than to understand or even read the material.
There's very little material to understand, as the people that are supposed to know things (Rossi) aren't telling us anything.
Not mentioned in journals? Read the damn slides or lenr-canr.org. But I guess that website is to be distrusted too because it doesn't fit your preconceived ideas right?
I read the slides (of the second presentation in the last set of 3 that was posted and that presentation that was posted a page back or so). There are no references to journals there, some YouTube videos and links to a webpage that serves to promote exactly what is discussed in the slides.
And yes, lenr-canr.org is to be distrusted. Nowhere does it mention what the submission / review / acceptance process is for this website/journal. There is no list of editors or other scientists that are affiliated with the journal in order to ensure a level of quality. Not to mention that the name of the journal is a subject whose existence is questionable at best (LENR and CANR are nice terms for "cold fusion", a term which has attracted considerable negative reputation after a series of bold claims that could never be verified. Sound familiar?), which does not exactly inspire confidence in its objectivity.
People often quickly attack my claims and say that conventional science is too close minded and that "new ideas" like this will never be accepted by the mainstream-community, creating a nice little conspiracy theory. The truth of the matter is that scientists *love* new and unexplained stuff. They'll literally jump all over it. As evidenced by the recent neutrino velocity measurements. Dozens of articles and discussions popped up in a month after the original researchers submitted their results to arXiv (which also is not a proper journal, but it doesn't claim to be. It's simply a place for people to submit work-in-progress, without any quality-control or reviewing) trying to find an explanation.
If there is such a thing as cold fusion (or however you want to call it), you can bet that people will jump on it as soon as evidence has been produced of it being true. But the past decades have been littered by both scammers and careless researchers claiming to have discovered cold fusion that the whole subject (regardless of which new fancy name you give it) is met with a very healthy dose of distrust.
It boils down to a statement I made in my previous post: He who makes extraordinary claims needs to provide extraordinary evidence. So far we've seen nothing from Rossi. Just smokescreens and promises. Just like all the people that came before him who claimed to have found the holy grail. They all failed to produce the results they claimed. Why would Rossi be any different?
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On December 06 2011 01:18 Rannasha wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2011 00:46 Traeon wrote:
Rannasha you would make a good smear journalist, but a terrible investigator. You're more interested in spewing venom than to understand or even read the material. There's very little material to understand, as the people that are supposed to know things (Rossi) aren't telling us anything. Show nested quote +Not mentioned in journals? Read the damn slides or lenr-canr.org. But I guess that website is to be distrusted too because it doesn't fit your preconceived ideas right? I read the slides (of the second presentation in the last set of 3 that was posted and that presentation that was posted a page back or so). There are no references to journals there, some YouTube videos and links to a webpage that serves to promote exactly what is discussed in the slides. And yes, lenr-canr.org is to be distrusted. Nowhere does it mention what the submission / review / acceptance process is for this website/journal. There is no list of editors or other scientists that are affiliated with the journal in order to ensure a level of quality. Not to mention that the name of the journal is a subject whose existence is questionable at best (LENR and CANR are nice terms for "cold fusion", a term which has attracted considerable negative reputation after a series of bold claims that could never be verified. Sound familiar?), which does not exactly inspire confidence in its objectivity. People often quickly attack my claims and say that conventional science is too close minded and that "new ideas" like this will never be accepted by the mainstream-community, creating a nice little conspiracy theory. The truth of the matter is that scientists *love* new and unexplained stuff. They'll literally jump all over it. As evidenced by the recent neutrino velocity measurements. Dozens of articles and discussions popped up in a month after the original researchers submitted their results to arXiv (which also is not a proper journal, but it doesn't claim to be. It's simply a place for people to submit work-in-progress, without any quality-control or reviewing) trying to find an explanation. If there is such a thing as cold fusion (or however you want to call it), you can bet that people will jump on it as soon as evidence has been produced of it being true. But the past decades have been littered by both scammers and careless researchers claiming to have discovered cold fusion that the whole subject (regardless of which new fancy name you give it) is met with a very healthy dose of distrust. It boils down to a statement I made in my previous post: He who makes extraordinary claims needs to provide extraordinary evidence. So far we've seen nothing from Rossi. Just smokescreens and promises. Just like all the people that came before him who claimed to have found the holy grail. They all failed to produce the results they claimed. Why would Rossi be any different?
I love you.
Most people don't seem to understand the concept of peer-reviewed litterature, and why some publication should be more considered than others.
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There's very little material to understand
That's already where you are wrong. You're convinced to already know everything of importance. That is close-mindedness.
I read the slides (of the second presentation in the last set of 3 that was posted and that presentation that was posted a page back or so).
Why don't you read a paper or two from Piantelli, the physics professor that you derogatorily called "scientist" as if he was a would-be? Too much work? Already convinced to know everything there is to know? But still want to have a strong opinion?
Your whole opinion is based on reputation and second hand opinions.
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Does it really matter what some other guy on the internet thinks about the possibility of this new energy source being real? All I'm saying is that real or not, if this comes out, great... if not, it's a shame. Nobody's opinion will affect these ramifications.
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On December 06 2011 01:37 Traeon wrote:Show nested quote +I read the slides (of the second presentation in the last set of 3 that was posted and that presentation that was posted a page back or so). Why don't you read a paper or two from Piantelli, the physics professor that you derogatorily called "scientist" as if he was a would-be? Too much work? Already convinced to know everything there is to know? But still want to have a strong opinion? Your whole opinion is based on reputation and second hand opinions.
Again, you seem to miss the whole "burden of proof" argument that I made repeatedly. If there's clear-cut evidence for this phenomenon to exist, why can't it be shown quickly and efficiently. I read through 2 presentations, pointed out the glaring holes in them. And now I should read even more stuff? When will I find the evidence? Why do I have to do the searching when I'm not the one making the claims? At this rate you can keep going and making me read more stuff without ever having to provide a solid set of evidence.
There's a reason why peer-review works. It means that you can expect an article to have at least a certain minimum level of quality and that its contents were verified by capable people, who have been selected based on their own work. Sure, an article will fall through the cracks sometimes and not be of sufficient quality, but in general the system works. If I read something in a peer-reviewed journal, I can assume that the scientific process behind the results is sound. The results may be wrong, but the experiment is reproducable and verifiable by anyone who wants to.
The whole LENR-community seems to just step away from this process. Empty claims are accepted and lauded as new revolutions. There is no way to reproduce results. And leading figures such as Rossi and Piantelli seem to have a "secret ingredient" in their machines that they're not willing to share with anyone. How's that for believability.
You say that my whole opinion is based on second hand opinions. Perhaps this is true, but so is yours. The difference is, I'm willing to change my opinion if provided with evidence. Those "second hand opinions" that I follow are well-structured and provide reasoning, evidence and verifiability for their views. Everything I've read about LENR is full of holes, lacks any fundamental understanding, is shrouded in secrets that the claimers do not want to reveal.
The devices shown in the pictures are fairly simple-looking. Any applied physics lab at a university should be able to reproduce these things with little investment of time and money (In fact, I think that's one of the reasons that NASA is willing to have some of their people look into it, it's fairly harmless and on the off-chance that one of the claims turns out to be true, it's good to be on the frontlines). If LENR is truely so revolutionary, why hasn't anyone involved told these universities how to verify their claims and prove them right? That's a fast-track to a nobel prize, worldwide fame and plenty of money. (In all fairness, some have tried to get other to reproduce their results. None of them succeeded.)
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On December 06 2011 01:37 Traeon wrote:That's already where you are wrong. You're convinced to already know everything of importance. That is close-mindedness. Show nested quote +I read the slides (of the second presentation in the last set of 3 that was posted and that presentation that was posted a page back or so). Why don't you read a paper or two from Piantelli, the physics professor that you derogatorily called "scientist" as if he was a would-be? Too much work? Already convinced to know everything there is to know? But still want to have a strong opinion? Your whole opinion is based on reputation and second hand opinions.
Rannasha has looked over these slides and given you his comments. I would love to see you respond to his criticism of the article you provided. Rannasha claims that he is willing to change his opinion, provided he is given good evidence. I dare say that meeting his arguments with direct counterarguments which explain why he is wrong is a stronger approach than linking him to other literature. If he is biased then you should expect him to draw the same conclusions from the other literature - it would much better for you to explain it yourself than let him misinterpret it for the watching audience.
Be careful: if you are unable respond with arguments of your own it could look like don't understand the material involved and are taking it on the authority of a stranger. This could be detrimental for your case, as it would be difficult to prove that you aren't being duped by the stranger and further links to references could be interpreted as other strangers attempting to dupe you as well.
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Again, you seem to miss the whole "burden of proof" argument that I made repeatedly.
I have repeatedly stated, that as far as Rossi goes, there is no definitive proof yet. That doesn't mean it must be a scam like you seem to think it does. Rossi's behavior, as annoying it is to those who want immediate 100% proof, does make sense from a business point of view.
Also, your skepticism does not get a free pass. If you think that it's a scam that's fine, but you must come with real arguments to support that stance, not uninformed hearsay, imagination and repeating catchphrases that you've picked up somewhere.
As far as LENR goes, it is being reproduced successfully by various teams around the globe. I have no doubt that it is real. I don't know why it doesn't get more attention, but think it's just close-mindedness as well as initial reproducibility issues. You asked for papers, I gave you the link to LENR-CANR.org which is not a journal like you seem to assume, but an archive of journal articles published ELSEWHERE. If you don't want to look at it, that's fine as well, but drop that presumption of being informed.
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On December 06 2011 02:46 Traeon wrote:
Also, your skepticism does not get a free pass. If you think that it's a scam that's fine, but you must come with real arguments to support that stance, not uninformed hearsay, imagination and repeating catchphrases that you've picked up somewhere.
On December 06 2011 01:18 Rannasha wrote:
It boils down to a statement I made in my previous post: He who makes extraordinary claims needs to provide extraordinary evidence. So far we've seen nothing from Rossi. Just smokescreens and promises. Just like all the people that came before him who claimed to have found the holy grail. They all failed to produce the results they claimed. Why would Rossi be any different?
Have to agree with Rannasha here, if you make an extraordinary claim the burden of proof lies on you.
By your logic, If I told you I believed that the world was created by an invisible flying spaghetti monster who continues to watch over us, it would be up to you to disprove it.
On December 06 2011 02:46 Traeon wrote:
As far as LENR goes, it is being reproduced successfully by various teams around the globe.
Once again, he who makes extraordinary claims needs to provide extraordinary evidence. Please provide links to appropriate peer-reviewed content.
Also, it strikes me as disturbing the kind of language you're using to attack Rannasha's perfectly reasonable skeptical position.
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Once again, he who makes extraordinary claims needs to provide extraordinary evidence. Please provide links to appropriate peer-reviewed content.
I provided a link to lenr-canr.org which is the best source of articles. What more do you want? To be spoonfed?
I have provided a LOT of material, some of good quality, some not, throughout this whole thread. I'm not going to bother sorting through it all just because some people want me to do all the work. I've already done my part.
Have to agree with Rannasha here, if you make an extraordinary claim the burden of proof lies on you.
Let's be perfectly clear here: the burden of proof does not lie on me. According to your logic, I must provide proof even though I'm not involved in actual research in the field. All I can do (and have exhaustively done) is provide information to those who want to read more on the subject. Some will be convinced, others won't. It's not my job to convince anyone.
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On December 06 2011 03:25 Traeon wrote:Show nested quote +Once again, he who makes extraordinary claims needs to provide extraordinary evidence. Please provide links to appropriate peer-reviewed content. I provided a link to lenr-canr.org which is the best source of articles. What more do you want? To be spoonfed? I have provided a LOT of material, some of good quality, some not, throughout this whole thread. I'm not going to bother sorting through it all just because some people want me to do all the work. I've already done my part. Show nested quote +Have to agree with Rannasha here, if you make an extraordinary claim the burden of proof lies on you. Let's be perfectly clear here: the burden of proof does not lie on me. According to your logic, I must provide proof even though I'm not involved in actual research in the field. All I can do (and have exhaustively done) is provide information to those who want to read more on the subject. Some will be convinced, others won't. It's not my job to convince anyone.
You say it's not your job to convince anyone yet you seem very desperate to promote and defend this. You use harsh language against Rannasha even though his standpoint is that of any serious scientist, a healthy dose of scepticism.
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On December 06 2011 03:54 karpo wrote:
You say it's not your job to convince anyone yet you seem very desperate to promote and defend this. You use harsh language against Rannasha even though his standpoint is that of any serious scientist, a healthy dose of scepticism.
I'm a human being that gets offended when I see someone that has obviously not bothered to properly look into this spouting venom.
Skepticism is appropriate and healthy in right amount, but as I said, it does not get a free pass. Even the skeptic must make some effort to look into the matter before criticizing. It is evident from the first paragraph of his post that Rannasha automatically considers everything related to the matter as untrustworthy and dubious. That is not healthy skepticism. That is close-mindedness.
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EPT
