Chip

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
[Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895]

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
[Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre]

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
[Thomas Watson, chairman IBM, 1943]

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
[Ken Olson, Chairman and founder Digital Equipment Corp., 1977]

"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time.
Nobody will use it, ever." [Thomas Edison, 1889]

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." [Albert Einstein, 1932]

"The energy produced by the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine" [Ernst Rutherford, 1933]

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
[Decca Recording Co. turning down the Beatles, 1962]

"I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that stones fell from the sky"
[Thomas Jefferson, on hearing the report of a meteorite fall]

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
[Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872]

Madmordigan, sometimes professionals get it wrong. As far as the statement concerning using Google, that’s about par for you. Still, thanks for pointing out the information about Vic Stenger’s accomplishment.

Gauge, it is clear in the documentary, Phenomenon volume II, that F & P did not want to submit the paper to Nature or hold the press conference. They were pressed into doing so by University of Utah lawyers who were afraid another scientist from another university would be first to make the claims.

Jack, the biofuels are largely made from spent oils from fast food chains according to an IHT report I saw the other day. They are collected, clarified and mixed with methanol. The finished product is sold at cheaper cost than regular diesel and many companies use it exclusively because it is better for engines. The biofuel is also made and sold extensively throughout Europe. Why not here in the US? As far as CF not being available, that is a rather spurious argument. Those that believed that heavier than air flight was impossible don’t appear to have used the argument that since it is not happening it can’t. Still, appears that there are claims by companies at being close to having a marketable CF product which would be cool to see manifested.

Regards, Chip

Mageth

Madmordigan, sometimes professionals get it wrong.

Excuse the intrusion, but you listed a lot of examples where professionals got it wrong one way. There are plenty of examples where professionals got it wrong the other way, I would imagine.

I grew up in the '50s and '60s, and, if you remember that time, the world was predicted by many to be much more technologically advanced (at least in some areas) by Y2K than it actually is.

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Corwin

However, the bulk of the claims made at that time aren't impossible, simply unpopular or unfeasable. (Could we all be driving flying cars? Aerodynes are quite possible. That isn't the problem. The problem is that most of us don't trust Joe Sixpack with the equivalent of a Buick with a Harrier engine strapped to it... not that such a Buick is impossible to build...)

Mageth

However, the bulk of the claims made at that time aren't impossible, simply unpopular or unfeasable.

I realize that, of course. And on the matter of cold fusion, I think, indeed hope, that it may be possible. Feasible is another question.

I don't think research has shown it to be possible or, if so, feasible (as in practicably usable) yet. Unreproducible experiments don't do much, if anything, to demonstrate either.

Chip

Mageth, the exact experiments of F & P were repeated numerous times with success and without within a couple of months of F & P’s announcement <a href="http://www.ncas.org/erab/apx2a.htm" target="_blank">http://www.ncas.org/erab/apx2a.htm</a> If you do some more research you find that Texas A & M results were claimed to have been spiked by addition of Tritium by a journalist. The researcher still claims that he did no such thing but in order to get his degree had to remove any reference to that work by order of the university and is now working for NASA in an unrelated field. MIT findings were apparently falsified to cover up confirmation of F & P’s results which led to Eugene Mallove, chief science writer for MIT to quit in disgust. Other successful repeats of the experiments went unchallenged and were little reported but the unsuccessful ones got main stream media coverage.

Regards, Chip

Mageth

Other successful repeats of the experiments went unchallenged and were little reported but the unsuccessful ones got main stream media coverage.

My "Unreproducible" comment was poorly worded. For one, it's spelled "unreproducable." What I should have said is "not consistently repeatable". For it to be "proven" as feasible, IMO, any lab anywhere with the proper equipment and know-how should consistently get the same results from the same experiment. If that's not happening (as your above comment indicates), then I'm a bit skeptical about the claims.

Like I said, I do hope within a few decades cold fusion is as commonplace as sliced bread. I'm just not yet convinced that will come true.

Walross

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. All I've seen of cold fusion (including the conspiracy theory) has been a bunch of extraordinary claims with crummy or non-existent evidence (or at best, non-repeatable evidence). You want people to believe it's possible? For starters, you'll have to at least come up with a possible mechanism.

Appeals to history merely show that it's easy to be wrong about things. That's why it's important to be skeptical. Especially when the claims are about something as seemingly "too good to be true" as cold fusion.

Walross

Gauge Boson

Thanks. You took the words right out of my mouth. I might have been a bit harsher, though. Chip is making an argument from ignorance. He's saying 'well, you can't prove it's impossible, so it must be true'. By his rationale, aliens must be visiting Earth and abducting people with a massive conspiracy to hide it because nobody has 'proved' it false.
Chip, Corwin, you are the ones making the claim - the burden of proof is on you. Also, guys, proof is reserved for mathematics and booze. Only reasonable probability is possible. The reasonable probability is that cold fusion does not exist. You (and everyone else) cannot provide a plausible mechanism for it. Don't even start with the deuterium-filled crystalline structure bit. If you make the "hydrinos" claim, someone should e-Slap (TM) some sense into you. The evidence, where it exists (and it is very rare indeed), is very shoddy. Our models of nuclear physics are highly successful and they preclude cold fusion. This make cold fusion an extraordinary claim. Where is your extraordinary evidence? You have none, so you blabber about conspiracies and project your taking cold fusion on faith (by definition, believing in something without, or in spite of, evidence, often, like you, explaining away the lack of evidence and/or claiming evidence where there is none) onto the rest of us who are reasonable enough to not believe something without evidence. BTW, Chip, your comment about Victor Stenger makes it clear that you consider skepticism a negative trait. Ok, fine. You go take your homeopathic pills after having your aura adjusted and before praying to get better.

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: Gauge Boson ]

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: Gauge Boson ]</p>

Chip

Poor Gauge.

Please cite your sources that prove I use homeopathy, aura manipulation and praying. While your at it, please show me how I have demonstrated finding skepticism a negative trait.

I am gaining a poor opinion of your critical thinking and ability at rational discourse.

Thank you, Chip

Corwin

Gee... it's been a while since I saw so many ad homs in one posting.

I can think of several possible explanations both for the effect and the fact that it isn't reliably repeatable. (Compression of deuterium within the atomic structure of an element which is known to be extremely porous to hydrogen, production of antiparticles, previously undiscovered mechanisms of atomic fusion for the first... extremely precise conditions required for it to work, specific impurities in the metals used, lack of detailed information and imprecise lab techniques for the second...)

Where have you provided any explanations at all besides 'they're wrong' or 'they're lying' for the results that DO work? (Like MIT before they fudged their data? The japanese labs that are still working on it? The private researchers that have gotten verified positive results? The french labs that are still working on it?)

Um... Pot? There's a problem.... we're only grey.