And Abd’s favorite topic

Abd!

Draft. If you are reading this on an archive site, be sure to check the original URL for updates, corrections, retractions, etc.

LENR Forum trolling of Zeus46, joined by Alan Smith. I’m amazed at the research Zeus46 has obviously done, he must think I’m worth all that effort. I’m adding the More link before going on because the only importance that I see here, other than bringing up nostalgia for me, is how LENR fora attract really unpleasant people whom I have very little interest in ever meeting, and especially some moderators. However, there are others I’d love to spend time with. And some I have been blessed to meet in real life.

So Zeus46 wrote:

ABD Watch

After I wrote a previous post, the notorious LENR outlaw, and self-proclaimed ‘King of the Trolls’ Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote two pompous articles where he felt the need to describe me as a “Troll” over 30 times.

Zeus 46 lies. His links don’t support what he claims. As an example, Zeus 46 called me the King of the Trolls, it was not “self-proclaimed.” The post he links under “self-proclaimed” was simply a list of those banned on LENR Forum, as of the date of compilation. “Troll” was not mentioned in it. As to the “30 times,” really it was one time, because that post is Blatant trolling continues to be allowed on lenr-forum and it has, at the beginning:

A couple of days ago I noticed a post from Zeus46, the second one below from a search of his Contributions since January 18. To be clear, this is all posts by Zeus46 from that period. These are not cherry-picked from a larger set. Conclusion (substantiated below): Lenr-forum moderation is tolerating trolling from some, including a moderator, and not from others. Here, the last six contributions of Zeus46 were trolling. 

In fact, the post only contains the sequence “troll” 25 times, plus once in the title, and, since the definition of trolling was given (many usages) and Zeus46 was quoted (“King of the Trolls”), and the theme was evidence of trolling, mostly by Zeus46, what we are seeing is Zeus46 creating a false impression implying something reprehensible, attempting to provoke an angry response. Instead, I simply call trolls, trolls, when it becomes clear, as it has, and it’s totally obvious.

Well, praise from Caesar is praise indeed, but I respectfully decline this proffered “knighthood” as I am ultimately not worthy of place in his kingdom. Whilst we are somewhat similar in that we enjoy commenting on the foibles of others, I manage to do this without using offensive terms about peoples mental faculties, such as “idiot”, or “senile”.

Zeus46 is treating what I wrote as if it were an attempt to win an argument, a deliberate insult. It is not my wish to belabor that point, which is why I have not included the link on “senile,” and pointing to allegedly uncivil comment is, in fact, itself uncivil. In fact, I’ve known the fellow in question for years, and many of his old friends simply have stopped talking to him. I’d prefer, greatly, to see him restored to high function, which I think possible, under one condition: he’ll need to start listening to the many voices that have attempted to help him. There is more than one LENR figure facing advanced age and some decline of function. Me, as well. I am close to that man in age, and I can see decline of function in myself. It’s time to accept reality, my opinion. That does not mean “shut up, dry up, and blow away,” but it does mean developing some caution.

I notice that Zeus46 does not actually quote me in that “senile” matter, I assume because it wouldn’t look so offensive.

Indeed, my relative lack of trolling prestige can actually be quantified:

Number of websites and/or shady cults Zeus46 is known to be banned from: 0
Number of websites and/or shady cults Lomax is known to be banned from: 4*

That Zeus46 is not banned anywhere is unverifiable, and notice that Zeus46 does whatever he can — he goes to an extraordinary length — to inflate my “number.” He is comparing an open life, I’ve been active on-line since the mid 1980s, using real names, and engaging in controversial topics, for even longer, whereas WTF is “Zeus46”?

Zeus46’s asterisk refers to this:

 * Some may consider a ban from a shady “cult” (sic) for trying to usurp the leader by “teaching without knowledge” as an early example of innate Napoleonic tendencies. I however, prefer not to draw a firm conclusion from this.

Far out. Rescued from the Internet Archive. Something I wrote long ago in a different context, was then used without my knowledge or permission by others to support an idea of the Murabitun as a “shady cult.” I found it, it’s here. Soc.religion.islam, where I was a moderator. Theoretically, I still am, if I’m correct. 1/30/97 was the posting date, more than twenty years ago.

 

While I did call it a cult, that was a technical term. I was never banned, I was told, “you must leave,” (and at that time the “Murabitun” did not exist as what arose later) and chose to follow the request; and later it was clear that I wasn’t “banned,” and that is explained in the story. “Teaching without knowledge” simply does not mean what Zeus46 thinks. There was no attempt to take the leader’s place, at all, I wouldn’t have dreamed of it. To be honest, I don’t know what Abd ul-Qadr meant when he said what I reported. (I have various theories, “teaching without knowledge” could describe my condition then, in more than one way.)

I was treated with kindness, and look back at what happened as an essential stage of my own education. In the end, I could visit him, if ever I have the opportunity, I’m confident I’d be welcome, if he is in a condition to receive visitors. He’s about 87. I’ve been privileged to know many very unusual people, and he was one, may God make it easy for him.

So where am I banned? Well, it’s almost certainly these: en.wikipedia.org, a formal “community ban,” based on advocating following Wikipedia policy wrt cold fusion. I was successful before the Arbitration Committee, and that was intolerable. I know how to be unbanned, and could probably pull it off, but … have never attempted it. I was done with the Wikipedia experiment; Wikipedia is an endless opportunity to push a boulder up a mountain so that it can roll down again. I’ve assisted others in navigating that mess, for fun and profit. I’m not banned on any other WMF wiki, but have generally abandoned working on WMF wikis. Except when I’m paid, which has happened. The largest exception: I still occasionally do some writing on en.wikiversity.org, which is the most open and most useful of the WMF family, at least in certain ways. “Fringe” is not deleted there, for starters, at least normally it is not.

Then there would be vortex-l. — a mailing list. There, I confronted a troll — or lunatic — causing substantial damage, and I’d been begging the owner to notice and handle it. His response, when he finally looked, was to shut vortex-l down — and so I started newvortex, which has been useful for various purposes. Most recently, this was used to host the Rossi v. Darden files until yahoo failures became intolerable and I moved to this blog, which works far, far better. There is nothing else like Rossi v. Darden docket and case files on the internet.

And then the Owner of vortex-l banned the troll and, citing DNFTT, me, because I’d been responding to the troll. Actually many members had been responding, so I suspect that his real issue with me was that I’d suggested he name some additional moderators. There were many competent people who would have taken the job. Basic and common: founders don’t want to surrender control, even if they no longer have time to actually manage their project.

And then, of course, LENR Forum. I have already described what happened there in detail. As is common with these things, being banned was a blessing. What Zeus46 may not have taken on board is that I declared a boycott of LENR Forum, and never violated it, and was then banned. So they banned someone who wasn’t posting. Cool, eh? Color me canary.

I believe he wants to bestow his highest troll honours upon me for my services in trying to improve his website. Surprisingly enough, he seems to agree with some of the points of the last “ABD watch” post. He mentions how some of “his friends” concur that his magnum dopii are bit on the lengthy side, and he also appears to agree that the inescapable biographical sign-off under each article is perhaps a little OTT.

I have always encountered those who dislike my style, particularly length. It is not uncommon for friends, even, to suggest I be more brief. (Lately, that has been shifting, by the way. However, there is an old friend who is one of the few people who actually understood what I was doing in my work with political systems. He was succinct, but, once, asked about this, he said that, yes, he says (at least some of what) Abd says, in fewer words, but it takes him three times as long. Mark Twain wrote something about that, and so did other writers. It is more work to be briefer, at least for some kinds of writers. And I’m already maxxed out! So I put in that work when polemic is called for. Usually it is not. I do pay attention to critique, even from straight-out enemies, I learned to do that many years ago (pre-internet). Enemies will tell us what our friends won’t, too often.

One definite improvement that he made to his website after reading my advice, was to add a topic heading called “LENR-forum admin”, so one can tally up exactly how lengthy are his bleatings about the hen-pecked moderation team here. It turns out that (so far) there are eight posts that refer to this subject… Which strangely enough is almost double those that come under the headings of both “LENR theory” and “Scientific Method” combined… ie. Once again, a mockery is made of the website’s strapline: “Supporting Low Energy Nuclear Reaction Research”. I hope those who he tapped up for funds knew what they were getting themselves into?

Nobody funded this site but me, using an old grant which has not run out. I write about what is in front of me, but the site is not just about me, and it’s open for others. Gradually, they are appearing, but so far, nobody has asked for author privileges. I expect that to change. If not, well, then I get to be the Cold Fusion Community, and those who don’t like it can go fly a kite. Zeus46 coined “Planet Lomax” for this place, claiming it was my St. Elba, a lonely place — part of his Napoleon trope. It’s not. Some good writers are showing up, and there is support. And until then, until a community exists to restrain me, I can collect whatever material interests me. As Zeus46 noticed, I’m increasing categories. He gives some numbers. What he doesn’t say is the full numbers. There are 91 published posts before this one. The topic of “Scientific Method” was created for some specific posts, even though many posts in some way touch on that topic. Maybe more posts could be tagged. The topic of LENR theory being sparse may reflect my opinion that most LENR theory is way premature. But there will be more, I’m sure.

Now without further ado… Here’s more highlights and/or lowlights from CFC.net:
Abd finally embraces the phrase “Planet-lomax.com”, possibly because it matches with the size of his ego, apparent to myself at least, after he compared himself to Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Malcolm X.

My ego is vast, larger than the observable universe. (Okay, smarty-pants, why? Well, it has no edge!) However, search the page he linked for Planet Lomax to see how Zeus distorts what is written. Troll, definitely, not even a shadow of doubt. So, what does this say about LENR Forum? We will see how the mods responded.

I read the “compare” claim and thought, WTF is he talking about? Okay, here is what I wrote:

Be aware that sticking your head up, someone may shoot at it. In my training, the saying was that if nobody is shooting at you, you are not doing anything worth wasting ammunition on. The people held up to us for inspiration were Martin Luther King, Jack Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X…. and then we notice that all of them were shot.

That was just a fact. Those examples were held up. Where did I “compare myself” to them? However, in fact, the training is designed to create people who do what they did. And they do. Someone like Zeus46 has no clue what is possible for human beings. “My training” doesn’t mean my own work with myself, I was actually trained in a program and for the first levels of it, I paid. The more advanced work is essentially free — except for the time it takes, which can be a lot.

In any case, once again, trolling. Misrepresenting what someone has written is classic trolling. He has to know he’s doing this, so … he’s lying.

I can only assume this orbit-velocity ego prevents him from admitting to his narcissistic tendencies – A prime example being his preference to blame his blog software for the continued omnipresence of his end-of-article personal puff-pieces.

Again, a simple description of what happened (I changed the theme from the initial one) is translated by this troll into one more proof of Abd’s bad behavior. I actually fixed this, it was simply a matter of placing the bio as a page and then linking to it, instead of using the profile bio. I would allow any other user to do this (and might require it, it really didn’t make sense to have a long bio at the end of every post!)

Abd’s first use of the F-word… On LENR-forum that word only been uttered 25 times (Ignoring ‘accidental’ misspellings of Fukushima). Unsurprisingly, the potty-mouthed Abd was responsible for 10 of these. Interestingly, the second-placed coprophone was Keieueue (3 times), then Pathoskeptic (2)… Which by an astounding coincidence, is the same as their given ‘order of merit’ in Abd’s ‘Troll Hall of Fame’. Who’d have thought?

Fascinating. He noticed. Coprophone? Making up new words? I value authenticity, and I communicate with people in their language. Nobody is forced to read what I write. Any problem with the neutral pages? I.e., the Rossi v. Darden case pages?

(Once gain, Zeus46 associates “troll” with “being banned” on LENR Forum. Obviously, he believes that only “trolls” are banned, and if someone is banned, they must be a troll.)

A turgid post correctly described by Abd as a “Blizzard of Blo(g)viation”… Possibly he meant that to describe LENR-forum, but LENR-forum is a forum. The only blog here is his.

JONP? E-Catworld? And it is actually the bloviation that was the subject.

Who was it who suggested blogviation? Waddyaknow? Zeus45. (The forums are often called “blogs” and they are similar to blogs in some ways.)

[one comment deleted for similar reasons to my not copying one linki above].

Finally, despite the below-shoulder-length hair visible on his avatar, and his oft-mentioned moderation duties on the famously Grateful Dead fan infested W.E.L.L. forum, Abd has previously denied his the use of hallucinogenic drugs…

Zeus45 has jumped to conclusions about what was written then. I have never denied having used various drugs. However, not in the contexts that were asserted, and not by that age, and last usage was over twenty years before the W.E.L.L. period. I was never a Grateful Dead fan, and don’t remember any such “infestation.” The Wikipedia article does mention the Dead. There were Conferences on many topics. So some Grateful Dead fans had a conference. This means? The W.E.L.L. was not characterized by either Grateful Dead fans nor drug users. I moderated the Islam conference there, but moved on to other activities, particularly Usenet, where I became a moderator of soc.religion.islam.

Which puts me at a loss to explain his confusion over the persona of the lame pastiche calling themselves “zeus45”. Indeed, The only “evidence” that Abd offers for his theory that Zeus45 and I are the same person, is that a fourth person (yes, really) had a comment referring to “planet-lomax.com” (population 1) deleted from said website. Apparently he thinks my subsequent use of the phase means I must have known about this first post. Which somehow suggests that all of us are really just one person. Unfortunately for Abd, I actually pinched it from an earlier, and apparently-now-deleted, comment on ego-out.

Convenient.

Zeus46 is clearly nasty as hell, and lies. Zeus45, maybe isn’t Zeus46, I was pretty sure in that post but I’m not going back over the evidence because …. it really doesn’t matter. Zeus46 lies, I’m sure of that, there have been many examples here. Zeus45 is not about to be banned here, but hasn’t commented

The real point here is that trolling is not only permitted on LENR Forum, but a moderator joins in.

Alan Smith wrote:

Well, I am glad someone reads that stuff besides Rigel, saves me the bother. Denigrating others is just Abd’s way of ‘building a community’.

Alan Smith issued the ban on LENR Forum when I declared I was boycotting it. It was his arbitrary deletions of posts that led to that declaration, pending a resolution. That Smith was supported demonstrated to me that LENR Forum was a lost cause. Something is rotten at the core, confirming prior suspicions.

Basic lesson: communities that depend on an owner and administrators that are not open and transparent are risking the loss of all that they put in.

Smith accuses me of “denigrating others,” but commonly denigrated others, and here, he is supporting blatant, heavy trolling.

The Owner of LENR Forum has the right to do what he wants with it. At least the legal right. And I have the right to write “fuck.”

 

Author: Abd ulRahman Lomax

See http://coldfusioncommunity.net/biography-abd-ul-rahman-lomax/

13 thoughts on “And Abd’s favorite topic”

  1. Abd – the “reply” tab wasn’t available to keep the string isolated from the rest, hence the new string.

    For both Maxwell’s Daemon and the Brownian Ratchet, the energy harvested remains in the same form (mechanical) in the same system, and is not immediately taken away as electricity but remains in-system with an increased probability of the return reaction occurring.

    Let’s modify the Brownian Ratchet so that, instead of a pawl, it has a tiny electrical generator attached to the wheel so that a rotation either way will generate a pulse of electricity that is immediately dissipated in an external resistor somewhere else at the other end of the wires. Now what happens? The wheel will be knocked backwards and forwards, and on average it will stay in the same angular position just as expected. However, every time it moves either way there will be power sent to the resistor. Sadly, Feynman was not infallible. Maybe not sadly, though, since that loophole gives us access to a practically-inexhaustible power source.

    The key is to take the energy *somewhere else* and use it as soon as it is produced. If we leave it there with the intention of collecting more of it, the amount available is around the same no matter how long you leave it and how many times it’s been added to, since on average that quantity of energy will be taken away as many times as well by the reverse reaction.

    In general, Eddington’s lament that 2LoT was inviolable has been taken to heart by scientists and it’s a career-killer to think it’s possible (also similar to LENR at the moment). I’m however retired and can’t be sacked for heretical thoughts. I expect you’ve noted that the majority of LENR researchers have been in a similar state, for much the same reasons. The “free energy” field is also full of crackpots and scam-artists, with some pretty major frauds around. Again like LENR. However, you are involved in getting a solid scientific basis (and thus more research) into LENR that I hope will succeed in its aims. I’m similarly trying to get a logical basis and experimental evidence in producing power without needing fuel, and to get people looking at it as real science with some theory as to why certain devices will actually do the job.

    The rectenna is not equivalent to Feynman’s Brownian ratchet, but does have a functional similarity to the modified one I’ve put forward here. The modified version may be very hard to build and test, but then no-one AFAIK has built Feynman’s design either. Thought experiments don’t have to be practically realisable.

    I don’t have access to either a sheet of rectenna array or the kit to make one, so I won’t be proving my contentions using a rectenna array. Though there is probably a way to measure the slight cooling by switching the load at the correct rate and measuring the emitted LWIR radiation from the array under test, the actual amount of power is not useful and would only serve to confirm the logic. The logic is however based on CoE so you have a choice as to whether to say the 1LoT is totally correct or the 2LoT is, and logically 2LoT has a loophole. They can’t both be right, and I reckon CoE is inviolable as far as we’ve seen and I’ve identified the loophole in 2LoT.

    This wasn’t intended to hijack your blog, but just growed that way. Ask questions, and politeness alone dictates that I’ll answer them. Last year I had family problems and couldn’t get the time in the workshop to make the experiments, and getting to “good enough” to pass a device to a third party was expected to take a year or two anyway. Technically it’s difficult. This year I have some backing (heads and finance) to produce that device. It ought to work. It’s better to spend the time doing the work rather than talking about it.

    1. What I notice: a rectifier is a ratchet for electron flow. Essentially, brownian motion creates noise. rectify the noise, power! Or so it seems. Why do you mention that Feynman is not infallible? Did someone say he was, or imply it? It’s just that the basic idea you have brought forward is not new. It’s been around for a long time. You have not pointed to experimental evidence that a rectenna will operate as you claim. This is, at this point, as you have expressed it, a thought experiment.

      “cooling.” the question is if one can generate power with thermal energy without a sink. I’d start by looking at the closed system, all “cyclical flow” is within the system. The system is surrounded by very good insulation. What happens with the rectenna? If there is current flow in the rectenna circuit, there will be heat dissipated from it. This heats the circuit — which includes the rectenna. Does the whole assembly just keep getting hotter? We think not. We think that, once the system stabilizes, the overall temperature remains the same. One part might cool but statistically, the total energy remains the same. That cooling is noise, it is like brownian motion, where the statistical effect of heat causes a visible, gross movement of a particle. Hence the Brownian Ratchet. Does a Brownian Ratchet work? There have been some claims, I think, this is covered in either the Maxwell’s Demon article or the Ratchet one. However, this is a variety of another Feynman circumstantial argument: if it could be made to work, couldn’t living organisms evolve to take advantage of it? After all, they are very good at harnessing even quantum processes, with what are effectively nanomachines.

      You have not become very specific, you are arguing broad generalities, mostly with a thought experiment, and thought experiments suffer from a well-known problem: they don’t necessarily think of everything. Thought experiments are good for suggesting possible avenues for real experiments, or for certain kinds of pedagogy, but never for proof.

      Here, about a rectenna report, you make a few leaps: “This idea could also be used in the near-IR range with modifications, and thus convert heat directly to electricity with no moving parts.”

      No, this would not be direct conversion. Rather heat -> IR radiation (very low efficiency) -> electrical flow -> heat (very high efficiency). Yes, no moving parts — except that the parts are actually moving (they are not at absolute zero, and this matters). You can state the idea much more simply. Heat -> IR, which then, as photons, radiates. That is the energy output, and it is far more efficient than capturing some small fraction of that energy with a rectenna. And when IR photons radiate, yes, the system cools. This is totally ordinary. However, if there is no heat sink, and when the full system approaches equilibrium, incoming photons and outgoing photons will match, statistically. There will be no cooling below equilibrium temperature, it only cools when the system is at a higher temperature than the full system (including the absorber).

      But you imagine that a rectenna works to create a flow, more than noise, even if there is equilibrium, that the output of the rectenna only depends on the IR radiation, which only depends on the absolute temperature, regardless of any sink. So far, you have not asserted any experimental evidence for this idea. It is like a Brownian ratchet, it seems plausible. Just like Maxwell’s demon, or more easily realized in practice. You want to test the idea, but … the levels of power involved are extraordinarily low, probably not measurable. I would start with simply looking at how a rectenna actually performs. But you don’t have access to rectennas.

      You have this:

      Let’s modify the Brownian Ratchet so that, instead of a pawl, it has a tiny electrical generator attached to the wheel so that a rotation either way will generate a pulse of electricity that is immediately dissipated in an external resistor somewhere else at the other end of the wires. Now what happens? The wheel will be knocked backwards and forwards, and on average it will stay in the same angular position just as expected. However, every time it moves either way there will be power sent to the resistor.

      This sounds simple. After all, I know how to make such a circuit, if this is gross movement. When I was a kid, I made a self-powered crystal set radio: it took the RF signal and rectified it to generate power that then was used in a radio circuit. But … this is actually powered by RF radiation within a band that could be handled by the rectifier. It was essentially using the radiated RF power of transmitters in my vicinity.

      Very simple: there is a magnet on the little wheel, and then a coil that the moving magnetic field lines will cross, inducing a current, and this is rectified. Can this actually be done? Very likely not, because of noise considerations. Now, eliminate the rectifier, to make it even simpler! There will be AC current, which will generate even more heat! What is wrong with this picture, or is it wrong?

      As another issue, you have an idea of “moving energy” that is doing work. But photons travelling are not doing work, unless they travel in an environment where they cause a force to act on a mass, and if that force acts, the photon will lose energy, it will decrease in frequency, at least, or it will be absorbed, its energy converted to the motion of particles.

      1. Abd – although a diode will ratchet electrons, for thermal noise in the diode the potential produced this way makes the reverse movement of the electron more likely. Net result is that you can’t get any measurable power from the thermal noise, and people have tried. If you have a very fast diode and add an antenna, then you can produce a DC current – this is the rectenna or nantenna.

        With the rectenna at thermal equilibrium in a container, until you draw current from it it will remain at thermal equilibrium. It will be receiving from its surroundings exactly as much energy as it is radiating, and as a real thing it will be radiating according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law. When you start to draw current from it, it will cool relative to its surroundings – this is a simple CoE problem since more energy is going out than is coming in. If the resistive load is in the container then it will heat more than its surroundings until the amount of heat it is radiating and conducting is equal to that it is receiving by radiation and electrical power, and then it will be stable. Again CoE.

        For the rectenna, you chose the report about an optical one, but I put up one about an IR one at http://revolution-green.com/infrared-pv-gives-power-at-night-too/ that is more relevant. In the first article I asked you to read I also put up a (granted and published) doctoral thesis on how they are made and the data from that experiment. This should be acceptable experimental evidence – it got Yesilkoy her doctorate.

        You have noticed that in thermal equilibrium then outgoing and incoming photons match. That is important, since earlier in http://coldfusioncommunity.net/and-abds-favorite-topic/#comment-1390 you stated “From the laws, I’d expect that nantenna “energy generation” would run down as the temperature of the nantenna and its environment become uniform. “. So at least I’m getting somewhere with this. If the incoming photons are still there, then the nantenna will continue to work and send current down to the load.

        The modified Brownian Ratchet diverts each pulse of energy caused by the collision of the dust-speck with the wheel, so that it becomes electrical energy instead and is used immediately elsewhere. This illustrates the essentials of the loophole in that a pulse of energy of a random sequence, where the average over time is zero, can still be used if we use it immediately rather than try to collect it as a larger package.

        For the idea of moving energy doing work, I’ve shown that in order to do work we have to have energy moving. Energy can also move without doing useful work, and that is also stated. I didn’t cover photons as a special case because the word-count was already somewhat long.

        The discussions about the nantenna cooling need to consider two cases. The first is when no current is being drawn, and the second when current is drawn from it. If in the first case we have total thermal equilibrium (which will happen after sufficient time) then the nantenna will be at the temperature of the environment, and will be receiving as many IR photons as it is getting. Ignore the conduction as not relevant – we can put it in a vacuum if needed. If we then connect the resistor, and draw power from the nantenna, where does that energy come from? Energy is conserved, so it has to come from somewhere.

  2. About long posts….

    Perhaps Mr. Lomax, you have some “Ent” in your DNA…. 🙂

    Treebeard from Lord of the Rings :
    “You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say. ”

    I have heard it stated that “it is not quantity that counts, but quality”. What many fail to see is that this also means “lack of quantity does not equal quality” either.

    Some posts are long. I can read each letter or I can parse through and pull out the content I deem relevant to me or interesting. Once I see that content, I can then read that area in more detail. It is up to me! I never understood why some people complain about length. Do they not have enough control over their own will to skip past what they feel not necessary? What is it that they have to criticize length? It is similar to going to a bar and complaining that the glasses of beer are too big and they always get drunk. Can they not stop at half a glass?

    I have found that often in life, people look at almost every subject as a mirror. What they see, “reflects” back to them as an image superimposed over their own view of themselves.
    Some might say “the amount of time he took to write this must have been enormous!” They secretly resent the fact that someone either had that much time or had the ability to concentrate on the subject that long. They then criticize the work because deep down, they realize it was past their capability! I am a fast typer, I can type many words a minute. Someone who two finger, hunt and pecks, may get frustrated when they see a long post! To some, it is as simple as that! To others, it is the fact that someone has the knowledge and willingness to communicate the subject. They resent that they do not.

    Then there is a group that I often have the most frustration with. Some people judge others as being “know it alls” or conceited simply because the person states his opinion or knowledge on subjects, that he states it with conviction because he has researched it and has significant data to believe it fact. Because it has been researched and thought out, these opinions are most often found correct. But this leads to the “issue” that this person “always thinks they are right”.

    I once had a person tell me this, “you think you are always right”. I replied “Well… of course I do! I would be silly to debate something I thought I was wrong on!” I believe the issue is that if I am unsure of something, I do not debate it from the point “I am right”. I ask questions, I investigate and hold off passing judgment. Some seem not to be able to distinguish the two.

    Anyway, is this post long enough? :0 I begin to ramble….

    Just remember, “it is those people in life that think they know everything that make it hard for us who do!” 🙂 oh boy…….

    1. Thanks, Bob. An even more powerful stand in a debate would be, instead of “I think I’m right,” “I have this idea and I want to explore it and your ideas and find out if either of us is right or if we can learn something by discussing this.” Debate tends to be defined as taking fixed positions and then trying to “win.” In that context, backing down can be seen as losing. This understanding also tends to black and white, either/or thinking. I’ve been called a contrarian, i.e., if you say the sky is blue, I will immediately think of the ways in which it is not blue, and bring them up. This is actually a kind of dialectical thinking that is looking toward synthesis by expressing the opposite side to what has just been expressed, then considering them together. Part of my training in communication is to be aware of this and careful how I use it, part of this has been learning to lead with acknowledgment, not difference. However, this is bucking my long-term nature (which is dialectical). So it’s a process….

  3. Abd – I regard trolling as either looking for a fight or as gratuitous insults. Both types tend to ignore the facts. I’ve always found your comments to be factual, and the opinions based on what is known or can be inferred, which is why I’m here rather than on ECW or LF.

    I try to be scientific. In science, belief and disbelief are equally a problem in looking at the available data. Of course, if you don’t believe that an experiment will work you won’t bother attempting it in general, except maybe to be sure that the logic is correct and it won’t work. I’ve tried some experiments I didn’t expect to work simply to be sure of things. There’s still one I’ll be trying at some point that I expect to fail, based on the conversion between linear and angular momentum where there is some experimental evidence that is suggestive of a failure of Conservation of Momentum. It’s good to have the data and to be able to show it. Ask Nature; it works or it doesn’t.

    With Rossi, getting hold of data you can trust is a whole lot more difficult than normal, which is maybe why the belief and disbelief is so strong. Instead of being able to take the primary data-source (published results) as true we have to look at the corroborative soft evidence of what people didn’t see/remark upon. Different people will pick up on different discrepancies in what Rossi has presented us with. Someone (IIRC it was Ethan Siegal) picked up on the ash analysis of Rossi’s “transmuted” fuel back in the E-cat days, and noted that the Copper and Nickel were distinct grains and not the alloy that would be expected. That’s not a smoking gun, but instead we’re seeing the bullet coming out of it. Sure, you can propose that if one Nickel atoms transmutes then the whole grain will, but that would lead to a very large amount of heat in that grain all at once, so it would vaporise. What are the consequences of each assumption that Rossi is telling the truth? That’s the analysis that is needed, and it takes legwork to produce it. There’s bound to be a lot of words.

    What I find in your comments is well-chewed data with reasons for the opinion. This is not trolling, especially since I can choose whether or not to visit your site. It’s true that your comments are often long, but as we’ve noted it takes more effort to write concisely and will take several full edits to remove the lint. I joined NewVortex in order to keep being able to read your comments, emerging from lurking to do so.

    At the moment I’m working in a different direction than LENR, and I’ve taken notice of your criticism and thus produced a new and shorter explanation of this at R-G. Hopefully you’ll get other writers who are more LENR-centric to help you here. It’s a big task, and needs someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in LENR, but looks at the data with the knowledge of what it means. For me, I see the urgent need for a cheap and non-polluting way of powering our world, and I’m going for what I see as the low-hanging fruit first. You’ve helped me with that, too, by showing me what was not clear.

    Connecting Zeus45 and Zeus46 as being the same person seems pretty obvious, though since both are anonymous it’s hard to be sure. People working under a pseudonym have more license to troll, since there’s no come-back. If the heat gets too much, choose another name.

    Maybe one thing to remember about Alan Smith is that he basically believes Rossi has something. Personally I like him and respect him for putting money and time where his mouth is in setting up LFH with Sam. He’s publishing his data and methods, and if his replication works then you’ll have the lab-rat required. He’s also supplying materials for experimenters in the quantities required, so they don’t need to buy in bulk to get the costs down. What he does on LF doesn’t worry me, since I don’t in general read it. Alan accepts that I don’t believe Rossi’s data and I’ve commented on LFH with no problems. I hope he succeeds in his project, since that’s good for all.

    1. Simon,
      You said: “There’s still one I’ll be trying at some point that I expect to fail, based on the conversion between linear and angular momentum where there is some experimental evidence that is suggestive of a failure of Conservation of Momentum. ”
      May I ask more on this? Is it in the paper you published a while ago on R-G (your dissertation)? What is it exactly and can you point to a reference? At least a hint? H-bar?

      A bit about how I think, I try to get along with everyone. It is selfish as it benefits me in the end. I come for knowledge to expand my mind that has been (and sometime is closed off). I try to be kind and this has been an educational process. Since I look at patterns I have a tendency to just keep doing this and once I have an arbitrary amount I make a decision. I started out believing Rossi, after all (like some of us) I thought how could all the Lugano scientists be wrong? Then came many posts from multiple posters on emissivity. The nail was the Thomas Clarke paper. This paper forced me to learn the math. This paper is not a learn by rote like you get taught in school, it is applied mathematics into something that I want LENR. So in my pattern matching way I drilled down (and am still drilling). Well the TC paper was the last straw for Rossi. I put the time in. He has nothing, and it’s not pseudo skeptical to think that way. It is plain logical. On me, well I still miss things (Ascoti65). And I thank Abd for pointing them out, sometimes he is too kind. I think he is holding out hope for me. I also find being argumentative can be constructive if it leads to greater knowledge, else we are just looking in the mirror, pizzing into the wind. I just need to find ways to be more persuasive (when you are as thick as me this takes time).

      Finally after all that, I still believe in cold fusion. There are several ways it works such as sonofusion, pyroelectric and indisputably moun catalyzed fusion, but Ni-H based CF does not work for me as a premise any longer. Not that you could not get it to work. After all if you bombard it enough you will overcome the Columb barrier. I currently believe that is why we are not seeing anomalous heat in the MFMP reproductions. By deduction this means also that Me356 does not have anything that violates CoE. He is famous for keeping the hope in Rossi alive but as they say “he’s dead Jim”.

      1. Rigel – I’ve put an updated verion up at R-G based on feedback from Abd, who kindly pointed out bits he didn’t agree with. The first one was too cluttered with history, since I’ve been battling that logic for around 4 decades on and off. The CoM experiment ought to fail and keep the centre of mass in the same place, but the essence of it is to convert angular momentum to linear momentum and back again at specific points in a revolution. There are various attempts at this on the net, most of which can be explained, but there are a couple I can’t explain. The device itself is easy enough to make, but it’s getting the measurements reliable that’s a bit tricky. OT here, so email me if you want more information.

        Initially, Rossi seemed to be using Piantelli’s methods and developing them. As such, the claims were good but not incredibly good when you considered the surface area he used. From memory, the 2011 ECat was supposed to be producing a couple of watts per square metre of Nickel surface. The 500kW Diesel generator running in the background could have just been on tickover, after all. We don’t really expect such a bold claim to be wrong, on the grounds that it would very soon be found out (and also it would be bought by Somebody Else’s Money so we could see the results in a customer’s report). The video with Mats Lewan, later on, showed a paltry plume of steam when it should have been a strong jet and dangerous to play with. With the Ferrara and Lugano tests, I thought the photos and the other evidence showed a much lower temperature achieved. No-one needed goggles to look at it, after all. Still, it could have been true, so I noted the problems (publicly) and remained on the fence. I’m not skilled in pyrometry, so TC’s paper was important and pushed it even closer to “bad measurements or fraud”.

        The Doral test pushed me off the fence as regards Rossi. That 1MW had to go somewhere, and it never appeared. I’ve also been helped by Abd’s attention to detail. We all miss things that are not in our specialty, and I’ll try to put back when I’ve been given information. That way we all know more, and information is free – we lose nothing by giving it.

        I’ve heard nothing from Roger Stringham for a long time, and he was using Pd/D with ultrasonic excitation. He was producing about 1.6 times the energy in as total heat IIRC. Not enough to convert that heat usefully to electricity and self-loop it, but no-one seems to have replicated him. Odd. The Nanospire cavitation experiments I tend to discount because of the wild claims that depend solely on LeClairSays. Still, I wouldn’t write off Ni/H as a possible LENR system, based on Piantelli’s results which seemed careful. There are still possible systematic errors to expose, since with Celani the difference in the thermal conductivities between Hydrogen and the inert fill of Helium look to be the root cause of his measured excess heat. Celani, however, helped people trying to replicate and his error was honest. Let’s see if Brian Ahern manages a meltdown, which will at least tell us that Ni/H can produce a lot of power.

        None of these experiments shows any sign of breaking CoE, though. If there’s a nuclear reaction, we’ll lose the equivalent amount of mass and there will be an ash that can be analysed. I think the real reason that MFMP is not getting a result is because they are trying to replicate Rossi, and that it’s fairly likely now that Rossi never actually had any nuclear reactions. It seems likely that he thought he had seen excess heat (though I’m not so sure about that) but that his measurement methods were simply wrong. Much the same as Defkalion’s measurements, where they found that if they set the flow-rate just so then they got readings higher than expected. If they’d sparged he steam in a bucket of water and measured the heat produced that way they would have found the error. When you have a digital meter that tells you the result to more decimal points than you can read by eye on a meter, it’s easy to just accept the digital readout. If it’s lying, though, you need a dumb method as a sanity-check. Make a cup of tea with that heat and see how long it takes.

        Though Pd/D certainly produces excess heat, it’s a fair bet that Ni/H does too. There may be other metals, too, such as Titanium or Tungsten. Just a bit too much smoke for there not to be a fire there. Abd has secured some basic science in Pd/D that should bring more graduates into considering it as a subject, and thus we’ll end up at some point with a good theory and practical methods. It’s hard to predict when that will happen, and the field has basically gone backwards for a while trying to replicate Rossi when what was really needed was a low-level repeatable experiment so there was ash to analyse and no doubt that the effect is real.

    2. Thanks for your kind words, Simon. Your contributions to R-G are here, and I see you have acknowledged our conversation (which was by email). At least now the issue is quickly apparent. It is extremely easy to reject these ideas through a shallow understanding of thermodynamics. However, where we can agree, without any question, is that Experiment is King. Nevertheless, we do choose what experiments to do, it is an investment of time and sometimes money. Of this I’m confident: If you do the experiments you propose, and pay careful attention to detail, you will learn.

      There are two questions or avenues of approach, however, that I suggest. The cycle implies a single thing moving in one direction around a circle. In a real situation, energy will be flowing in all directions. Each flow will be, to some extent, inefficient, where will the energy go? But, then, what happens as the temperature of the nantenna approaches that of the “environment,” which must really mean the resistor where the electrical energy is mostly dissipated. The devil is in the details. I think you have an idea of a nantenna as something that inherently violates the laws of thermodynamics, that will generate electricity even inside of a completely uniform closed environment, where IR radiation is in all directions. Is it that? Nantennas work, that’s known. However, under what conditions?

      1. Abd – yes, the nantenna will generate electricity in a closed and uniform environment at the right temperature range. It simply rectifies the EM waves incident on it, and thus produces current, and it doesn’t care about the source of the waves. This experimentally demonstrates that thermodynamics is wrong, specifically the 2nd Law. As it happens, practical nantenna arrays are around 0.001% efficient at the moment, and the amount of power in the IR within its bandwidth is only around 1W/m², so you’d get around 10µW/m² of array. However, to ignore that because it’s too small is a bit like saying your girlfriend is only a tiny bit pregnant. That changes the problem to difficult engineering rather than being theoretically impossible. As Feynman said, one experiment trumps theory, even if that theory is 150 years old and has passed every other test. The experimental evidence is unimpeachable that the nantenna works, both in theory and in practice, and so 2LoT has a loophole that is identified.

        It should however be possible to use the photovoltaic structure and get efficiency of the order of 10% or so. This is thus what we’ll be trying. Thanks again for your critique, which led to a much clearer explanation of the theory side.

        1. Simon, evidence. Show us the experiment. This is off-topic here, to be sure, but the principle is important: scientific method. You are correct that the “too small” argument is fallacious. However, it can raise issues around the experiment. Until we are looking at actual experiment, and, for something as major as a violation of the laws of thermodynamics — outside of statistical exceptions as are certainly known and understood — a confirmed experiment — we are talking in a vacuum.

          You are making claims about what nantennas do without pointing to specific, verifiable evidence. I’m not claiming that such evidence does not exist, only that I could not find it with a brief search. From the laws, I’d expect that nantenna “energy generation” would run down as the temperature of the nantenna and its environment become uniform. Please, point to the experiment(s)! That nantennas convert IR to electricity is not being questioned, I’m sure they do.

          1. Abd – I actually came to this conclusion originally from a consideration of the derivation of the 2LoT, and showed that it was wrong and had a loophole. The loophole is based in quantum ideas, so it’s unsurprising that when it was formulated this loophole wasn’t seen. The nantenna is not the best example in fact, but it is confirmed as working and the principles of this have been known since the crystal set radio. The theory for a nantenna is based upon simply the physical shape of the conductor and the wavelength of the incident radiation, and there is no affect of temperature other than thermal expansion of the material causing the tuning to change by a very small amount.

            There is thus no reason why, given incident radiation of the correct wavelength, that the nantenna will cease to work because of its temperature or those of its surroundings. In the same way, you don’t expect your phone to lose signal because it’s in thermal equilibrium.

            Since the incident energy goes down the wires to the load, the nantenna will be cooler than the environment. More IR radiation is being received than transmitted, with the balance going down the wires (Conservation of Energy). The nantenna will thus, while power is being drawn, be colder than the environment even if all else in it is at the same temperature in thermal equilibrium. There will thus be a temperature difference maintained by this process, and though the nantenna will tend towards thermal equilibrium (and achieve it if you stop drawing power) it will remain cooler while you are drawing power.

            By experiment, a collection of objects in thermal equilibrium will still be emitting IR radiation. You can point an IR thermometer at them and measure the temperature of each. This is an easy experiment to do, and almost misses the dignity of being called an experiment as such, since we do it normally without thinking of the implications. If they are emitting energy as IR and do not cool down, then they are receiving as much energy as they are emitting. There is thus a measurable and calculable intensity of IR at any temperature above absolute zero.

            This does have some parallels to LENR, in that you are holding on to the 2LoT as being inviolable in the way the hot-fusion proponents hold on to their ideas of plasma fusion (two-body collisions) applying to LENR (multi-body interactions). The evidence of the nantenna likewise has parallels with LENR. In this case, you can see that it works and why, but think it won’t work when it is in a system in thermal equilibrium because you think the classical laws of physics (developed to explain steam-engines) apply to a quantum problem. They simply don’t apply. They do however apply to any way of getting power from the difference between two temperatures, including a Peltier block that uses some quantum principles. The loophole is pretty specific.

            The 2LoT is a statistical rule, and is based on having a lot of random energy transactions. With certain effects, though (photovoltaic effect, rectenna, nano-piezo, maybe others) we can arrange it that each transaction is biased to output energy down a path that we choose. This then alters the mathematical basis of the statistics, and the conclusions from random statistics (the basis of statistical mechanics) are no longer valid.

            Fairly unsurprisingly, with the nantenna array being dismally inefficient using current technology, the temperature drop when power is drawn from it has not been measured. With around 10 microwatts per square metre it’s below the noise threshold by a long way. That temperature drop must however be there, because energy is conserved. We need something much more powerful to actually be useful.

            Using a different process than I’ve detailed, a friend has in fact measured the temperature drop when he draws power from his device. He is however running dark at the moment so I’m not telling the details. He is in any case still some way from a commercial system. Phil Hardcastle has had some success and is still working, and Dan Sheehan published some small but definitive successes and then went dark. Today I had an email from another researcher who finds my published theory side useful and whose process looks to be workable.

            There are parallels with LENR here, in that classical scientists find the theory unpalatable because of their beliefs. Then again, if you’d asked me a few years ago if Perpetual Motion of the second kind was possible I’d have said I didn’t think it was possible, either. It’s an axiom we grew up with. You don’t get owt for nowt. However, we do have the capability right now of directing some energy in a direction we choose, do some work with it and let it go back to the environment. We need to improve the amount we can thus redirect. The longer version of my essay details how we can get useful power from atmospheric pressure – this is obviously impossible at first glance. A gas however consists of molecules, and when we are looking at an area of the container that is comparable to the mean free path of those molecules we resolve the “pressure” into what it really is, which is a lot of collisions. We know how to get power from one thing hitting another, so we just need to use that method at the relevant scale and we can get power.

            The scientific method, to me, is to try to look at the facts without letting belief or disbelief get in the way. This can be hard to do, maybe especially with Perpetual Motion where I was brought up to know that it was impossible and since then I’ve seen a lot of failed attempts that have confirmed what I was taught. Ditto 2LoT, which is easy to prove correct (lots of examples) but hard to find the loophole.

            Previously, I’ve either had short comments of “that’s interesting” or “I don’t believe it” which are not helpful. I’m thus very grateful that you’ve taken the time to detail what you disagree with, and that helped me to put the explanations in a way that more people should take notice of. It’s obviously not quite good enough yet, and I need the experimental data from my designs that I hope will be a vast improvement over the simple nantenna. Hopefully the improved article may push some others into trying some ideas that may be better than mine and be easier to make. Why turn mass into energy when you can recycle the energy you’ve already got? It’s why I am concentrating on this rather than LENR, though. No fuel needed at all.

            1. Maxwell’s Demon, Simon. More directly to the point: Brownian ratchet. Personally fun fact. I was probably there, in his class, when Feynman gave that lecture. The “rectenna” is a form of Brownian ratchet. The “failure mode” is not obvious (nor is Feynman necessarily correct. This was a theoretical examination, the evidence for his correctness is circumstantial, though massively so.) If there is experimental evidence that the rectenna works as you have described it, this would trump all theoretical explanations, until and unless that experiment is shown to be other than claimed. Shows, not merely claimed.

              Most scientists able to understand the issue will stay away, for very practical reasons, and no conclusions can be drawn from that. Let me point out the obvious: that an argument is rejected on spurious grounds does not add any evidence in favor of the argument. Famous phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is not actually true. It is a kind of evidence, though weak and prone to failure. The principle actually works more often than not, which is why it has survived in social function.

              If we want to educate about cold fusion, we must accept that the rejection is not stupid, at least not in principle. The devil is in the details.

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