The Russians stole the fuel!

On the private CMNS list, there was a post referring to an incident in which Andrea Rossi allegedly claimed that the fuel from a  dummy reactor (deliberately made with no fuel, but which had become confused with fueled reactors), which had shown the same apparent excess heat as the fueled reactors.
I realized that I had never covered in depth the implications of this event. The account is from a deposition of Thomas Darden.

The mention presented a different slant on that incident, that it was a “sting.” While it may have functioned that way, this does not appear to have been the intention, and that idea is not consistent with the Darden deposition.

http://coldfusioncommunity.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/dep-consolidated-Darden.pdf#page=54
(This is the consolidation page for Darden depositions, all pages we have of it, the original for this page is D.E. 163-3, p. 195)

There are implications in Darden’s story that match other events and behaviors. The difference between what had been written is that, according to Darden, a dummy reactor was accidentally misidentified and not realized to be a dummy until later. This was not a “sting”  as had been claimed. From the deposition:

1. “He [Rossi] didn’t like running dummy tests — I mean, not side by side because — and he would say, ‘No, the dummy might interfere with it’ or there was always some reason — sort of a technical reason. And, you know, so he’s the expert so we were thinking, you know, maybe he’s right. Maybe we’ll mess it up. So we tended not to do that. But we had a dummy. And these things were all numbered. And there was a six — you have one through ten or whatever. And so a six and a nine are the same number, just inverted. . . . The device got built with a dummy charge. And later in going through the list of the different devices or which ones we had, I realized that. . . . And the results were good, very consistent with the other results. . . . {T]his was around Christmastime or early January of ’14. And I remember that date. . . . [To Rossi:] ‘We have a serious problem. We need to talk about this because there’s a big measurement error that we detected.'”

2. “. . .   we were always debating about camera settings and measurement and how to measure. And he didn’t like having two ways of measuring. He said, ‘No, don’t touch it with a thermocouple’ — the temperature measuring device as opposed to the thermal cameras. He said, ‘It will interfere with it or it won’t read accurately. The cameras are much more trustworthy.'”

Because Rossi Says.

. . . [Rossi] and I together drilled it out . . . to see if there was anything in it. There was nothing in it. And he stormed out . . . the Russians came and stole the charge. . . . “I know it was charged. It had to have been charged. How could it not be charged.”

The pattern of only allowing a single measure has an obvious purpose, and, as well, the same, the pattern of disallowing control experiments.
In the Doral test, there was only one measure of output power: a pressure gauge and temperature gauge in the output steam line, and a flow meter in the return line. In order for that to produce a reliable figure, a number of assumptions must be valid. (IH deconstructed this thoroughly in the filings before trial.) The agreement with the fake “customer” provided that the customer would measure the power. Instead, the customer which was simply Rossi using his attorney as a front, simply provided figures provided by Rossi. Rossi claimed, near the end, that he had constructed a heat exchanger to handle the vast amount of heat released — his “process” would not have dissipated more than a few kilowatts, if that (probably less!). Such a heat exchanger, if conditions had been documented, would have been an independent measure, i.e., air flow and temperature rise in the air would have given a rough estimate of heat. But, no, there was no such documentation, and the heat exchanger seems to have been a bald-faced lie.  (And if it existed, Rossi had earlier lied about the heat dissipation. And he continued to lie to Mats Lewan about the megawatt heat issue, with utter preposterousness that Lewan did not challenge.)
Mats Lewan reported on the Lugano test, conducted later in 2014. The link to the original elforsk publication is dead. The Unibo copy is still up.
It’s dated October 6, 2014, and places the testing as taking place in March, 2014.

It is quite clear that the “independent professors” were led by their noses into the same problem as had been discovered earlier by Industrial Heat.

Yet we still have some of this community relying on the Lugano test (or the previous “independent professor test”) as if it were some kind of proof of viability of the technology.

Ed Storms referred to it, p. 216 in his book, The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (2014). The “E-Cat HT” was that reactor series. Ed’s paper cited does not seem to be available.  He is pointing to an operating temperature that stays below the “runaway” temperature, where generated heating power would exceed the rate at which heat would be radiated or conducted away. At such a point, it should be possible to remove the heating power input, relying then on other means of controlling reaction rate and temperature (such as controlling fuel supply or increasing coolant flow — air in the Lugano test).
(Problem is, those reactors, the E-Cat HT, did not get that hot, and from the dummy matching the fueled reactors, there was little or not excess heat to cause runaway.)
(Lugano used a sealed fuel container, like the reactors tested by IH, so fuel supply control was not available. Instead of heating the reactor internally, however, it could have been heated externally, with good external temperature control. That would be an “environmental temperature” and would not be an actual power input to the device, any more than power used to heat a lab is a power input to a device under test. Then one would look for an increase in temperature of the device over the “oven” temperature — with no additional power input.)
Rossi never used definitive tests, always it has been methods that might seem plausible to someone naive.
There was an internal thermocouple in the Lugano reactor, apparently, used during reactor set-up. Data from it was never shown to the “professors,” as far as we know. The most glaring problem was the dummy test. There was, in fact, an unfueled dummy, but it was only tested up to about 500 W input power. The Lugano professors apparently assumed that a calibration at lower input power and temperature would suffice for higher input power, but the emissivity of alumina, the reactor external material, shifts with temperature.
Nobody appears to have confronted Rossi, among the “independent professors,” about multiple problems with the Lugano test.
With his earlier water-cooled reactors, Rossi often used the “runaway” idea to clear the room of people when inquiries got too hot. I’m quite uncomfortable with some claiming “fact” for what has no independent confirmation, other than claims from the same person who has been known to lie about many matters, large and small.
The idea of runaway is plausible, but this entire approach to “control” was apparently a smokescreen, as was often pointed out. I.e., controlling heat generation with heat, holding cooling constant (the flow rate of water was generally constant), was teetering on an edge, and causing great inefficiency.

Why did Rossi do it that way, instead of building reactors with ample variable cooling, allowing the reactor to operate at a higher temperature?There is an obvious reason: it provides an excuse for needing continual input power.

With controlled cooling and with significant XP, and after setup, it should be possible to shut down the input power, as long as XP supplies sufficient heat to maintain temperature. Control would then entirely be by adjusting the cooling rate.

These issues were known, but the standing excuse was that Rossi is eccentric, always does things his way. And what a genius! It has even been speculated (I did this!) that Rossi wanted to look like a con artist, to mislead possible competitors. If so, it worked! He looks like a con artist. Now what?

By the way, I haven’t seen this much discussed: I  pointed out back in 2011 or so that with fixed water flow rate, which Rossi appeared to use, if sufficient to cool, water would overflow, unless it was “exactly set,” which is probably impossible. If it overflows, then the calorimetry is way off, since overflow water was not considered, it being assumed that all inflow was becoming steam.

But if it is not enough, then the cooling chamber will boil dry and the temperature will then “run away.” From the input power! No reaction needed.

Lugano looked good, I remember. McKubre thought it impressive, but pointed out the lack of a full input-power control. The Lugano professors provided a BS answer as to why that not done, which makes no sense. It is obvious that they simply repeated what they were told, either by Rossi or by Levi, passing it on.

Jed Rothwell was the first to really blow the whistle, as I recall, pointing out that the camera results (1400 C external temperature!) were radically inconsistent with the photographs. “Thomas Huxley” — an electrical engineering lecturer who prefers his real name not be used — did a careful analysis and showed how an incorrect emissivity value entered into the camera would generate the error.

But IH had made the Lugano reactor, and the test described in the deposition was before the Lugano test. I notice that Rossi fueled the Lugano reactor — and removed the fuel at the end. He also likely provided fuel from the Doral test  — or from his own stash –, and both isotopic analyses matched, even though Lugano was a month of operation and Doral was a year. Again and again, it’s obvious what has been going on, but some soldier on, very reluctant to admit error or delusion.

One more point to make (I believe I have covered this before, but it is a great example of how misinformation fed to the Lugano professors was accepted without question and repeated as if fact.) From the Lugano report:

The first phase of the test was dedicated to measuring the “dummy  reactor”, i.e. the E-Cat operating without its internal charge. […] by comparing power input, as measured by the two power analyzers, to power output as measured by us, we were able to ascertain that no overestimation had occurred.

This, then, covers the input power range tested with the dummy. Had they done this for the full input power range, they would not have been fooled by the emissivity error, and they could have made many pages of calculation unnecessary. Once the camera readings are calibrated with known input power, .calculating heat emission from temperature readings becomes redundant.

. . . [This] was not meant to compare the operation of the loaded reactor to the dummy run. In fact, such a procedure would have required that the same amount of power be supplied to the dummy and to the reactor.

Like a normal calorimetric calibration! Why avoid this?

They have an excuse. Where did they get this excuse from? Two guesses: Rossi or Levi (from Rossi). What we know is that Rossi routinely avoided control experiments. Asked about this, in 2011, he said they were a waste of time, he already knew what would happen. Nothing! The amazing thing about Rossi is that he made statements like that, often, and people still trusted him. Something about his eyes, maybe. And “he works so hard!”

Moreover, at the start of the measurements, there was no way of knowing what input power the loaded reactor would have absorbed.

No way? How about asking Rossi? How about using the internal thermocouple, if there was one, to make sure that the input power is not high enough to fry whatever in the reactor? What, indeed, restrained the input power in the actual test? Well, Rossi made the original setting. Surely he would have told them where he would set it, or could have disclosed how it was determined. Because of this failure to completely calibrate, the entire test was wasted, or worse than wasted, misleading.

To my knowledge, the professors never responded to any serious critique. This was not science, it was a commercial demonstration, and apparently fraudulent. (I.e., the professors were duped into following a defective test method, known to be defective to Rossi, at least, because of the earlier Industrial Heat “The Russians stole the fuel!” fiasco). Rossi then would, in matters like this, disclaim all responsibility for the results, “The professors did it!” Here comes the doozy:

In fact, it is well known that some Inconel cables have a crystalline structure that is modified by temperature, and are capable of withstanding high currents only if they are operated at the appropriate temperature.

I think this is a bit confused, but I’m not an expert on Inconel itself. Rather, if one takes a heating coil, and applies full power to it without allowing it to slowly heat, it may burn out. The filament in electric light bulbs tends to burn out with inrush current when the power is first applied: at low temperature, the resistance is lower, so current is higher, and heating is then very rapid. To avoid this, power should be applied to such heating elements slowly, simply using a dimmer will accomplish that. Thus maximum current is applied when the temperature is already high.

If these conditions are not met, microscopic melt spots are liable to occur in the cables. So, there was some fear of fracturing the ceramic body, due to the lower temperature of the thermal generators with respect to the loaded reactor.

This is confused. In the dummy test, the heating elements will be at a higher temperature than the rest of the reactor, since they were the “thermal generator.” Further, the ceramic body would only be subject to particular stress if the heating was very rapid, and that would be easily avoided by slowly raising the temperature. I’m sure that Rossi powered up this way: in fact, the full power-up-sequence should have been followed: in a control experiment, one would want everything exactly the same as in the experimental run. Ideally there would also be a dummy “fuel.” Something with similar heat capacity as the actual fuel, or at least close — just no XP expected. Maybe some gas other than hydrogen (nitrogen?). But just an empty fuel container could be useful.

For these reasons, power to the dummy reactor was held at below 500 W, in order to avoid any possible damage to the apparatus.

Yet in the actual test, the total power dissipated in the reactor was about 900 W for the input power, plus they claimed a COP in the experimental run of 3.6. That would indicate total power dissipation in the reactor of over 3.2 KW.

The inconel wires would be far hotter in an operating reactor than in a dummy. Something seems to have not been understood by the professors. If the wires are in an oven  at a certain temperature, caused by some other heating source, the power dissipation in the inconel wires will cause them to be hotter than the oven temperature, and, generally, brighter. The melting point of inconel is reported as 1390 to 1420 C. If the alumina body of the reactor were actually at 1400 C, as the professors claimed, the wires at 900 W dissipation would be very roughly 1000 degrees above that temperature.

(Notice that a small segment of heater wire appears yellow-hot in the photograph (below) outside the reactor at the end. If that is not a full-power photo, the matter is even worse.)

The wires would have melted long before. Instead, the professors indulge in a fantasy that defies basic physics. Somehow they have the wires being cooler than the environment they are sitting in. They made the same error in the earlier “professors” report, and did they respond to and learn from critique? Apparently not!

Figures 12a, 12b. E-Cat operating during the test. Note the Inconel resistors leaving the caps and entering the rods, where they are connected to the copper cables of the power supply. The resistors appear to glow intensely in the parts lying outside the caps, whereas inside the reactor body they seem to shade an underlying emission of light. This may be explained if we consider that the main source of energy inside the reactor body is actually the charge, and that it is emitting more light than the resistors. These are not visible through the caps, which are thicker than the reactor body. Upon leaving the reactor, however, the resistors emit heat almost  exclusively by radiation (convection is negligible here, as they are inside the rods): there are no brighter sources of light  which can “outshine” them, nor masses of alumina that can cool them. Their temperature is moreover fairly high, on account of the current they carry and the heat extracted by conduction from the reactor. Figure 12b was taken in the dark, from the opposite side to that of 12a. One of the three sets of hollow rods is visible, and another patch of insulating  alumina cement on the second metal strut in the middle, added without modifying the setup.

Resistive heat is additive. A resistor dissipating power will be hotter than the environment with which it exchanges heat (if that environment is itself being cooled by its surroundings). The labelling of these images is complete nonsense. Where did these “professors” learn physics? Yes, an additional source could be brighter, but the background would be the entire interior of the alumina cylinder, and the wires must be hotter than that if they are dissipating additional power. These photos show a cylinder that is likely below 900 C, in parts.

No matter how hot the fuel cylinder becomes, then, if it heats the inconel, as it will, the inconel will be hotter because of the extra power — unless it the fuel was far, far hotter than is involved here.

The appearance of “shading” is completely unclear in significance. Looks to me like the bright striations are the wires, and the dark striations are the rest of the interior and the fuel tube. Having nothing to compare the appearance with — and apparently having no idea what an alumina cylinder at 1400 C would look like (too bright to look at, apparently!), and no idea what this would look like with only 900 W of input power — they believed what they were told or imagined.

In any case, the failure to run a true control or calibration of their method was crucial and fatal, and the other issues merely show how gullible they were.

Industrial Heat had made a deliberate choice to humor Rossi, to avoid confronting him, and would not, at that point in 2014, have exposed Rossi’s shenanigans. In 2014, they agreed to allow Rossi to install the 1 MW plant in Florida, which I read as a last-ditch attempt to allow Rossi to demonstrate something real. Rossi, instead, demonstrated that he didn’t care about reality, nor did he care about keeping agreements, refusing to allow a visit by the IH engineering manager, in spite of the explicit contractual requirement. The so-called “ERV” (Engineer Responsible for Validation) refused to discuss his report, and he actually disappeared until he was eventually located for a deposition — useless — in the Dominican Republic.

Rossi’s history is one outrageousness after another (going back into the 1990s) . Yet he still has followers.

The biggest mystery to me is Mats Lewan. Mats, in an interview with Ruby Carat, made it quite clear that he had not examined the Rossi v. Darden trial documents, particularly those filed under oath, as well as actual and unchallenged emails. For the first time, it was all exposed, but … Mats has ignored all that and continues to believe whatever Rossi Says, it appears, even though Rossi emails show that Rossi lied to Lewan himself (or IH, about the Hydro Fusion test that Lewan attended and wrote about). Will Lewan wake up?

I don’t know. He has, however, demolished his credibility.

Author: Abd ulRahman Lomax

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

9 thoughts on “The Russians stole the fuel!”

  1. Here is something you did not mention, because it is blatantly obvious. Suppose, for the sake of argument, the Russians DID steal the fuel. We would still have to conclude that the calorimetry does not work. No matter how that cell ended up being empty, whether it was Russians, or I.H. by mistake, or I.H. deliberately, that does not change the conclusion. So, Rossi’s outburst was irrational. Highly irrational. Completely bonkers, in fact. I can understand that he was upset, but blaming someone (anyone!) because the cell was empty is a diversion.

    Needless to say, a real scientist would run an empty cell in the first place, as a calibration, and he would find out the calorimetry does not work.

    1. I thought I mentioned that, not in the post, but in a comment. If I did, I failed to save it. However, Simon mentioned it below, i.e., that it was actually irrelevant who took the fuel, it was serendipitious (but it was known how it came to be that there was no fuel). Rossi was simply creating a smokescreen to avoid the obvious issue of defective calorimetry, which could have dismantled his entire view of his own work, or exposed his deception, one or the other. Rossi refused to help IH further, when they requested it, apparently. He was going to try to get them to pay another way.

  2. We only see an unshakable belief as reprehensible when it doesn’t agree with our own unshakable beliefs. I don’t understand how anyone looking at the court proceedings can retain any degree of belief that Rossi has a working device, but in reading the various blogs I come across people who obviously still have a strong belief in Rossi. Then again, as I’ve noted before, people still believe in John Worral Keely and try to replicate something that was very obviously a fraud, and I also have discussions with people who really believe the Bessel had a working Wheel or are trying to base their ideas of how to obtain Free Energy on inventions that obviously (to me) never worked.

    Bruce_H’s analysis here seems to be as close to the truth as we can achieve on limited information, and explains a lot. Bob’s ideas complement that. A long time ago I used to work in a pottery, with firing temperature around 1100°C, so the radiance and colour of something at that temperature (and how it tends to dry your eyes if you look too long) is something I have experience in. As such, having a dogbone at around 1400°C would be hard to look at and to be near, and of course the colour in the photograph would have been different. From the photos, around 900°C, but of course we can’t really rely on a digital photo (the one shown here is not the brightest or most-even of the photos released). Given that the heater wires were being driven, though, the temperature of those wires would have been significantly higher than the body they were heating (standard thermodynamics) and should have been close to melting if they were not driven but instead being heated by the “nuclear reaction”. As it stands, though, they should have actually melted, and also the internal thermocouple (used for control) should have melted. What we are being invited to believe just isn’t physically possible, even if there was some nuclear reaction.

    The accidental dummy reactor where the fuel was stolen by the Russians (always a convenient scapegoat) was a serendipitous confirmation that the excess heat was solely experimental error. Also of course most likely deliberate errors. I see it as a slam-dunk refutation of all Rossi’s claims, but of course there are still people who ignore that in the hope that Rossi Will Save The World. As far as I can see, there’s no need to wait until the current feline is abandoned in favour of the next, and we can basically ignore any Rossi claim.

    One reason Rossi had some credibility at the start is that the things he was doing were extensions of what Piantelli had done. Through JONP Rossi also collected ideas from various people as to other methods that would be logical to attempt. Crowd-sourcing the ideas, which is actually a brilliant idea. Thus the things that Rossi claimed to be doing would make sense to Alan Smith and Russ George, and extending them further (and actually measuring the results correctly) could be a valid way to achieve success. Reports from Russ and Alan, who are collaborating, sound hopeful as regards a nuclear reaction, though the presence of gammas says it’s not the same as the F+P reaction which showed almost no gammas. There’s a benefit in believing that something “impossible” has been done, in that you need to think out a logical way in which it could actually work, and maybe they’ve done that. Whereas I wouldn’t trust RossiSays, I’d trust Russ and Alan to tell the truth and to take care with the measurements, so the hints of real progress are hopeful. That of course may explain the reason Alan and Russ believe that Rossi had a real result, even though it’s pretty obvious that Rossi lied about it.

  3. Here is a guess that I have described before.

    I think Mr Rossi was worried that during the test in Doral some of the ecats contained dummy reactors placed there by IH to catch him out. This is why, in the end, the only reactors used in the test were the 24 reactors sitting in the 4 “Big Frankies”. Those were reactors that had been fueled by Rossi himself (I think in Italy) and were the only ones that he had complete control over.

    There were many other reactors at Doral sitting in a different part of the red shipping container. But some of these had been fueled by IH and Rossi couldn’t trust that there weren’t dummies amongst them. So, the day after after the initial site visit by Penon, Rossi declared that all of those reactors were leaky and dangerous (they had grounding problems so they probably were, indeed, dangerous). And forthwith shut them all down! A couple of days later the official 1-year started.

    There are reports oi Penon and Rossi having a shouting match on the Doral premises. I am unclear about the date of the tiff, but can you imagine Penon’s position when he returned to Doral for his second on site visit only to find that the whole system had been radically reconfigured from 116 reactors down to 24? No wonder they fought! Even if Penon was in on the overall deception I think his point would have been “Andrea! You can’t do this! It is too obvious!”. He never mentioned this as a problem in any of his reports though.

    By the way, this is why the 24 pumps on the Big Frankie reactors were called upon to do so much pumping. With the original 116 pumps (one for every reactor) there would have been no problem at all handling the volume of water needed to transfer 1MW of heat. Even if you subtract the 24 Big Frankie pumps (because those reactors were originally intended by IH as backups) that still leaves 92 pumps which is plenty for pumping 35 m^3 of water per day even if they are only at half of their rated maximal guaranteed capacity. This is how the IH engineers designed the system. With 24 pumps however … big problem! The remaining pumps now enter an operational fantasy land (a fantasy that only intensified after Big Frankie reactors started to fail electrically in summer 2015 … eventually there were only 18 pumps left to carry the whole load). This also explains why Rossi came up with the idea of a master pump somewhere on the JMP side of the Doral facility that somehow forced water through the small pumps mounted on the reactors and into the Big Frankies. Rossi knew that there would be difficulties explaining the pumping capacities of the remaining pumps and so he came up with this harebrained idea. He told Engineer48 about it while the Doral test was still ongoing and Engineer48 bought it with his usual unquestioning credulity. He (E48) then spent fruitless months trying to locate photo evidence that this was the way that the setup was actually plumbed. It wasn’t though. What a waste of time! With a friend like Rossi, who needs enemies?

    1. Plausible. Now, what is really weird. Had Doral actually been the GPT, there was no minimum power requirement! One reactor functioning at the required COP would have sufficed. Rossi is obsessed with “COP” (ratio of output to input), which is a poor measure. Having unidentified dummy reactors, identified by failure to produce power, would have been an excellent test!

  4. I am not trained nor claim to have any expert knowledge into psychology. However, over the years, real life experience seems to have shown a pattern of people who attach themselves to a “philosophy” .
    Examples are that most vegetarians I know, often attempt to proselytize others. Of course, it is the main goal of most religions to convert. This is not necessarily bad in itself and not my point.

    The point I see is that often, people who have this mentality, have the inability (or made the choice) to NOT debate or discuss the a critique of their philosophy. Their belief has become attached or a “part of them”. So if this philosophy is put in serious question by logical argument, then they themselves will be found lacking. Therefore, they will not entertain any facts that counters their belief system. I.E., many times they will refuse to even look at it. Probably because either conscious or subconsciously, they know it shatters their world view.

    I see this with Mats, he has become an acolyte of Rossi. Not seriously questioning and has tied a part of himself to the “success” of the eCat. While some have such a high hope that the eCat is real and they simply do not understand (or have obtained the full story of Rossi) they have a distorted view, others cannot fall into that category. Mats, included. He has the training and exposure, but has chosen to ignore and NOT pursue the truth. It would damage his world view.

    Some others are harder to understand, such as Mr. Smith on LENR. Clearly intelligent, experienced and insightful, he still gives the occasional thumbs up to Rossi. Is this because his current venture, “Looking for Heat” is so closely tied to Rossi that admitting Rossi is a fraud tarnishes his venture? Possibly he just likes to stir the pot and knows posting a pro-Rossi statement will rile people!

    I sort of understand the mind set of some people that belligerently defend Rossi. They are either ignorant of the facts or deluded. However, I am fascinated by others such as Russ George or Alan Smith. Both knowledgeable, have experience, are capable of logical thought. Yet choose to be blinded by the prodigious amounts of damning evidence against Rossi having anything!

    Large amounts of historical fact showing his propensity of lying, cheating and fraud.
    Large amounts of court deposition showing the same.
    Large amounts of actual “demos” proving that he refuses legitimate tests or confirmation of any kind.
    Large amounts of posting on his own blog showing that he is a master manipulator and full of s…t!
    and it continues on…. No evidence whatsoever showing any redeeming actions or qualities.
    Yet some still believe…….

    It is truly an amazing study of the human mind. Someone should do their thesis on this very “Church of Rossi” phenomena!

    Has this truly done damage to Cold Fusion in the masses because of the “cult like” exposure? I mean look at some of Bob Greenyer’s postings! “O” day just being one of them. Sounds similar to “end of the world” proclamations. Even Russ George’s odd and bombastic posts are puzzling.

    No wonder most legitimate researchers such as Higgins, McKubre, Letts and others do not often visit sites such ECatWorld (or even perhaps LENR Forum). I do not go to cult meetings myself! (At least not too often)

    1. When a meme has been incorporated into our identity, it can be very difficult to dislodge. It will be seen as an attack on identity, and humans instinctively resist that (and for good cause, as to the general case, but …. it creates a rigidity that can be long-term dysfunctional). Mats isolated himself when he cut off discussion on his blog in 2016. My sense was that he made a choice that he didn’t have the time for it, but there was an other option that apparently did not occur to him: delegate discussion management to someone else willing. I’d certainly have done it for him, had he asked! Mats then has only participated in E-Cat World, as far as I know. He does not discuss the most obvious bloopers on his blog. To him, all that discussion is just endless argument with no point. Certainly it can be. But fact gets lost in the shuffle, the blanket rejection comments as being “biased,” as if he is not, himself, biased. As is all too common, Mats doesn’t look at himself. seeking depth.

      I can imagine his looking at the Rossi v. Darden documents and throwing his hands up in the air. Too much! However, he imagines he must do it by himself. He has not developed a sense of how to learn as a community, rather than merely as an individual. Mats was a journalist, and appears to have been a responsible one. It was appropriate, my opinion, for him to give Rossi a full and fair hearing. (Krivit has his own identity, fearless muckraker, yellow journalist extraordinaire. Krivit emphasized over and over Rossi’s prior Italian convictions, which were largely a non-sequitur, as well as being (somewhat) exaggerated. Rossi’s personality has become reasonably transparent. He cuts corners, disregards rules and expectations. I think he may literally be insane, i.e., he may, in some way, believe even the most preposterous of his rants and explanations. The “Russians stole the fuel” incident shows how, if we don’t assume it is all deliberate lies, that he might be wrong about how to measure heat is unthinkable.

      At ICCF-21, I had some extended conversation with Bob Greenyer. He made a particularly remarkable claim. His “Red Pill” material was a deliberate effort to appear insane. It worked. (He was definitely not consistent: when I mentioned the obvious mania, he said, “projection.” — and he also attributed the obvious affect to “excitement.” Sure. That is what mania feels like on the inside. Okay, except that he’s acknowledged creating the impression!

      By the way, visiting my son in Colorado Springs after the conference, I mentioned that I had never actually seen the movie, The Matrix, which is the original “Red Pill or Blue Pill” reference. So he ordered it up and I watched it. Fascinating. A great deal of the ontology is familiar to me, from my training. Our experience as a construct is routinely familiar. So many details were of high interest….

    2. Here is a telling quote from Mallove’s book:

      “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions they reached perhaps with great difficulty, conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

      – Leo Tolstoy

      My late mother was an expert in public opinion research and statistics. She often discussed this kind of unshakable belief. She cheerfully admitted that some of her own beliefs fell in this category. For example, she said that no amount of statistical proof would ever convince her that there are inherent (biological) differences in IQ between different races. She knew perfectly were there are large differences between races, and in the same race over time, but she was sure this can be explained by culture and environmental factors.

      1. Intelligence can be a crazy topic, because it’s poorly defined. “IQ,” however, is easily defined: it is a test score (“quotient”) on a standardized test. Combine this with another fuzzy topic, race, and we get Endless Argument.

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