I still like to learn. Today I come upon this paper,
actually an ancient management/business slogan:
You Can Learn More From Failure Than Success
It is an excellent paper due to the well chosen applications;
however the idea per se is a relative and fragmented truth (a Pareto truth)
I want to show you my own examples, pedagogical failures and
simply harmful failures. Two recent examples:
A week ago I have launched a very emotional appeal to the
Professors who have tested Rossi’s Hot Cat. A day before yesterday I had a fine
Skype discussion with a very young and very new (in the field) LENR researcher
and I was amazed how
much is he worried by Rossi’s chaotic, unpredictable, bad behavior?
He thinks Rossi does a lot of harm to the field.
OK I have not received any signal, response from the
Professors.
I have learned more but have understood even less from
Rossi’s Blog
a) there were 15 professors plus
helpers:
Dear Paul:
The tests have involved 15 persons between Professors and Researchers from 4 Universities and I do not know where the publication will be made. I cannot know if between them there was also a reviewer of a scientific magazine. I have not been told anything about this issue.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
The tests have involved 15 persons between Professors and Researchers from 4 Universities and I do not know where the publication will be made. I cannot know if between them there was also a reviewer of a scientific magazine. I have not been told anything about this issue.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
b) Rossi CANNOT give the names etc.
of the professors:
1.
Dear Andrea Rossi
Can you reveal the names of the Professors of the Indipendent Party that made the report, and from which Universities they are?
Can you reveal the names of the Professors of the Indipendent Party that made the report, and from which Universities they are?
Warm Regards
2. Translate
Dear Yona:
No, I cannot.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
No, I cannot.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Why?
c) people are trying in vain to get
any information about those professors: \
1.
Dear Ing.Rossi
you do not know where the publication of tests will be made by the Professors, but i think you know when will be made.
I will try to explain better my opinion.
I think the professors have a dead line to make the publication, for example 60 days from the end of their tests.
Am I wrong?
you do not know where the publication of tests will be made by the Professors, but i think you know when will be made.
I will try to explain better my opinion.
I think the professors have a dead line to make the publication, for example 60 days from the end of their tests.
Am I wrong?
2.
Dear gio:
you are wrong, the Professors are totally indipendent from us.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
you are wrong, the Professors are totally indipendent from us.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
And I have no news, because, as I said, I have
not contacts with the Third Indipendent Party’s Professors since the end of the
tests. I can only repeat that the publication of the report will be surely
published.
My appeal to the Professors has failed
miserably, I have even not received confidential information from some friend
saying he knows them but he cannot tell anything due to NDA. The most relevant
common characteristic of the professors is their total independence.
Independency from what?
This insuccess is a failure, but not only my
personal failure; Reason, Common Sense and Professionalism are in the same boat
with me.
An other failure, more painful
Two weeks ago I have published: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2013/04/science-or-engineering-science-and.html
It went almost unnoticed and uncommented
despite the fact that it contains some really challenging ideas as:
a) Cold Fusion is in such a deep trouble
because it has arrived too early when we were still missing the means and ideas
necessary for solving the problem. This justifies perfectly the failure to convert
Cold Fusion in a practical energy source and actually is great historical
compliment for our Founding Fathers. And, despite these the idea was 110%
ignored,
b) The
scientific method cannot be applied well to LENR just because a) is still valid;
a creative symbiosis of science and engineering is the condition to solve the
problems – both understanding and applications.
c) The dream and promise of Cold Fusion was
Infinite Cheap Clean Energy and the idea of a perfect theory has appeared only
later after the accumulation of many
experimental failures of a specific kind based on difficult reproduction of the
results. The losing and defeatist idea that both insiders and outsiders have
the ethical-scientific obligation to tolerate irreproducible results was
created by necessity and works against genuine problem solving.
OK, this writing had zero success. Should I
tell only pleasant things to my dear colleagues? I prefer telling what I think
it is the truth- as LENR is NOT LENR+.
An unfulfilled promise is a failure too.
Mea maxima culpa: when I wrote http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/02/unwise-ancient-parable.html
I have promised to
systematically debunk pseudo-wise parables and stories of all ages, but I have
not followed the idea in part being lazy, in part being busy and eventually
being scared to offend some sacred cows. I wrote a sketch of essay showing how
unrealistic is the Parable of the Tares but I have never published it. That
parable is contrary to a vital principle in both life and profession: be
proactive!
A great failure – apologizes?
I wrote an informative web-search newsletter
for 437 weeks (in Romanian) when I have worked at the local ISP. When I lost my
job and have started with on my Blog http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/01/info-search-no-1-438_16.html in English, using the same taxonomy.
Surprise: the Romanian variant had over 7000 subscribers; the English one was
practically ignored. Being stubborn, I have continued to compose these long
issues with 120-150 useful and interesting links each till No 500, but then I
have abandoned step-wise the publication completely.
INFORMVORE”S SUNDAY was completely forgotten
for 1.5 years at least, however starting yesterday – as my Blog’s statistics
say it has a few hundred of readers, seemingly all coming from Poland
But I want to express my gratitude to these
readers. Dziękuję!
Regarding LENR, I have learned a lot from
failures, however it is the time to learn from very successful LENR+
breakthroughs and this will be my main job in the coming months.
Peter
There are no professors. If there were professors, rumors and leaks would have appeared. I predicted two weeks ago that he would never release the names of the 'professors', because they only serve to extend his fraud.
ReplyDeleteIt SEEMS you are right, however I had so many surprises
Deleteas told 80% bad and 20% good in my life that my honest answer is "I don't know"
I learned the principle of learning more from errors from quotes of Zepelin. This man know much about building, innovating, and failing.
ReplyDeleteAbout how science as a community can cope with the black swan called LENR, I've considered the work of Thomas Kuhn on the structure of scientific revolution.
from his work it is clear that :
- LENR as anomalies were rejected as you can expect fromv any anomaly chalenging "normal science". absolutely normal
- LENR have no hope to be accepted without a total, all encompassing theory,
- LENR will only be accepted when giving huge advantage to the "new school" compared to the "old school"
this is a reason to confirm that your vision of LENR+ is the good one.
there is no hope in proving LENR, because all evidence will be rejected whatever they are.
LENR evidence are already much enough, and they were enough even in 91... what happened after 91 is the usual denial of fact that Thomas Kuhn describe until there is a full perfect theory that give huge advantage to it's believers, compared to the installed normal science.
You don't fight denial with fact. Science in "normal mode" is immune to facts.
The usual solution to get out of denial is when the "new school scientists" find a fully coherent and greatly advantageous new theory...
We are far from that, and we need much funding to find experimental evidence driving theoretical ideas... Solution like LHC to generate not few anomalies, but a huge volume of anomalies.
Where can came that funding ?
The funding have to came from LENR+, the "business compatible" version of LENR. not an anomaly, but an industry.
My idea is that first you make it fly, and it seems the case for Defkalion, Rossi and Brillouin.
Then with the cash you fund research.
I would warn researchers not to continue to focus on theoretical explanation, and to focus on experimental data, then on phenomenological analysis to make control better.
That is what the Wright brothers have done, and that was the key.
the theory is to be found, sure, but it is like finding a girlfriend, a wife, a mother for your kids...
You don't start by dreaming of kids, at the first date.
First seduce her, then share intimacy, then marry and develop projects together, then kids will came without much efforts.
for LENR, first make it happens, then increase the signal, then understand the factors, then develop phenomenological model and control, then increase volume of data on what is happening...
and theory will came naturally, like kids in a loving couple.
and please, until the end, scientist should forget about theory.
LENR have been plagued by theoretical concerns...
claims of impossibility while it was simply unexplained results, and on the other side, pet theories that started from easy theories breaking QM instead of proposing imaginative process in known QM.
by the way, this plan seems coherent with defkalion scientific strategy.
Maybe is it the spirit of engineers.
NB: in France, engineer is a strange concept between science, management and technology...but we consider that Eiffel was an engineer, like Von braun, Vauban,Cugnot, Zeppelin, Tesla - see http://www.jesuismort.com/biographie_celebrite_chercher/celebre-ingenieur-61.php - this is in France what we have nearest to the garage inventor.
Dear Alain,
DeleteI like your ideas that add value to this paper.
I will be glad to discuss with you in private e.g.
on Skype as I have yesterday with our mutual friend M.V.
As you know, the French professors of engineering have taught me essential things.
Peter
No need to overcomplicate. To be credible to main line science and main line media, all LENR proponents need to do is what Rossi, Defkalion and Miley claim to have done.
ReplyDeleteThey need to show a reactor which makes dozens or hundreds of watts with little or no power input for periods of days or weeks using an overall volume which can't hide fuel or batteries. NOBODY HAS EVER DONE THIS under proper conditions of observation and measurement by reliable and credible people.
The continual evasive behavior of Rossi, Defkalion and Miley suggests nothing but fraud in the case of the first two and probably self delusion or errors in the case of Miley.
As for all the others, their claims to power output are either small and probably attributable to measurement errors, or they can't reproduce the experiments themselves, much less having them reproduced independently.
There are excellent reasons most people pay no attention to claims for LENR. They are simply not convincing.
Dear Mary,
DeleteJust let's make a sharp difference between credibilityand his double "main line" is so snobbish.
Otherwise I fully agree with you that perfect "beyond any doubt" demos have to be made.
May I remind you my old blog paper: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/05/call-for-perfect-e-cat-experiment.html
Rossi has ignored it and I became persona non grata on his blog. However it is still time for an absolutely convincing test.
Peter
It is not in the commercial interests of the current Ni/H reactor developers to reveal the capabilities of their products. Such a revelation would awaken intense industrial competition. Even though this excuse to keep a low profile has been used by scammers for centuries to justify lack of product proof, sometimes a low profile turns out to be just that.
DeleteIt may just be giving these LENR reactor developers time to understand what their products are doing.
Unlike the US government who can afford to keep their projects black until they are forced to reveal them when the bombs fall, commercial R&D shops need to release some info to keep the development funds coming in.
Is this behavior a scam or just business as usual in this modern age?
Our system of commerce has recourse to those who so invest. As has happened recently with John Rohner of Papp engine celebrity, the investors in his company got to a point where they felt compelled to inform the FBI that they may have been conned and John Rohner is currently up to his earlobes in lawyers and their fees.
This is appropriate justice; this is a powerful deterrent to inappropriate commercial behavior, just ask Bernie Madoff.
Besides all this commercial investor regulation, do the investors in alternative energy systems need maryyugo to look after their interests? Yes, Mary has a heart of gold and cares about all the stupid people.
The proper tools of business exist. IMHO, if she wants to do some good, Mary should spend her considerable time, talent, and energy fighting the moves of entrenched interests to deregulate governmental regulation of commerce.
Random Observations:
ReplyDelete- New Energy (such as offered by LENR+) is a potential global game changer (we all would know this)
- There are 3 types of glory/satisfaction from discovering a 'dramatic' new invention :-
1) being the officially recognized inventor - likely a Nobel prize - and/or name goes up in lights and is written into history of mankind
2) making a lot of money from commercialization (like an Edison)
3) achieving a purely personal satisfaction at making such a discovery
- Visions of endless fame and wealth are able to 'blind' even the most seeing person. That blindness can lead to strange behavior. It can also lead to delusions of grandeur.
- Highly creative and inventive people (right brain dominance), can often become so attached to their inventions (even art) that they will not let it go. It can be as if they fear they will lose a part of themselves if they hand their creation over to others. This aspect of creatives, is (IMHO) is usually not fully understood by more logical (less creative left brain processing) people who may simply regard such behavior as highly suspicious if not as evidence outright dishonesty. Some people in such a position may prefer to take their discovery to their grave rather than share it.
- There are and have been in the life of us people, dreams of technology control/environmental control, specifically: harnessing fire, safety from predation, ready comfort, reliable access to food, easy transport, personal & group flight, access to global knowledge, variations on space travel, endless cheap energy, teleporation, etc: etc:. Many such dreams have been achieved, some seem close, others still in the realm of fantasy.
- Dreams can be incredibly powerful to some among us. They may even warp reality for some.
DSM