THE 1 = 0 RULE, GENERALIZED.

School for Phoenix Birds

Today I burn a feather,

Tomorrow a tip of my claw,

And so I learn how to not forget

To reborn from my ashes

I wrote this short poem of optimist desperation (we will succeed to resurrect as those birds!) in 1988 when we hoped that the communist dictatorship will end somehow, but we had no idea how it will happen. A year later I knew it, an untitled

poem but actually “Ceausescu” said:

On my island made of wax,

 In the midst of a hot Ocean,

 I stay and wait…”

He has not waited much, the island disappeared and Ceausescu has learned fast about the risks of the profession of dictator. We resurrected, more or less.

However I will speak now about the brave Phoenix Birds, a wonderful symbol of continuity, even with the high price of an obviously painful but well organized series of resurrections.

In my previous editorial “The Best Recipe for Disaster” I have described how Cold Fusion has abandoned – forced by the hostile outer and inner circumstances, in the frame of its original sin- bad reproducibility-its essential aim: Energy. But I knew this idea has to be continued. And now it will be about continuity, because the long history of cold fusion-LENR was continuously uglified by discontinuities in the experimental work , by sad cases of projectus interruptus. A success is not a success still it does not follow the normal cycle of growing up, developing, improving, slowly and peacefully, get old and eventually being replaced y something even better and so on. The successes in LENR were

very short-lived

As it usually happen, the Spirit of Internet offered his generous help. First it has sent me the newsletter of Psychotactics with a paper entitled: “The 6 Most Important Lessons In Marketing”

What is true for marketing and these six lessons are as follows:          1) Follow up; 2) Follow up; 3) Follow up; 4) Follow up;            5) Follow up; 6) Follow up.- is true for many positive human activities- for example science and technology-too. If you don’t follow up, you have achieved nothing. Your work will remain a footnote in the history of the field.

Then at the LENR forums two very long threads have reminded us how variable but unpredictable and unmanageable the experimental results were and how difficult it is to obtain passable results in the PdD systems despite the accumulated huge

experimental data. How many hopes raising high and then falling!

In a bit euphemistic, hardened form “jumping like a lion, falling like a stone.” The standard culprit is lack of funding, but nobody takes the risk to answer to an utopian question like: “suppose we have endless funding; is there a guarantee that somebody will solve the problems of reproducibility and scale up? Or, do you think that is possible?” If somebody happens to be interested in my opinion that is: without removal of gas molecules that compete with deuterium, decent levels (>99.9%) of reproducibility will be never attained; and the original wet

system is unable to attain usable energy densities. Do not say me please:”it is easy to make wise negativist predictions when you know you will go and will get rid of any responsibility for your statements!”

But my special experience in mythical aviculture has taught me a lot from the Phoenix birds, I will come back and continue my activity. Just continue to watch this blog.

I repeat for the n-th time, lack of reproducibility MUST have an explanation and even more, MUST have solutions- finding these is the raison d’etre of research. And certainly, outsiders will never accept a process that is not highly, safely, knowingly reproducible! Please allow me here to ask two naïve rhetorical questions:

Is it a serious problem that serious problems are not taken seriously?

Why loving inside constructive critics is ignored and hateful attacks are answered in the minutest details, with quasi-infinite repetition of old data?

The 1 = 0 Rule, explained

The OLTCHIM research lab was a  fine place, we had to deliver  results and fast have worked under stress and pressure- coming in great part from people who had no idea about research and chemistry but having great power- it was a dictatorship, autocracy then. The possibilities of information were limited but I succeeded to convince some people that it is necessary; anyway we had a lot of Russian books and journals. In critical cases as in `1974-5 when it was discovered that vinyl-chloride is a dangerous carcinogen and the technology of PVC was revolutionized- we have received everything we needed because it seemed to be a case of “solve it or perish1” for this major polymer.

Some smart people in the great libraries of Romania have started to translate the basic Western management literature and this has stimulated our thinking and gave us an unlimited appetite to learn

And to discover such rules and principles and truths and we have also tried to discover some good practices in research.

We had successes but some cases that first seemed to go well, turned out to be complete failures, when taking everything in account and developing a broader vision/understanding. We have introduced a precautionary rule: one result is no result, one analysis is still no valid analysis, one single test (good or bad) has to be temporarily ignored and repeated. You got it this became the axiomatic 1 = 0 Rule. It was extended to some childishly simple but useful ideas as: continuation is more important than start, it is more important to re-think an idea than to discover it, first remove the weak points and later developed the strong points, always take care first of the risks, we have concocted a primitive form of SWOT. The opuses of Deming, Juran and Crosby and our practice have taught us that constancy of quality is more important than peak performances. We have embraced critical thinking and had series of illuminations regarding scientific and technological

experts… but enough of vain nostalgia, let’s better to continue to learn. Complementary to the 1 -0 rule is the high art to know when a project has to be abandoned and the resources spent for better ones. It is about the essential difference between effectiveness and efficiency- ask Peter Drucker!

If we apply the 1 = 0 Rule to the long history of CF/LENR we will suffer heavy losses. If a study, method idea gives good excellent or/and promising results but it is discontinued, there are great chances that it has no development potential or it has hidden inner weaknesses.

We can conclude against our wish that LENR despite being more than certainly very real, has no bright future, it will be almost impossible to improve the experimental situation so LENR is in crisis as long as we remain in the frame of LENR (classic LENR)

It happens that my hyper-informed colleague, Axil, leader of the New Wave thinking in our field has just found an elegant up-the-target formulation of the perspective (extracted from his Vortex message):                                                                                        LENR reaction is weak, transient, random, and intermittent. This ethereal nature of the LENR reaction makes it useless.  The LENR advocate must come up with a plan to make the LENR reaction strong, permanent, consistent, and controllable LENR+

This working strategy is clearly modeled after the Phoenix birds- you have to destroy your old nature and resurrect with a new viable, superior nature. Not an easy job, but the alternative is worse and it does not exist. Perhaps you can imagine other

solutions but it is very possible that the following quotation

is true in that case:

“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.”
(Jules de Gaultier)

Peter

Supplement: a few inspiring quotes only for LENR+ apprentices and students

Actually these are more than quotations- they are partners for your dialogues about the LENR/LENR+ problems: Real imaginary dialogues- it will go well

Phoenix birds

There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been the first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we're got on damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we'll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember every generation.” (Ray Bradbury)

Fawkes is a phoenix, Harry. Phoenixes burst into flame when it is time for them to die and are reborn from the ashes.”  (J.K. Rowling)
 

Rising in Triumph, just like the phoenix (Loretta Livingstone)

Only after disaster can we be resurrected. (Chuck Palahniuk)

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection. (Voltaire)
― Voltaire

Succeed quotes

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. (Bill Cosby)

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. (Thomas A. Edison) 

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. (John D. Rockefeller)

In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can. (Nikos Kazantzakis) 

Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand. (Robert G. Allen)

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people. (Abdul Kalam)

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time. (Anthony J. D'Angelo) 

It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary. (Winston Churchill) 

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
(Theodore Roosevelt) 

 I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed. (Booker T. Washington)

To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal. (Abdul Kalam) 

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed. (Napoleon Hill) 

The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare. (Bobby Knight) 

They succeed, because they think they can. (Virgil) 

Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud. (Sophocles) 

People in their handlings of affairs often fail when they are about to succeed. If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure. (Lao Tzu) 

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment. (R. Buckminster Fuller) 

The way to succeed is to double your error rate. (Thomas J. Watson) 

Professionalism is not sportsmanship. If you don't succeed, you won't be in your profession for long. In our society, it's not about good or bad. It's about who's on top. (Chili Davis) 

If at first you don't succeed... so much for skydiving. (Henny Youngman) 

People with goals succeed because they know where they're going.
(Earl Nightingale) 

Most people who succeed in the face of seemingly impossible conditions are people who simply don't know how to quit.
(Robert H. Schuller) 

I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed; and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.
(Tom Hopkins) 

It is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail. (Peter Marshall) 

The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody else's rules, while quietly playing by your own.
(Michael Korda) 

The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success. (Michael Korda) 

To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them. (Aristotle Onassis) 

To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying again. (David Viscott) 

A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm. (Charles Schwab) 

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
(Quentin Crisp) 

It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.
(Harvey S. Firestone) 

Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance. (Wynton Marsalis) 

To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business. (J. Paul Getty) 

A continuation quote

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. (Winston Churchill)

And a last one, what I think about CF/LENR too:

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” (Thomas Edison)