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A Cold Look at Cold Fusion Claims: Why E-Cat Looks Like a Hoax
In the past few days, several readers have submitted word of a paper published on Arxiv allegedly confirming the efficacy of Andrea Rossi's "E-Cat," a device Rossi says transmutes nickel into copper, producing cheap energy in the process. (Mentioned before on Slashdot.) Ethan Siegel of ScienceBlogs takes a skeptical look at the buzz surrounding this paper, and asks some seemingly obvious questions, pointing out various ways in which the cold-fusion / cheap-energy claims could be either confirmed or debunked. First time accepted submitter CdXiminez writes with a capsule of Siegel's points: "What would it take to convince a reasonable observer that you've got a controlled nuclear reaction going on here? Things not shown in the earlier report: Show that nuclear transmutation has in fact taken place; Start the device operating by whatever means you want, then disconnect all external power to it, and allow it to run; Place a gamma-ray detector around the device; Accurately monitor the power drawn from all sources to the device at all times, while also monitoring the energy output from the device at all times."
If cold fusion were invented tomorrow everything changes...
True. I for one would be worried about getting hit by one of those flying pigs.
If they want to know if the E-Cat works, why don't they just measure it with an E-meter?
Ezekiel 23:20
Still too low. 1 sucker born per second would result in only about 24% of people being suckers.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Actually it's not PT Barnum either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute
Your URL makes it sound like the quote is "There's 27 suckers born every minute."
Must be due to inflation.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Well, Barnum & Fields were the principals.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
My D-Wave tells me the E-Cat will work.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
assume for a minute you could head down to your local supermarket and pick up a portable flying pig ....
BAH!
All the real investment these days is in on-demand bacon home delivery by quadcopter drone. And quite rightly, too.
The future is looking quite utopian to those with true vision.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
you can also tell by the date stamped on them :)