NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/physics/fusion/2710

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 7.3 KB | 127 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!pacbell.com!tandem!zorch!fusion
From: Jed Rothwell <[e-mail]>
Subject: Britz Reveals A Fraud
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Scott Hazen Mueller)
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <[e-mail]>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 02:32:07 GMT
Lines: 115

To: >INTERNET:[e-mail]

Dieter Britz writes:

"One thing you have not addressed is WHY such a fine wire was used there. You
or Notoya clearly went to some trouble to put it there. As I say, it can't
have been easy to solder it on, and one doesn't accidentally grab a bit of 40
mu wire instead of a normal lead, like the fat one connected to the other
cell. Come on, allay my suspicions, convince me this was not a premeditated -
shall we politely say, false-front PR demo setup.
Don't wait for me to telephone/fax you, tell us here."

I tell you what, right here, right now. I thought you were making a sick joke
the other day when you suggested it was a 'false front PR demo' (a fraud). Now
I see you really mean it. You are completely out of your mind! Why on earth
would anyone do that? As I have stated, over and over again, Notoya will bring
the very same device, with new wires, to M.I.T. on Dec. 3; and she invites
*anyone* to investigate it, and measure the resistance, or measure anything
else they want.

She said that, I translated it and said it right here, and you ignored me,
because you are crank and a fool, I suppose. What on earth do you think she
could accomplish by setting up a 'false front?' It would last until the
afternoon of December 3rd. It is nuts! She would simply destroy her career and
become a laughingstock. And how on earth would she get people like Mizuno and
her boss Enyo to go along with it? Mizuno was quoted in the national
newspapers and on television saying that he had observed he laboratory
experiments, and they were solid and reliable. Why would *he* want to destroy
himself? What is the motive?

As to WHY a fine wire was used, she said it was the first thing at hand on her
workbench, and she did not think twice about it. She had no other reason for
using it. You are wrong, it was no trouble to work with. She disassembled both
bottles in my presence, to show me what was in them and how she put them
together, and it was not the least bit difficult to work with that wire. She
has replaced the wire already, and the effect continues. I doubt very much
that the resistance was as high as Steve Jones thought; a silver wire would
have to be nearly invisible to offer as much resistance as he calculates. I do
not understand the source of his confusion (if that is what it is), but I
think it would be wise for him to accept a sample from Notoya; or to wait a
few weeks and measure the resistance again at MIT; or have someone else do it.
I suggest it would be far better to use a standard meter, rather than to play
a guessing game by fiddling with an unfamiliar power supply, and moving around
alligator clips. Notoya reminds everyone that alligator clips make a poor
connection, and they can change the resistance and other electrical
characteristics radically if you do not make certain they are firmly
connected. It is better to measure at the entrance and exit points of the
bottle.

She said if she gets a chance, she will measure the size and resistance of the
discarded wires, so if I hear from her, I will post the numbers. If you don't
want to believe that she is telling me the truth, or that I am posting what
she told me, you can go jump into a lake.

When I told her about Steve's comments, she said, "why on earth didn't he ask
for a small sample of the wire. There was a pair of scissors on the table." It
seemed to her, and to me, the most obvious and logical thing in the world. I
certainly would have asked for a sample, if I had any doubts or questions.
Steve said he talked to her directly, which I am glad to hear. I wish he had
talked a little more.

As for you, Dieter, for years, you have been pretending that you are an
objective, fair minded, impartial observer. The man we trust to read the
literature and give us a "balanced view." Now we see you crawl out from under
your rock and accuse someone of committing deliberate fraud. You have only the
thinnest of thin evidence to believe this! There is no earthy reason for
Notoya to commit fraud; indeed, if she has done so, it will immediately
destroy her. So, you have jumped to an utterly illogical and untenable
conclusion, based on nothing more than a few electronic messages, and your own
warped, suspicious, irrational nature. If you had said, "well, she must be
incompetent because she accidently used thin wire and dumped the heat into the
atmosphere," that would be a reasonable, tenable conclusion. I think that is
what Steve Jones has concluded about her as a person, and I respect him in
that regard. It is perfectly okay to suggest that a person has made a dumb
mistake, since we all do that from time to time.

But when you flew off on a tangent, and started making this outrageous,
untenable suggestion that she was deliberately lying, you have lost all
credibility. You have revealed that you are *not* fair, *not* reasonable,
*not* trusting, and therefore not trustworthy. It has all been a masquerade,
you are part of the pack of ruthless hyenas who will attack any cold fusion
scientist who dares to make any important claim, like the gang that drove Pons
and Fleischmann out of the country, and into the arms of Toyota Motor Company.
You are revealed yourself as a fraud.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Even if Notoya made a dreadful mistake,
that is not the same as committing fraud, and you owe her an apology for
suggesting that it is. I am not going to say anything more about your
outrageous and uncalled for behavior. I am through with you, and I will not be
baited into saying anything more. I could not "allay your suspicions" in 100
years, because they are based on nothing more than your own unyielding,
irrational lack of imagination and lack of trust in your fellow scientists.

Indeed, I am not going to say another word about Notoya's experiments. Words
are wasted when another actual public demonstration is three weeks away.
Anyone is welcome to come, and you are free to measure whatever you want with
the cell. I expect that the so-called "skeptics" like Dieter Britz are cowards
and will not come; or they are such fools that they believe these electronic
letters implicitly, so they have made up their minds, and they will not bother
to look for themselves, or send someone they trust to look. That is up to
them, I personally could not care less whether a single so-called "skeptic"
comes or not. I will be in the audience, it is not my lecture, and not my
demonstration. I expect it will work, but only God Almighty knows for sure.

I will be too busy to post messages the rest of this week, so let me offer one
more suggestion to Steven Jones: If you have the time to run that weird
experiment with the resister on the outside of the bottle, which got you two
thirds the way to simulating Notoya, why don't you take a few more hours and
try an experiment with spongy nickel and potassium carbonate? Why not try the
real experiment? Contact Mallove, Srinivasan or I for a protocol, because
there are, after all, many ways to do this experiment incorrectly, as
Srinivasan said.

- Jed