10KW LENR demonstrator (new thread)

[paperburn1]

Plasma Fusion (Polywell) 0634201N Hybrid Electric Drive System Development for Surface Combatants 0634202N and
And what exactly does TRL 2-3 entail
Found the two line items on a budget for this only a small amount of cash for it

[tomclarke]

Philosophers of science are not usually scientists and on this matter many of them talk rubbish. . .

Kuhn's BS, MS and PhD in physics and history of science were all from Harvard. To pretend he is not qualified on the subject of his remarkable work is pretty ridiculous. If you want to disagree with him, say what it is you disagree with and maybe we can discuss it.

There is enormous variety in institutions. You do not get a free choice of topic at any institution - somone has to be interested enough to supervise.

One of Sonny's doctoral advisors is a ZPF guy. Sonny was denied the opportunity to do his PhD on ZPF theory because it is considered crackpot and therefor unsuitable for a dissertation. How much more an example of academic bias and censorship can you ask for? People are denied dissertation topics, inclusion into academic programs, tenure and made victim of every other form of academic punishment possible, based upon their views and many other inappropriate criteria and this is NORMAL inside academia. There all all sorts of corruption in academia. You admit on the one hand professors sometimes try to get each other fired, and then on the other say there is no corruption where you work? I don't think you understand how batty some of what you're writing here sounds. You live and work in the world's only nirvana, where there exists no corruption? Do you have any idea what you sound like? All human institutions include some corruption, and the fact educational institutions have to have rules against the teachers shagging their students is adequate evidence of this.

Textual criticism is quite different from scientific criticism, and not capable of converging to objective truth.

Well you're here talking about stuff you don't understand, Tom. "Textual criticism" is one very specific and wholly unsuccessful school of theology. It is one of the two branches of the equally unsuccessful "Literary Criticism". As C. S. Lewis remarked, it was not even capable of getting at the meaning of his work written contemporaneously with the one doing the criticism. How much less then can it hope to come to grips with stuff that is 2-3,000 years old? In any event, modern exegetical methods are based upon inductive and deductive reasoning in manner very similar to science--it is the subject matter that differs. My point was and is that theology has much in common with science and its study is just as rigorous. Theology is often capable of deriving truth. Science never is. Science is the pursuit of fact, not truth. These are entirely different pursuits, hence the difference in focus I already noted. In short, science can't ever tell you that you should love your neighbor which is a matter of truth. Theology can't ever tell you why the sky is blue, which is a matter of fact.

It is clear that you cannot differentiate between science and theology. So you consider scientific views to be held in an identical manner to theological beliefs. But this is incorrect. It is in fact vastly reductionist.

Looks like we're at an impasse. I'm disappointed you have stooped to so mischaracterize my thoughts like this, Tom. I find it difficult to believe you are not capable of understanding what I wrote. You're here sounding guilty of the very stuff you say makes you angry.

But where I work we are not corrupt. Not one little bit.

I just cannot take you seriously on this issue. How can anyone possibly make such a claim? Are you omniscient? I'm sorry we couldn't have a more adult conversation than this but this is just seriously deluded nonsense. We are not ants. All human institutions include corruption.

As you say we've now reached an impasse. I'll summarise what I see to be the differences:

• You see corruption as a defining characteristic of scientific institutions. I'm not denying it exists. My personal experience where I work is that I have not come across it. Obviously there can be corruption, people are fallible. But it does not seem characteristic, or usual.
  
  You see theology as being as rigorous (in the sense of capable of convergence to an objective truth) as science, but dealing with different matters. I don't. This is a major difference of perspective which explains entirely your negative view of the scientific process.

It is true that you have some philosophical support, particularly from Kuhn, but more generally from Popper, Lakatos, Feyerabend.

I am firmly in David Stove's camp here, and more specifically a fan of E.T. Jaynes: "Probability theory as Extended Logic" which provides a solid mathematical basis for induction (not simple at all).
You might like his more popular, though unfinished:
logic of science

Jaynes's work is the mathematical missing link that takes scientific induction out of the realms of philosophy (arguing about words) and into the clearer and more bracing realm of maths. It is much misunderstood, because the mathematical issues are subtle and their application is not simple. But it provides proof in principle that scientific theories can be objectively compared in an absolute way.

That does not exist for theology, nor history.

Stove + Jaynes makes an unanswerable criticism of the post-modernist irrastionalists. But, as I say, it is material for another thread.

Few have heard of Stove, but he is very readable and I strongly recommend the book summarised here (confusingly it has been re-titled twice to encourage sales):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popper_and_After

A Review of the book (and Stove):

by Dr. Scott Campbell, Philosophy Programme, School of Advanced Study, University of London

The late David Stove was one Australia's greatest ever intellectuals, writers, polemicists and wits, and one of the two or three best philosophers this country has ever produced. However, because of his distaste for self-promotion, he is not well-known outside a small circle of fans, and what's more, he is actively disliked by many of those in the intelligentsia who know of him. The re-release of this classic book by Sydney's Macleay Press may begin to change all that.

This book was originally released in 1982, when it was called Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists. It gained a small cult following amongst the more irreverent philosophers of science, but it was also roundly condemned by some of the more pompous for its disrespectful attitude towards twentieth-century philosophy of science, as well as for its polemical style.

What Stove did in the first part of this book (which he entitled 'Philosophy and the English Language: How Irrationalism About Science Is Made Credible'), was to brilliantly and hilariously analyse the means by which four of the most famous philosophers of science of the century, Sir Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend, managed to sound convincing whilst putting forward doctrines that entailed that scientific knowledge was impossible.

Stove's analysis here is masterful, and is compulsory reading for any student of the philosophy of science. Using impeccable philosophical reasoning, he rescues common-sense from the depths of philosophical nonsense. His wit is breathtaking, quite literally so - during some passages I found myself holding my breath - and his bon mots are a constant delight.[6] You can see why Michael Levin wrote 'Reading Stove is like watching Fred Astaire dance. You don't wish you were Fred Astaire, you are just glad to have been around to see him in action'.

Popper reacted to Stove's criticisms by insisting that he is a defender of science. But while Popper himself may well believe in science, the problem is that his philosophy entails that science cannot produce knowledge. According to Popper's view, induction (the making of claims about the unobserved on the basis of what has so far been observed), which is ordinarily supposed to underpin science, is irrational. Popper holds that scientific knowledge can only proceed from logical deductions made on the basis of basic observation statements.

As Popper points out, though, no scientific laws, and no universal statements, such as 'All unimpeded objects above a certain weight fall to the ground', can be deductively derived from basic observation statements. And this is true: no amount of observation of unimpeded objects above a certain weight falling to the ground will logically entail the statement 'All unimpeded objects above a certain weight fall to the ground', because there's always the logical possibility that some day one such object won't fall down.

So all science can tell us, says Popper, is which scientific laws and theories have been shown to be false (because they have been refuted by at least one basic observation statement). Science provides us with no basis for taking any scientific laws or theories to be true, though. Nor is there any such thing, he thinks, as the evidence providing some support for a scientific theory, and there is certainly no such thing as one theory having more support from the evidence than another theory. Despite these claims, Popper nevertheless thought that we can still say that those scientific theories and claims that have not been refuted are in some sense 'better' than those which have.

However, critics have long pointed out that Popper's 'deductivist' view of science leads to absurdity. Among other fatal problems, it entails that the probability of any scientific statement being true is zero, the same as a self-contradictory statement. It also makes it impossible for scientists to justifiably make perfectly ordinary probability claims, such as that the probability of a new-born baby being female is 50%, claims which Popper admits are scientific. And his belief that his view allows that some scientific theories can be 'better' than others is simply not consistent with other implications of his theory. Popper spent decades trying to worm his way out of such contradictions and absurdities, and Stove is particularly devastating and hilarious in his discussion of the illegitimate methods Popper uses here.[1]

Many philosophers of science since the 1950's were schooled in Popperism. Many of them gradually became aware of the impossibility of scientific knowledge on the Popperian model. You'd think that this would have resulted in them simply throwing Popper out as a bad mistake.[2] What in fact happened, though, was that they either became some sort of relativist, like Kuhn, or they resorted to even more desperate methods to patch up Popper's views, like Lakatos, or they become 'epistemological anarchists' like Feyerabend, who claimed that science was just another myth among many.

Such views are still the orthodoxy in philosophy of science.[3] Part of the value of Stove's work in the first part of Anything Goes is that he identifies the linguistic devices which are used to disguise their absurdity. One of the simplest such devices was to place words like 'knowledge', 'discovery', 'fact', 'prove', 'explanation', 'confirm', 'objective', 'truth' in scare quotes. A Popperian, for example, might say that through science we have come to 'know' that the 'law' of gravity is a 'fact'. Popper's philosophy, though, entails that we do not and cannot possibly know any such thing. But the presence of the words 'know' and 'fact' (despite the fact that they are in scare quotes), deflects attention away from this fact.[4] Stove points out, though, that once the implications of Popper's views are presented non-evasively, no-one will take them seriously for a moment, as they are clearly ridiculous.

David Papineau, a leading philosopher of science, has written, 'Stove has got Sir Karl Popper exactly right... Popper and After will serve as an excellent antidote for the many philosophical innocents who are still in danger of being bewitched by Popper'.

In the second half of Anything Goes (which Stove entitled 'How Irrationalism About Science Began'), Stove traces the origins of such views back, through Popper, to Hume's famous argument to show that induction is circular. Stove closely analyzes this argument, and shows that it does not support the view that induction is circular and irrational.[5]

This part is aimed more at those who have some background in philosophy, but it's an extremely lucid piece of writing nonetheless, as well as being a sublime and important piece of philosophical analysis. Anyway, the book is worth buying for the first part alone, which can be read by any non-philosopher with a passing acquaintance of Popper et al.

Stove also has some other classic books that I highly recommend, and which are readable by non-philosophers. In The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), he sticks the boot into the persistent tendency of certain types of philosophers over the ages (especially those with religious leanings) to deny the reality of the external physical world. This is again done in his brilliantly witty and inimitable style, and in addition contains valuable and unique arguments against philosophical idealism. It also displays his vast knowledge of 19th century writings.

Darwinian Fairytales (Aldershot: Avebury Press, 1995) is one of the few anti-Darwinian books that is worth reading. When I say 'anti-Darwinian', though, I should stress that Stove, who admired Darwin greatly, does not deny that natural selection is overwhelmingly likely to be the true explanation of our origins. What he mainly argues against in this book are the claims made about human behaviour by ultra-Darwinists (unfortunately one of the more famous contributors to the Skeptic, Richard Dawkins, gets the Stove treatment here). He also argues against simplistic Darwinian analyses of human populations (Julian Simon has made similar points in recent times), and he points out serious deficiencies in W. D. Hamilton's influential 'inclusive fitness' theory.

Cricket versus Republicanism and Other Essays (ed. J. Franklin & R. J. Stove, Sydney: Quakers Hill Press, 1995) is a collection of Stove's essays on various topics. Stove is very unusual amongst modern philosophers in that he can write well on non-philosophical topics. But to put it like this is to massively understate the case. Stove is one of the greatest essayists this country has ever produced, and perhaps one of the best essayists of the century. It is these essays, though, that have made him so unfashionable, especially in academic circles, because of his conservative political views, and his witty assault on all that the average modern academic holds dear. This is not a book that will be found on 'Recommended reading' lists in sociology departments.

Even an admirer like myself can find plenty to disagree with.

[tomclarke]

I've linked to a new thread. Whilst the banality of Rossi-watching makes derailing this thread attractive, the topic of post-modernist tendencies in the philosophy of science deserves its own thread:
viewtopic.php?t=3913

[Ivy Matt]

Plasma Fusion (Polywell) 0634201N Hybrid Electric Drive System Development for Surface Combatants 0634202N and
And what exactly does TRL 2-3 entail
Found the two line items on a budget for this only a small amount of cash for it

Hey, stop trying to derail the thread.

[ladajo]

Plasma Fusion (Polywell) 0634201N Hybrid Electric Drive System Development for Surface Combatants 0634202N and
And what exactly does TRL 2-3 entail
Found the two line items on a budget for this only a small amount of cash for it

This is old budget data from like 2 or so years back.
Also, Hybrid Drive is not linked to Polwell.

[parallel]

Rossi says the reactors for the new 1 MW plant based on the Hot Cat could fit in a container of a cylinder 1.2 m diameter by 0.4 m long. Obviously plumbing and controls are extra, but this gives you an idea of how compact it could be.

See http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/08/shock ... 2-x-0-4-m/

[GIThruster]

Well Tom, I'll post a reply here out of courtesy but to to be honest, I don't think you know what you're talking about. I'm not anti-science and neither was Popper or Kuhn. It's not true to say they or I were post-modernists. It is true to say they made less severe claims about science than it seems you or Stove would (who both seem to be advocates of scientism), though I'll need to pick up Stove's book and see better what he's on about.

I can tell you that Kuhn never taught anything like this:

"What Stove did in the first part of this book (which he entitled 'Philosophy and the English Language: How Irrationalism About Science Is Made Credible'), was to brilliantly and hilariously analyse the means by which four of the most famous philosophers of science of the century, Sir Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend, managed to sound convincing whilst putting forward doctrines that entailed that scientific knowledge was impossible."

Skepticism has always taught that knowledge is impossible. You have seen me argue many times that I disagree with this completely, as well as seen me argue against post-modernism and relativism, so I can't see where you get your presumptions. I can only tell you you're wrong. I have to wonder did you ever read Kuhn or just Stove, because it doesn't seem to me you understand Kuhn's points at all.

Past this I don't think we have a discussion to be had. You're making all sorts of ridiculous claims about me, about Kuhn, about Kuhn's remarkable work, and none of it is true. I can't stand post-modernism and I'm completely opposed to skepticism as anyone reading these forums ought to be able to attest. Epistemologically I am a common sense philosopher along the lines of G. E. Moore and Alvin Plantinga. If you want to understand my take on epistemology, I'd suggest pick up Plantinga's excellent work http://www.amazon.com/Warrant-Proper-Fu ... 0195078640

In short Tom, you're writing about stuff you don't understand and making vacuous charges against people you ought to know do not match the descriptions you're ascribing to them. I see no evidence you have read Kuhn. You merely reject him out of hand. Likewise, though I am a great fan of induction, pretending it can come to the same sorts of certitude as deduction is pretty wrong headed. Also, pretending that science makes use of induction in a unique way is wrong. Several forms of theology use reason in just the same sorts of ways that scientific method does. As I said, it is the observations that differ. (Just search "Inductive Bible Study" for a host of hits.) In science the observations are of the world. In theology they are of a text. The reasoning that goes with the observations is nearly identical, and the two yield completely different things. You're still confusing fact with truth and this is philosophy 101 stuff. We can't have a philosophical discussion about the nature of science, or theology, or falsification, or skepticism, or intellectual justification, when you don't understand the difference between fact and truth.

Final observation: it appears you're guilty of scientism, meaning you think scientific method is applicable to all forms of knowledge, including both facts and truth. This is a dopey freshman mistake. Science only applies to what can be observed. It is never going to tell you if your wife loves you, or if murder is evil, or if there is an afterlife since these are not things we can discern through observation of the natural world. Science has limitations. It is not THE school for all knowing. It is the primary school for knowing facts. Most of knowing concerns not fact, but truth. If you understood this, you would have a much less inflated and self-serving view of science and scientists, and a much more esteemed view of philosophers, theologians and the common man. It is your childish, freshman misunderstanding of the role of science that is the issue here, not post-modenism, nor skepticism, nor any of that other.

So how about this: I'll go read Stove and you go read Kuhn? You're obviously not going to hear what I am saying, as you've mistaken and mischaracterized me several times now and it's not that I've been unclear.

[paperburn1]

Plasma Fusion (Polywell) 0634201N Hybrid Electric Drive System Development for Surface Combatants 0634202N and
And what exactly does TRL 2-3 entail
Found the two line items on a budget for this only a small amount of cash for it

This is old budget data from like 2 or so years back.
Also, Hybrid Drive is not linked to Polwell.

Ok and I found it again on the comptrolers report for last year but the funding blocks had zero.

[paperburn1]

Plasma Fusion (Polywell) 0634201N Hybrid Electric Drive System Development for Surface Combatants 0634202N and
And what exactly does TRL 2-3 entail
Found the two line items on a budget for this only a small amount of cash for it

This is old budget data from like 2 or so years back.
Also, Hybrid Drive is not linked to Polwell.

Ok and I found it again on the comptrolers report for last year but the funding blocks had zero.

INERTIAL ELECTROSTATIC CONFINEMENT CONCEPTS
http://www.dgmarket.com/tenders/list.do ... rds=fusion
INERTIAL ELECTROSTATIC CONFINEMENT CONCEPTS
Request For Expressions of Interest
Text
Interested suppliers
View full notice >>>
General Information Country: United States
Publication Date:
Aug 22, 2012
Deadline:
Aug 29, 2012
Funding Agency:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Original Language:
English
Assignments
• Research and development services and related consultancy services
• Safety consultancy services
Request For Expressions of Interest (REI)

Requests for Expressions of Interest provide consultants with general information about upcoming consulting assignments and invite firms to submit information on their capacity to perform the assignment. This information is used to help create a short list of qualified firms that will be issued the formal request for proposals.


I Hate Paywalls

[paperburn1]

Solicitation Number:
NNJ12440032Q Notice Type:
Presolicitation Synopsis:
Added: Aug 21, 2012 4:12 pm
NASA/JSC has a requirement for the study of the Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) Concepts. NASA/JSC intends to purchase the items from N Plasma Laboratory (NPL) Associates, as they are the only company with access to specialized personnel and laboratory facilities unique to the IEC concepts. NPL associates possess the highly specialized technical skills, knowledge and data on for the study of the inertial electrostatic confinement concepts for aneutronic fusion power for spacecraft power and propulsion. The Government intends to acquire a commercial item using FAR Part 12. Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort in writing to La Toy Jones at Latoy.j.jones@nasa.gov not later than 4:30 p.m. local time on August 29, 2012. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed effort on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the government. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. All responsible sources may submit an offer which shall be considered by the agency. NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/pub_library/Omb.html .
OR do we want to talk about the existence of dog with dyslexics

[paperburn1]

A small high tech company, NPL Associates Inc. (NPL), in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois has pioneered much of the IEC technology and will spearhead the effort to develop the fusion torch. NPL is seeking both funding support and technical/business participation in the fusion torch project; “spin-off” into other p-B11 “green” power operations would also be initiated. These plans are briefly outlined here, and more information is available to interested parties.

An aggressive approach is proposed where a small scale p-B11 torch device is demonstrated within six years at a cost of ~USD 80 Million. The first stage of the project would be the construction and testing of a lab scale “proof-of-principle” experiment to study the basic physics of the p-B11 reactor and the element separation process. This USD 10 Million study would be done during the first two years of the project. Following the conclusion of the six-year project, the development and global placement of full scale commercial units would begin. These units would be dual purpose electrical generation- materials recycling plants, and could cost on the order of USD 2 Billion each (comparable to current 1000 MW electrical power plants). This project has many “side” ramifications. Pure (without materials recycling) p-B11 power plants would provide “green” power at an economical price, and mobile versions would be a key approach for propulsion units for both deep space exploration rockets and also for advanced submarine power units. On a more near term, the technology developed in the six-year project would allow simultaneous design of electrically powered IEC torch units for waste (garbage, etc.) treatment and for various flue gas treatment. These units would address near term problems society is facing and provide a return on the project development costs while the ultimate distribution of p-B11 commercial recycle plants is under development.
Can bussards stuff be configured as a "fusion torch"? anyway p-b11 seem to be gaining popularity by a lot of folks

[Betruger]

If the instructor gets what he wants the student succeeds. If the instructor does not get what he wants, it does not matter how gifted and insightful a student is, nor how well he/she has mastered the material.

So the students spontaneously forgets everything he learned from times in Academia, e.g. not only authentic class material but also rotten politics of science and of academia, and corruption of proper science.

Just like a child does not learn street smarts over simplistic white collar home reality, not only as separate on/off realities but as symptoms of the underlying framework: teeming human populations whose complex variety of culture and consequent behavior roughly-enough overlay on each street/home/etc territory and its "laws of the land".. Only a fool or idiot child would fail to see how it all goes hand in hand.

Whereas science studies the laws of nature precursor to all sensible existence, politics is an artificial and inherently ephemeral construct that's no more part and parcel of the universe than any other contemporary artifact of pop culture such as MTV Top 10 or goatse or rickrolling.

You can brush away corruption to expose genuine science, but you can't expose genuine politics from under sociopolitical and moral/psychological corruption. Politics is inherent consequence of corrupt behavior.

Politics' and science's origins take root at completely different levels of Reality.

[Axil]

Cold-Fusions Rise Despite Political Academic Suppression

http://m.podshow.com/media/1049/episode ... 3Interview >

Listen

On August 28, Sterling Allan conducted an interview with Michael McKubre as part of the Free Energy Now series.

It was found in this blog

http://pesn.com/2012/08/29/9602171_Mich ... ppression/

[Skipjack]

Cold-Fusions Rise Despite Political Academic Suppression

I see at least 4 errors in this sentence.

[Ivy Matt]

Paperburn1, although I was just teasing above, it might be a good idea to post this information somewhere else other than in the Rossi/LENR thread (part 2). For all we know, some people may be avoiding this thread because they they're not interested in following an extended debate on Rossi/LENR/the philosophy of science/etc.

Although, I suppose it's not entirely off topic:

http://www.n-plasma.com/index.html