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166) Eugenr Mallove was a scientific reporter, not a research scientist.
Ludwik Kowalski (8/5/04)
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ, 07043
I would like to comment on a paper by Eugene Mallove, late editor of Infinite Energy
magazine, and author of the 1991 book “Fire from Ice.” The paper, available at:
<http://www.infinite-energy.com/resources/iccf10.html>
was presented at the 10th International Cold Fusion Conference in August 2003:
His presentation was very different from papers offered by research scientists. Eugene, whose tragic death was a great shock to many of us, was a journalist, with scientific background, and an enthusiastic supporter of others’ unconventional ideas . As far as I know Eugene was not involved in laboratory research. His last paper summarized three such ideas: “cold fusion”, “hydrinos” and “vacuum energy.” Each of them is identified as an “emerging energy technology.”
At the conference, I told Eugene that it was not reasonable to say that something was an emerging technology when scientific principles on which it was based were in conflict with existing scientific knowledge, and when experimental data were not yet 100% reproducible. His review was very interesting but its impact was not as strong as it would have been if the author were a professional physicist or chemist. After reading the paper I decided to ignore “hydrinos” and “vacuum energy” because I was not at all convinced that “cold fusion,” in which I am interested, has anything to do with these topics. Some comments on hydrinos can be found in units # 57 and 89 while comments on vacuum energy can be found in unit # 162. Cold fusion is already sufficiently controversial; mixing it with other controversial topics makes it much less credible.
I do not mean to say that Eugene's paper is not worth reading. On the contrary, it is an excellent example of creative writing. Let me quote the abstract and the beginning of the first section. I suggest that names found in the abstract should be used as keywords in additional Internet explorations. Keep in mind that LENR stands for “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions,” a new name for cold fusion.
LENR and "Cold Fusion" Excess Heat:
Their Relation to Other Anomalous Microphysical Energy Experiments and Emerging New Energy Technologies
(Eugene F. Mallove, Sc.D.)
Abstract
During the past 15 years, indisputable experimental evidence has built up for substantial excess heat (far beyond ordinary chemical energy) and low-energy nuclear reaction phenomena in specialized heavy hydrogen and ordinary hydrogen-containing systems. 1 The primary theorists in the field that is properly designated Cold Fusion/LENR have generally assumed that the excess heat phenomena is commensurate with nuclear ash (such as helium), whether already identified or presumed to be present but not yet found. That was an excellent initial hypothesis. However, the commensurate nuclear ash hypothesis has not been proved, and appears to be approximately correct in only a few experiments. During this same period, compelling evidence -- although not as broadly verified as data from cold fusion/LENR -- has also emerged for other microphysical sources of energy that were previously unexpected by accepted physics. The exemplar of this has been the "hydrino" physics work of Dr. Randell Mills and his colleagues at BlackLight Power Corporation, which was a radical outgrowth from the cold fusion field that emerged publicly in May 1991.2 Even more far-reaching is the work in vacuum energy extraction pioneered by Dr. Paulo and Alexandra Correa, which first became public in 1996.3 This vacuum energy experimentation began in the early 1980s and has been reduced to prototype technological devices, such as the patented PAGD TM (pulsed abnormal glow discharge) electric power generator, as well as many published experiments that can be performed in table-top fashion to verify the Correa “Aetherometry” ( non-luminiferous or non-electromagnetic aether measurement science).4 In an era when mainstream science and its media is all agog about “dark matter” and “dark energy” composing the vast bulk of the universe, there is a great need to reconcile, if possible, the significant bodies of evidence from these three major experimental and theoretical streams: cold fusion/LENR, hydrino physics, and Aetherometry. The aim of the present paper is to compare the substantial features of each field of investigation and to suggest how to move forward for the benefit of all with openness and a minimum of preconceptions.
1. www.infinite-energy.com and www.lenr-canr.org
2. www.blacklightpower.com
3. Infinite Energy , No.7, March/April 1996
4. www.aetherometry.com and www.aethera.org
Introduction
On the surface, all seems calm -- at least to the so-called Scientific Establishment, in other words the mainstream scientific media. The latter includes prominently Science, Nature, Physical Review, Scientific American, American Scientist, The New York Times “Science Times,” and a host of other publications, which alternately ignore, mock, or misrepresent those scientific findings hard-won in laboratory experiments, such as are represented in the better papers that are presented at Cold Fusion/LENR conferences such as ICCF10. And, the major peer-reviewed publications in this Establishment do not accept papers on low-energy nuclear reactions and “cold fusion” phenomena -- these are not even given entrance (since the 1989-90 period) into the vaunted peer review process. This fact is neither admitted publicly by the obstructing publications, nor noted by the community of science journalists, who should be among the first to investigate and expose this blatantly anti-scientific publication practice.
To the Scientific Establishment all is calm because there are no phenomena from table-top experiments that are allowed to challenge the basic foundational physics paradigms, which have been laid down to become what can only be described as a church-like “holy writ.” It is almost as though we are back in 1894 when the sentiment expressed in the above quote of Albert Michelson prevailed -- all is well with Physical Science and “further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice.” That is essentially the dogma of mainstream physics circa 2003. Moreover, most scientists in the cold fusion/LENR field, whose experimental work is rejected by the mainstream, do not wish to challenge the foundations of physics either; they believe that cold fusion/LENR does not challenge those foundations at all and that their observations can be or will be explained by prevailing quantum mechanics and relativity theory.
The last sentence above is an excellent description of what makes Eugene’s paper drastically different from papers presented by research scientists studying cold fusion. Those scientists try to understand strange experimental results in terms of accepted theories; Eugene, on the other hand, urges them not to be bound by the existing paradigm. Such advice does not seem to be reasonable when experimental results, obtained by highly trained scientists, are still not yet 100% reproducible. And something much better than 100% reproducibility is needed to challenge the legitimacy of “quantum mechanics and relativity theory.” It will be up to theoretical physicists to decide whether or not accepted theories conflict with 100% reproducible experimental data.
Eugene was certainly aware that scientists and humanists belong to two different camps, with regard to methods of validation of various claims. His writing about science, in my opinion, is excellent because it appeals to both non-scientists and scientists. I like it because it focuses on social and philosophical aspects of cold fusion; it promotes communication between two cultures--scientists and people in other areas of intellectual activity. This paper, however, made me aware that some of his formulations, intended to promote “our cause” might actually hurt it. The demarcation line, defined in the last sentence of the above quote, should help us to see Mallove’s activities in proper perspective. I bow my head to the enthusiastic defender of cold fusion. The criminal hands that killed him ended a slowly developing line of new friendship. It is so unfortunate that his own reply to this item will never be seen. Let me end these comments with another qoute from Eugene’s introduction. A section describing our existing paradigms ends in the following poetic way:
Paradigm 7: The Second Law of Thermodynamics can never be violated in macroscopic systems. One cannot make a “Perpetual Motion Machine of the Second Kind” that would convert ambient thermal energy to useful work, with no heat rejection into a lower-temperature reservoir.
The foregoing is a highly restrictive set of dogmas within which scientists are expected to conduct their work. There can be no doubt that these are the intellectual walls that the Scientific Establishment has erected. True enough, a huge amount has been learned about Nature within the confines of these paradigm restrictions, and much technological progress has occurred too -- but there is so, so much more to the universe and to what human beings surely will be able to do and become if they could be liberated from those restrictions! . . . I respectfully disagree with [this] conference chairman Professor Hagelstein that all heat engines will be forevermore fundamentally Carnot-limited.
Once again Eugene draws a clear line between himself and an active cold fusion scientist from MIT. Eugene does not claim to be a researcher, he sees himself as advisor and philosopher. Perhaps somebody who knew him better will elaborate on my quick observations. I would be happy to append additional comments about “two cultures,” in cold fusion. (The “Two cultures,” by the way, was the title of a book by C.P. Snow.; the book was published long before the cold fusion controversy.)