Posted on by Ruby Carat

New energy solution from Nobel laureate ignored by NYTimes

1973 Nobel laureate Dr. Brian Josephson responded to the April 3 New York Times letter Invitation to a Dialogue: Action on the Climate by Robert W. Fri asking for social scientists to become more engaged in promoting low-cost energy alternatives.

Fri is Chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Alternative Energy Future project and a visiting scholar at Resources for the Future.

Read 2011 report on the topic: Beyond Technology: Strengthening Energy Policy Through Social Science [.pdf]

Josephson’s letter answered with the solution offered by low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) and it did not appear with the other responses published in the Sunday Dialogue, so we post it here:

For publication
—————

Robert W. Fri (Apr. 3rd.) asks, in regard to climate change, for ‘steps that will make useful progress at low cost’. I suggest his committee look carefully into so-called cold fusion, a good source for which is the Library at lenr.org. (corrected from lenr.com)

In retrospect the conventional view, that the claims of Fleischmann and Pons in this regard were erroneous, can be seen to have been based on a number of faulty assumptions, some of which were discussed in a lecture by Peter Hagelstein at MIT (see http://www.infinite-energy.com/images/pdfs/VernerIAP2013.pdf). The claim that in such systems heat is generated far in excess of what can be explained in conventional terms has by now been confirmed in very many investigations, though reproducibility on demand has been a problem. The factors determining how much heat will be generated in any given sample are at present poorly understood; thus modest funding to address these issues should pay dividends. Once these factors are understood, there is a real possibility that fusion processes at ordinary temperatures in suitable materials can contribute significantly to energy resources in the future, and thereby help to combat the problem of climate change.

Prof. Brian Josephson
Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Cambridge
Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Cold Fusion Now asks all readers to respond in writing, by phone, or in person, to their local media and political offices whenever alternatives are put forth that ignore the cold fusion solution.

Cold Fusion Now!

18 Replies to “New energy solution from Nobel laureate ignored by NYTimes”

    1. It wasn’t lenr.com, it was lenr.org, hence you’re comment is incorrect.

      lenr.org redirects to the site you reference.

    2. Thanks drew, I corrected it here and alerted Brian Josephson.

      However, from Robert Fri’s response (not published here), I’m not sure he even noticed.

      Sigh.

  2. “…We hope that Professor Langley will not put his substantial greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time and the money involved, in further airship experiments. Life is short, and he is capable of services to humanity incomparably greater than can be expected to result from trying to fly….For students and investigators of the Langley type there are more useful employments.”

    Source: New York Times, December 10,1903, editorial page.

    1. He he he. There’s so many of these instances. Will we ever learn?

      Yes! We can evolve.

      The singularity is near!

    2. Alan,

      Thanks for leading me into this exciting part of history. Here’s an excerpt from an article about Professor Langley, scientific endeavor, and flight.

      “We Have 100 Years of Empirical Data, Not Just 40”
      by Charles Miller and Jeff Foust
      http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1152/2

      “History is littered with examples of brilliant, yet arrogant, people who knew what was, and was not, possible. One of the most accomplished scientists of the 19th Century was Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of science. Lord Kelvin defined the absolute temperature scale (named after him), created the first physics laboratory at a British university, conducted research leading to the second law of thermodynamics, championed the undersea cable, introduced Bell’s telephone to Britain, published more than 600 scientific papers, and filed 70 patents. And in 1895, Lord Kelvin declared: “Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”

      1. Yeah Greg, for example, as much as I liked Richard Feynman I think he had a big blind spot for the Papp engine.

        P.S. It’s ironic because Feynman was so insightful. Perhaps it’s the exclusive club mentality that Feynman talked about that almost killed LENR. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzg1CU8t9nw (see the 31 min mark).

  3. MY BAD……
    lenr.com does exist… it’s a hillbilly’s private blog/website, I’m sure anyone who found it would be bemused that Brian was directing people there 🙂 🙂

  4. Pingback: Cold Fusion Ignored by New York Times |

  5. Hi Ruby:
    I had a thought while listening to The Piano Concerto for the Left Hand by Maurice Ravel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_for_the_Left_Hand_%28Ravel%29
    It was written for the Austrian pianist, Paul Wittgenstein who lost his right arm during World War I. Think of it as a metaphor for what you’re doing. Yes, it would make your life easier if you had the help of the New York Times but it has forced you to do even more wonderful things without them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avj8Uau1kVk

  6. As a journalist, I can understand to some degree what the NYT and the AP are going through when they plant their heads in the sand about LENR. They were burned more badly on Pons-Flesischmann than they have ever had the courage to admit and get over. For many science writers, it is a raw, aching wound that will not heal. I think that confronting them as you suggest has been done many times to no avail. The only realistic solution is to spread LENR devices below the radar as I suggest in my novella, “Power” at http://www.american-reporter.com, which Andrea Rossi has praised. Getting it decisisively out there and then reaping the attention calls for some extraordinary cunning, but I believe that is what must be done.

  7. Confessions of a science writer, but then they are only doing the same as most of science.
    He seems to be saying, print any rubbish you wish and completely forget about the Truth.
    ——-
    The Guardian home
    Michael Hanlon on science writing: ‘You need a bullshit detector’
    Our blog to accompany the 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize asks top science writers about their craft.
    Today we speak to freelance science writer Michael Hanlon
    How do you stay objective and balanced as a writer? Should you?
    You don’t, you can’t and nor should you pretend that you are. Objectivity is an impossible thing to achieve so don’t bother trying and forget the idea of a deep, objective “truth” that it is your job to expose.
    All journalists have an agenda; the best make this clear to their readers from the off. Remember that your agenda may reveal itself simply by the sort of stories you choose to cover – and the ones you don’t. This doesn’t mean you cannot achieve a degree of balance and objectivity in individual stories; sometimes something is too close to call, or the jury is out. It is your job to reflect this. However, if you are writing about evolution (as opposed to Creationism) you are not demonstrating “balance” by interviewing a Creationist; you are demonstrating that you don’t understand anything about anything.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/apr/10/michael-hanlon-science-writing

  9. To Sir Brian Josephson,

    Involved with “cold fusion” since 1989 I filed 3 Belgian patents from which the publication has been delayed for 2 years by the Belgian Government of Defence (see the e-Cat Site the articles :”Belgian LANR Patents”, LANR by Coulomb Explosion and Cold Fusion Catalyst” containing the translation in English of the Belgian patents BE1002780, BE1002781 and BE1003296. The equation for the proton mass at pages 3-4 of BE1002781 learns that electric charge (+/-) a function of the product of mass and radius being constant (m.r) as electric charge is constant in nuclear physics; when radius ( r) fluctuates mass (m) of the elementary particle will fluctuate in the opposite sense giving a wavelike structure to the particle.
    An interesting fusion reaction being aneutronic is between lithium (Li7) and a proton (H1) yielding 2 helium nuclei. Said reaction has been described already in 1932 by Cockroft and Walton using a proton accelerator in combination with solid lithium. As an alternative to the process described in BE1003296 liquid lithium at high positive voltage can be used in combination with anionic hydrogen (H-) adsorbed to lithium particles, using a BLASCON fusion reactor of US inventor Fraas (drawing submitted to Dr. Edmund Storms confidentially).

  10. “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.”

    Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, Washington, June 11, 1807

    1. That’s interesting, Alan. I remember reading a long time ago how Ben Franklin started his newspaper with made up stories about made up characters by made up authors!

      Today it’s made up too, not to entertain but to cover, it seems.

Comments are closed.

Top