Fact and Fiction

Thoughts about a funny old world, and what is real, and what is not. Comments are welcome, but please keep them on topic.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Blacklight Power

Amazingly, Blacklight Power will not go away. This organisation claims to have something to do with science, and that they can extract energy from hydrogen atoms as follows (quotation taken from here) :

... energy is released as the electrons of hydrogen atoms are induced by a catalyst to transition to lower-energy levels (i.e. drop to lower base orbits around each atom's nucleus) corresponding to fractional quantum numbers ...

Oh wow! I can see how a pseudo-scientist with a poor grasp of quantum mechanics might dream up this idea by noodling around with the algebra of the QM of a hydrogen atom. Fractional quantum numbers? Why not? If we do that then we can get energy levels lower than the previously accepted ground state energy. Fantastic! We can access a new source of energy. Hey, man, pass the bong.

There is a teeny little problem with this fractional quantum number idea. The wavefunction has to be multi-valued or has to diverge at infinity to accommodate this sort of quantum number, and since the wavefunction is the projection of the state vector onto a set of orthogonal basis states, this means that this projection would have to be multi-valued (or have to diverge). What is that supposed to mean? It means you have got it wrong.

Unfortunately, many intelligent people who are not formally trained in science fall for this sort of hocus pocus because of the Parrot Effect. Even if you are only slightly gullible, then provided that you hear about something from either a single apparently respectable source, or from a large number of unreliable sources, then you are likely to believe it.

Blacklight Power? I hope you haven't bought shares in it.

71 Comments:

At 10 January 2007 at 05:24, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve's reaction to the thought of an electron dropping below the "base" orbit is standard for a Standard Physicist (SP) who believes in the Standard Model, the out-come of the Copenhagen Conference of the 1920's. The problem was, the Standard Physicists did not know how to use Maxwell's equations to account for the fact that the straight-forward method permits the known orbits of the hydrogen atom, but does not specifically single out the stable orbits of the hydrogen atom. Thus, Herr Doctor Schroedinger comes forth and makes up out of whole cloth his famous equations (SE).

The problem was, under his model, the electron was everywhere at once, and a probability function was needed to describe it. This meant the electron was everywhere at once, and only when you measured it, it collapsed into a point where you measured it. This famously caused Einstein to say, "I do not believe God plays dice with the Universe." The good news is SE exactly predicted the orbits of the hydrogen atom, or course, since the SE were specifically constructed to agree with the measurements. The problem was that with a statistical electron position, you could not compute the magnetic field,which was well known. Thus the SP had to fall back, and Dirac came to their rescue, by providing the Dirac equations, which assume the electron is a point, and circulates around the proton; since this constitutes a current flowing at a given radius, you can calculate the resulting magnetic field, and no surprise, it gave the correct magnetic moment for the hydrogen atom.

This lead to what I call "Mathematical Masturbation," (MM) in that the point electron lead to infinite mass density, infinite energy density, infinite charge density, etc. But that did not bother the SP, they simply subtracted out the infinities when they were inconvenient (^_~) This is the MM I was mentioning. This lead to the ridiculous ideas that there were parallel universes, 9 to 11 dimensions (depending on the particular String Theory model you were strung along with) - and even wilder, that there were "virtual particles coming in and out of existence at Planck dimensions" (*_*) Of course, none of these things can be demonstrated experimentally, as opposed to the Millsian theory, which has been proven in many ways.

Now the SP will say, (Standard) "Quantum Mechanics is the most successful theory ever." But it is not "a" theory, it is a patchwork of theories to paper over the short-comings of SQM. For example, Dirac equations had to save SE from their short-comings, and the discredited "Schroedinger's Cat", as well as the distributed electron was discredited by the liquid helium experiments.

Millsian theory is simple, not a patchwork of MM. It has been upheld independently by a number of SP who were willing to listen and learn, and then experimentally confirm the existence of the hydrino. The keeper of the SP home page famously said, "Mills must be wrong, because there is nothing south of the South Pole." What he meant was that the hydrogen atom has a known spectra, and the spectra goees down to and stops at about 80-nM, which was his "South Pole." Well, many physicists have now measure the spectra of hydrogen in the hydrino form, and found the spectral lines below 80-nM, just where they should be, as predicted by SP equations, provided you just use 1/n, instead of n, for the orbit number. Further, the SP did not know where to look to find hydrino spectra, since hydrinos are not ordinarily made on earth. But they ARE in the spectra of the sun, and were seen in the effort to check the black-body spectra of the Big Bang, in the hard-ultraviolet soft-Xray region of the microwave background, by the KOBE satellite.

Using Mills' technique, Mills calculated exactly the 1-to-20 electron atoms. The SP can measure those atoms, but cannot calculate exactly beyond the one-electron atom; the 2-electron atom has to be approximated, and the 3-electron atom stops them because of the "3-body" problem. Now the SP didn't want to look at the matrix Mills published, because they didn't want to admit Mills was right. The average citizen didn't care about the "1-to-20 electron atom," so nothing much came of that, except it provided an opportunity to rub the noses of the SP in their short comings. Next, Mills, again using his theory, calculated EXACTLY the forms of many hydrocarbons, again, something the SP could not do, except by super computers, used to repetitively calculate over long times, converging solutions that were only approximations. Now this time, the average citizen WILL be impressed, since the petro-chemical and pharmaceutical companies are hot to trot on this (^_~) Not too surprisingly, this is being licensed as a "Millsian" software package, that will run on ordinary computers, and give exact solutions quickly.

Mills calls his theory "Classical Quantum Mechanics" (CQM) because he found that it is NOT true you "cannot use classical equations at atomic dimensions - that realm requires Quantum Mechanical methods." Using his methods, he not only did what I describe above, but in addition, he did what String Theory is fruitlessly trying to do, unite gravity with the other 3 forces. Thus Mills calls his theory, "The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics." This is because he learned from Dr. Haus of MIT how to employ Maxwell's equations to the hydrogen atom, which the SP at Copenhagen failed to realize, leading to their MM.

The problem here is that the SP cannot acknowledge Mills is correct, because they will have to admit the worshiped a false god for 80+ years. Since the SP considers himself next to God, since everyone has to go to them to get the "ultimate" answer to how things work, they cannot believe a mere MD scooped them (*_*) This accounts for the wrath of the SP when Mills is brought up. But chemist LOVE Mills, since the SP have lorded it over chemists, and they were amongst the first to take the trouble to look closely at Mills' approach. Next, the experiment physicist were willing to look, since the theoretical physicist (my "SP") were always lording it over those experimental physicist, who work with their hands (^_~) So the experimental physicist were willing to study Mills, and they were the ones who duplicated independently Mills' proof experiments.

So, that THAT, SP (^_^)

 
At 10 January 2007 at 19:25, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

I see that you are C. Norman Winningstad who is Treasurer of Blacklight Power (see http://www.blacklightpower.com/management.shtml) and author of The Area of Enlightenment (see http://www.aofe.org). Thank you for interest in my blog posting. I had given up on receiving any comments because 14 months have now elapsed since I published my posting. I will respond to your points one by one; your comments are repeated in italics.

The problem was, the Standard Physicists did not know how to use Maxwell's equations to account for the fact that the straight-forward method permits the known orbits of the hydrogen atom, but does not specifically single out the stable orbits of the hydrogen atom.

By “straightforward method” I assume you mean the orbits in the phenomenological Bohr model of the atom. Maxwell’s equations predict that these orbits are unstable because they rapidly radiate away their energy; there is no escape from this within Maxwell’s equations.

Thus, Herr Doctor Schroedinger comes forth and makes up out of whole cloth his famous equations (SE). The problem was, under his model, the electron was everywhere at once, and a probability function was needed to describe it. This meant the electron was everywhere at once, and only when you measured it, it collapsed into a point where you measured it.

Schrödinger’s wave function is far from being a problem; it solves the instability of the Bohr model at a stroke, because it does away with the naïve idea of “pointlike” electrons “orbiting” the atom.

The good news is SE exactly predicted the orbits of the hydrogen atom, or course, since the SE were specifically constructed to agree with the measurements.

The SE has no new free parameters that can be fixed up to match predictions with data, so you can’t claim that SE was specifically constructed to agree with the measurements. It is the wealth of correct predictions that flow from a predetermined framework that is one of the hallmarks of a successful theory.

The problem was that with a statistical electron position, you could not compute the magnetic field, which was well known.

It is certainly true that there is zero orbital angular momentum for the ground state of the hydrogen atom, so there is zero orbital magnetic moment. So there must be some other origin for the observed non-zero magnetic moment of the hydrogen atom.

Thus the SP had to fall back, and Dirac came to their rescue, by providing the Dirac equations, which assume the electron is a point, and circulates around the proton; since this constitutes a current flowing at a given radius, you can calculate the resulting magnetic field, and no surprise, it gave the correct magnetic moment for the hydrogen atom.

The Dirac equation does exactly the same job as the Schrödinger equation, except that it is a relativistically invariant equation that takes the same form in all inertial reference frames. It is not true to claim that DE treats the electron itself differently from SE, other than the fact that DE uses a wave function that has 4 components rather than the 1 component that appears in SE, and this more complicated wave function gives rise to the intrinsic spin of the electron, which is the source of the missing magnetic moment of the hydrogen atom mentioned above. It is not true to claim that DE explains this magnetic moment in terms of “orbital” motion.

I think it would be a really great idea for you to read up on SE and DE. There is no point introducing a new theory (the Millsian theory that you refer to later) to fix what you erroneously think are problems in the currently accepted theory. Surely, the way to proceed is to demonstrate an experimentally observable effect that is in conflict with the predictions of the current theory, and then to offer a new theory that explains everything?

Where is the conflict between experiment and theory? You claim that there have been various observations of “new” spectral lines. Where have these results been published? Are they really unexplained by currently accepted theory? If so, then there is a problem.

One further comment of yours caught my eye:

Using Mills' technique, Mills calculated exactly the 1-to-20 electron atoms. The SP can measure those atoms, but cannot calculate exactly beyond the one-electron atom; the 2-electron atom has to be approximated, and the 3-electron atom stops them because of the "3-body" problem.

I wonder if Millsian theory could be a neat computational trick that short-circuits some of the arduous calculations that are done using currently accepted theory. If this is the case, then it should be possible to derive Millsian theory from the currently accepted theory. However, I see no evidence for Millsian theory to be a better fundamental theory than the currently accepted theory.

 
At 25 December 2007 at 10:39, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve: your wrote: "Surely, the way to proceed is to demonstrate an experimentally observable effect that is in conflict with the predictions of the current theory, and then to offer a new theory that explains everything?
" - Right.
Take a look at this paper: http://www.blacklightpower.com/theory/theorypapers/F%5E2%20102307web3.pdf BUT PLEASE - (a) pretend the title is something like "Anomalous partial deflection of low-energy electron beams" and (b) DO NOT READ OR EVEN LOOK AT the first 24 pages - go to Section II- Experimental on Page 25.
This effect - deflection upwards of up to half a beam, if at specific energies, while the rest of the beam continues on to the quite small target, seems rather hard to explain by any conventional scattering by collision, and certainly not by E or M fields. Some other labs need to try this out, don't you think?

 
At 25 December 2007 at 11:49, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

For the record, the above comment was received on 25 December 2007 more than 2 years after the original posting. I wish that blogger.com date-stamped comments.

In section IIIA of the paper it says:

No energy-dependent bias in the
beam current was present as indicated by the flat ratio of upper and bottom electrode currents in the absence of the atomic or molecular beam. The ratio was close to unity over the measured energy range for all experiments involving the controls of all gases indicating that the beam was well centered.


Inspecting the plot in Figure 7 shows that this is definitely not the case. The current ratio is clearly greater than unity (ignoring the step at around 20eV, it is >1.3 in Figure 7), and shows a slow upward trend with increasing beam energy (it rises to about 1.6 in Figure 7). The plots in the other Figures also contradict the above claim, but it is less clear because of the greater range used for the vertical axis in all of the other pots.

So the electrodes are not arranged so that their currents are balanced, which makes me doubt all of the other claims in the paper.

I am not an experimental physicist, but I would certainly worry that this experiment is not well enough controlled for us to deduce that "new" physics is the cause of the results observed.

 
At 17 March 2008 at 20:13, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maxwell’s equations predict that these orbits are unstable because they rapidly radiate away their energy; there is no escape from this within Maxwell’s equations.

Steve,

I think it would be a really great idea for you to read up on the Haus condition. The esteemed John Kassebaum wrote, "Mills' recognition of the boundary value condition (Haus's condition) as the cause of non-radiation in the hydrogen atom is (I believe) his most significant contribution to science."

Regards,
Dave Peterson

 
At 17 March 2008 at 21:56, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

I found the source of your Kassebaum quote here, which appears to be a web site that has an interest in these matters (i.e. Blacklight Power, etc), which is a pity because it means that I assign a low significance to the quote.

The only peer-reviewed publication on this subject that I can find is Rathke A, A critical analysis of the hydrino model, New J. Phys., 2005, 7, 127, which is cited here, and where the following comment is made:

... Rathke, found "severe inconsistencies" in the theory, including a lack of "solutions that predict the existence of hydrinos"

Now, I concede that I have not read this paper; you would have to give me a strong motivation to find the time, and you haven't yet done that. Perhaps, if you could point me to another peer-reviewed paper, preferably written by someone unconnected with Blacklight Power, which has something more positive to say about this subject then my interest would be aroused.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 
At 18 March 2008 at 18:13, Anonymous Anonymous said...

For now I would like to point you to two rebuttals of Rathke.

The first is by Jonathan Phillips, University of New Mexico, National Lab Professor, Farris Engineering Center, Albuquerque.

The second is by Mills himself.

Regards,
Dave Peterson

 
At 20 March 2008 at 19:23, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Amusingly, my emailer (i.e. Outlook) decided that your comment above belonged in my "Junk Email" folder, which is where I just found it after it had been languishing there for a couple of days!

Like I said in my previous comment, I need a strong motivation to find the time follow this up in greater depth, because the only peer-reviewed publication on the subject that I am aware of is Rathke A, A critical analysis of the hydrino model, New J. Phys., 2005, 7, 127. This publication's negative assessment of the subject does not motivate me to follow things up in any more detail. I have many other things that call on my time, and only the potential winners make it to the top of the list.

I sympathise with the people who have unsuccessfully submitted rebuttals of Rathke's paper. Believe me, I have been on the receiving end of unfair editorial actions, so I know what a biassed lottery getting things published can be.

To get around the need for the reader to invest a large amount of time understanding the subject, I suggest that a good strategy would be to write a brief letter to highlight a crucial difference between the "old" and the "new" approaches, using standard notation and theory as far as possible, and also appealing as far as possible to the reader's prior knowledge of the subject. The effort required by the reader would thus be minimised to the point where potentially a large number of people would make the effort to understand the work.

I find that writing such brief accounts myself always leads me to understand my own work much better. Presumably, this is because you really have to understand its deep structure if you want to be able to compress information by a large factor.

 
At 6 May 2008 at 14:44, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Stephe,

did you also see the "Corrigendum added 23 June 2006" in the New J. Phys., 2005, 7, 127 publication by Rathke:
(http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1367-2630/7/1/127/njp5_1_127.html)

So if you see the posibility, that this error could be a bigger mistake than Rathke himself thinks you might consider the (unpublished) response from Mills that can be found on his webpage:
(http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/Rathke%27sresp012108Web.pdf)

Quote: "Rathke has copied the two-dimensional wave equation incorrectly and reversed the sign of the time differential. His other comments about incurable failures are made moot by this careless error."

As i am only a student and not (yet) a good enough physicist to check it myself, i hope at least some will take a closer look on this theory.

If i would be good enough to check it myself, i would hate myself, if i simply ignored a paradigm-shifting theory. IF (and only IF) this is like Galilei against the curch, on wich side do you want to be?

Greetings
Melethron

 
At 6 May 2008 at 16:48, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Like I said in my previous comment(s), I need a strong motivation to find the time follow this up in greater depth.

A corrigendum followed by an unpublished response does not motivate me at all!

 
At 7 May 2008 at 12:58, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, strong motivitation. So you want strong reasons:

So what about the afshar-experiment (Foundations of Physics 37 (2): 295-305), that can be explained classicaly?

Ah no, not replicated and the scientific community is absolutly sure this can't be (even if nearly everyone points out different reasons why ....)



And what about 40% of the suns heat that can't be explained yet - especially the coronas heat (but can be explained by hydrinos)?

Ah no, there is surely another explanation and the hydrino theory is a fraud...



And what about "dark matter"? Is it axions, WIMPs, ..... or maybe hydrinos? (For the reason why hydrinos are kind of "weakly interactive" consider mills works)

Ah no, this simply can't be. Hydrinos are impossible, so there is no need to verify this. I am sure that it is WIMPs/Axions/[put in whatever hypothetical form of matter you like - but no hydrinos] and will be verified someday.



But hey, what about "dark energy" or the expansion of space-time, that mills explains as result of conversion of matter in energy, as in his theory mass, energy and spacetime are equivalent?

Ah no, there must be some ominous energy responsible, that simply can't be found yet.



But hey, what about the dozens of molecules that can be calc'd on a 1 Ghz PIII with the Millsian software and is also available at the website for trial download to check it yourself?

This must be a fraud..., i will not try to use it, even if can check it myself for free.



What about the more than 200 (peer-reviewed) experimental evidence (listed by aarhus university) of "excess heat" and untypical fusion products in the Pons-Fleischmann type experiments, that could be explained by hydrinos (or "deutrinos" in this case), because it would be very similar to the muon-catalyzed fusion? And what about half of the reviewers in DOE 2004 are absolutly convinced by the "excess heat" and nearly all recommend more basic resarch? (i know it could not be reproduced by everyone, but complicated replication is not the same as irreproducible)

cold fusion is not real - it is NOT real; cold fusion is a fraud and hydrinos are also. And most reviewers of the DOE are as stupid as the scientist doing this kind of experiments.



But what about the experiment by Tajmar / de Matos (PHYSICA C-SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND ITS APPLICATIONS Volume: 385 Issue: 4 Pages: 551-554). In this theoretical paper they explain it classicaly with Einstein-Maxwell Equations (kind of funny, that de Matos is the Boss of the ESA institution in wich Rathke works and that he is using the same type of calculations that Rathke calls inconsistent. )

No, no, no, this can't be ... hydrinos aren't real ... no ... go away ... physicist were always right and did never believe in wrong theories such as luminiferous aether or crazy stuff like this.... it is absolutly logical that an electron is zero-dimensional, has no volume and is everywhere at the same time... and Einstein was stupid, when he believed, a "grand unification theory" can be found without uncertainty....


And what about the fact, that mills don't uses more or new physics, but less and he can explain much more with it. Ever heard of Occam's razor?

Stop it! I don't wanna hear all this anymore....



Well and what about 70 years of (standard) QM bringing up two new questions for every answer that was found.

NOOOOOOOOOOO...





If every phycisist is waiting for someone else to check the work of Mills, his theories will never ever be confirmed nor falsified. If i will be this ignorant, after i finished studying physics, i don't want to study anymore.

What strong motivations are needed? Beeing haunted by the ghost of Einstein repeatedly saying: " ... he does not throw dice ... he does not throw dice ... HE DOES NOT THROW DICE..."

Ahh, c'mon. If it's really a fraud or an absolutly wrong theory, it could be dumped to the big trash can of "bulls**t theories". But acting like the three monkeys is really unscientific.

Sorry for beeing sarcastic, but i am looking for days now for a physicist to take a look at the response to rathke. A simple answer like: this is bulls**t, because equation (number) is wrong would be enough. But if i read something stupid like this (saying hydrinos aren't possible because QM says so), i have to come to the conclusion, that nearly every physicist thinks that the theory determines nature (experiments) and not vice versa and that the scientific community is like the church killing Giordano Bruno time and time again .....

Sorry again for beeing sarcastic, it is not only your fault... but i simply can't find anyone, who's not this type of pseudo sceptical. The only one who took a closer look on Mills theory was Rathke and it looks like his major error, let him come to his conclusion. (Well Jonathan Phillips who made the experiments in J. Appl. Phys. 96, 3095 took also a closer look. But as he is convinced, he is "believer" and so i think he don't count....)

If you have proper arguments why mills isn't right i am sorry for stealing your time. But if i hear unscientific meanings (show me facts and then talk about fiction), i can only laugh about that. I hope that i can find some answers on this topic, before i can verify/falsify this theory myself.

Greetings
Melethron

Ps: Sorry for my potentially bad english. It is not my native language and i got a bit "rusty" in writing since i am out of school.

 
At 7 May 2008 at 15:16, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

A few comments ago I said:

To get around the need for the reader to invest a large amount of time understanding the subject, I suggest that a good strategy would be to write a brief letter to highlight a crucial difference between the "old" and the "new" approaches, using standard notation and theory as far as possible, and also appealing as far as possible to the reader's prior knowledge of the subject. The effort required by the reader would thus be minimised to the point where potentially a large number of people would make the effort to understand the work.

There is a good reason for that advice which you appear not to have heeded.

 
At 10 July 2008 at 09:49, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your initial comments on the Parrot effect are right on target. What I find amazing is the lifespan of endlessly repeated gibberish; you started this post in 2005, it is now 2008, and Blacklight Power is still raising money. That people with more than $5 to their name can be so gullible is also amazing.

 
At 24 July 2008 at 11:22, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

I bend over backwards to be polite to these crackpots, and in doing so they assume that my position is the weak one. Maybe I should just go back to being very blunt with these people. What does annoy me is that some of these people actually get rich by telling lies to people, but I suppose that's the way the world works.

 
At 1 August 2008 at 21:45, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am an EE, not a physicist, yet I have been studying physics for better than 25 years. I must have a "strong motivation" to continue to do so. Fortunately I do have a strong motivation...I WANT TO KNOW. I WANT TO UNDERSTAND.
Mills now claims that he has a working 50 KW device. If so, then it is within the realm of engineers to make it work and deploy the technology. If not...the jig should surely be up soon.
If the device is actually deployed, perhaps that will be enough motivation for the professional physicists to study what Mills has put out. If the device is NOT deployed, then you will have been right all along (well almost!)
By "almost", I mean that there are PLENTY of reasons for a thinking person to study Mills.
a)Potentially a "Philosophy of Science" chapter in an upcoming textbook being enacted in real time before your very eyes...with YOU as a participant! (I know you discount the possibility of this one..but I hope it is provided to you at a discount!)
b)Mills obtaining investment funds from people with enough engineering and physics background "to know better" than to invest money in something that cannot be true.
c) And these same investors, as well as a board of directors, not having enough brain cells in the whole lot of them to tell whether Mills device produces energy per his claims! Think of it...utility companies investing...with a large group of engineers in their ranks, and even they cannot tell if the device works!

Personally, I do hope it works because we need the energy. But if I knew it was a fraud right this minute, I would still watch it closely just for the lessons that can be learned in other areas besides engineering and physics.

 
At 1 August 2008 at 22:15, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Yes, Mills seems to be moving towards the time when we can be certain about the truth or falsity of his claims, as judged by his ability to generate real power. However, I presume that he will use various delaying tactics to explain away the non-appearance of his power generator.

I don't claim any significant contribution to the criticism of Mills, because there are others who have played a far more significant role here. In this blog all I have done is to make a few wry comments from the "touchline".

I presume that the investment money Mills has received is partly due to FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that there might be something in his claims, thus encouraging people to support him to hedge against the possibility that someone else gets there first.

Like you, I would love one of these "magic" sources of power generation to work, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for one to come along.

If I can't find any coherence in the underlying theory, then I rapidly lose interest.

 
At 22 August 2008 at 21:05, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If anyone is still reading this...

If you are really interested in knowing, I highly recommend reading over the Rathke paper cited above. It only takes about 30 minutes. The errors in the Mills formalism are so gross that it hardly even constitutes a theory. For example, the delta function he presents to describe orbitals isn't a solution to his equations of motion. Incredible.

I don't understand the need to couple his technology to some GUT that he personally invented. If it worked, a theory would follow soon enough. I bet Mills actually believes it as some kind of weird ego trip.

 
At 22 August 2008 at 23:00, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

"I bet Mills actually believes it as some kind of weird ego trip."

Yes, this is exactly what I have been thinking all along. Either that, or what he is doing is an excellent example of Cargo Cult Science.

If you are interested, I have had some fun with his "grand unified theory" here.

 
At 20 October 2008 at 20:05, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do you feel better about yourself? The folks who attacked Einstein did... for a while, with much the same arguments. The people who now attack Steven Hawking have and will... for a while.

It's unbelievable how EGO permeates the world of advanced physics... lowering it's potential as a result of petty jealousy. Such big minds, operating at such a little, low level. PATHETIC.

Mankind is at the threshold of discovery that is just starting to unfold. The advent of modern physics is the dawn of discovery by those with enough guts to follow their minds and hearts (Einstein, Hawking, et al), as the rest try to play catch up, create fad physics and discredit the true innovators as THEIR method of making a name for themselves and THEIR (pathetic) EGOs.

 
At 20 October 2008 at 20:55, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

It's not about feelings, it's about exposing hocus-pocus for what it is, so that gullible people aren't conned out of their hard-earned cash in giving support to a project that is doomed from the outset. If the egos behind the hocus-pocus happen to be deflated by criticism then that's acceptable collateral damage.

Scientific Method, in contrast to Cargo Cult Science, involves a lot of hard work, not only in coming up with novel ideas in the first place, but then also trying your best to knock those very ideas down again, and inviting others to have a go as well.

Interestingly, the Cargo Cult Science Wikipedia page mentions the following example:

"Other examples, given by Feynman, are ... He also mentions other kinds of dishonesty, for example, falsely promoting one's research to secure funding."

That's called "proof by reference to Feynman", which is a devastatingly effective method of arguing, but it is considered by some people to be rather underhand.

 
At 21 October 2008 at 01:15, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why do so many extremely educated people assume they know how the universe works and how it doesn't? Is the idea of physics not to discover new and deeper understandings of our universe? If a frog bites me in the ass, I personally do not claim that it was impossible because frogs have no teeth. I will not say hydrinos exist as I am not trained in quantum physics, but before the 20th century quantum physics didn't exist either, and the smallest particle was the atom. How can you claim that you know when the basic premise of science is that we do not know?

 
At 21 October 2008 at 15:30, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Let me repeat what I said in my previous comment:

"Scientific Method, in contrast to Cargo Cult Science, involves a lot of hard work, not only in coming up with novel ideas in the first place, but then also trying your best to knock those very ideas down again, and inviting others to have a go as well."

I've already quoted a relevant remark by Feynman, so let me now quote something that Carl Sagan said (see here):

"What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

I have not yet seen any evidence that leads me to believe that there might be some radically new science going on here. But I have seen a lot of what looks very much like Cargo Cult Science. I am not suggesting that this is necessarily being done maliciously, because I know (from personal experience) that it is very easy to fool yourself into believing that you have made a new discovery.

The best way to protect against the Fool's Gold type of discovery is to expose your work to truly independent criticism, and to deal in a measured way with whatever gets thrown at you. All of this is standard practice in the Scientific Method.

 
At 2 November 2008 at 03:32, Blogger Neil said...

Hello, Dr. Luttrell,

I would be interested in your view of the report of Rowan University, http://www.blacklightpower.com/pdf/BLPIndependentReport.pdf

The claims are arresting, but language of the report strikes me as curiously circumspect. I realize that experimental chemistry might not be in your bailiwick. But if you are willing to presume that all parties involved - the Mills people and the university's staff - are utterly sincere and conscientious in their efforts, would you care to speculate on what sort of oversights, missing tests, possible sources of contamination or system error might account for the anomalous claims?

 
At 2 November 2008 at 12:16, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

I have had a look at the Rowan University report that you mentioned. The conclusion in the executive summary is:

These reactions are provided in more detail in the following report and clearly indicate that these results are unexpected given conventional chemistry and may represent a validation the BLP scientists have indeed uncovered a novel technology for producing energy from the hydrogen atom.

The first part of this conclusion (i.e. "these results are unexpected given conventional chemistry") appears to be justified, but the second part (i.e. "may represent a validation the BLP scientists have indeed uncovered a novel technology for producing energy from the hydrogen atom") is not justified. The unexpected results could be due to any unanticipated physics/chemistry, and there is no reason to suppose that it has to do with Blacklight Power's lowered ground state of the hydrogen atom.

I had a look at the tables of results in the paper, and wondered why there were only 2 runs reported in each of tables 2 and 4 (the 1kW and 50kW reactors, respectively), where (in each case) the second run produced significantly less output than the first. I wonder whether the output would have declined further if more runs had been done in each case.

The amount of output energy from a single run of the so-called BLP 50kW reactor is about 1 MJ (1 million joules). A quick calculation shows that this is the amount of energy needed to boil 3 kettles of water (kettle = 1kg water, boil = raise the temperature by 80 degrees C, specific heat of water = 4.2kJ/kg). That's not much energy, and it certainly doesn't warrant the device being called a 50kW reactor, because such ratings normally quote continuous power output.

This makes it important to establish how many runs can be done, with diminishing returns on each successive run (based on the limited evidence of 2 runs), before the "reactor" is spent.

 
At 3 November 2008 at 14:46, Blogger Neil said...

Thank you for your remarks, Dr. Luttrell. Looking at the report, particularly the temperature plot, I surmised that the great bulk of the actual reaction occurred in just a few seconds. I don't know anything about the characteristics of calorimeters, so I can't guess whether the data suggests that any reaction at all occurred after the first intense peak. If we take the peak reaction period to be about 20 seconds, then a heat production rate of 50 kW is reasonable. I don't think Blacklight has claimed anything other than that, especially not that the experiment itself proves a continuous process. I think announcement of the latter will be the truly sensational one, if it occurs by and by ;)

 
At 3 November 2008 at 17:55, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

You are being far too kind! I think Blacklight Power said "50kW" knowing perfectly well what the default interpretation of that phrase is, and also knowing that few people would look closely enough at the data to check where the figure might have come from.

As you say, time will tell.

As usual, Richard Feynman got there first with: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

 
At 11 November 2008 at 23:43, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The only issue in the end is which theory offers the better, i.e. economical description of nature which predicts well. This disagreement will never be settled by argument. Practical people will either turn to Mills theory and his software product because it gives them answers or they will not. Opposing theorists will have to make their peace in the first case with economic reality.

 
At 12 November 2008 at 10:18, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

I'm glad that you entirely agree with what I have been saying. I'll just reiterate what Carl Sagan said that I quoted a few comments back:

"What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Nature is the final arbiter in these matters.

 
At 11 December 2008 at 19:14, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well what is Black Light Power? It is an excrecense of spatial irrugious judicature. It harrows and hasps until next tuesday when the month will be half over.

 
At 11 December 2008 at 20:08, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

It sounds like we are on the same side, but what exactly are you trying to say?

 
At 12 December 2008 at 02:31, Blogger John Adams said...

I am neither a physicist nor a scientist of any kind. Yet, I have read this stream with keen interest. I haven't the foggiest idea what Mills theory means or if it is valid.

I am a lawyer and a student of history; and, I do know this for certain: Virtually no major advancement in thinking, be it philosophical or scientific, has occurred in the history of man that was not denigrated by the thinkers or scientists contemporary to its pronouncement.

I wonder at the never ending tendency of man to always insist he knows all, when history has proven so many times that is not true. Maybe Mills is a crackpot; maybe a charlatan. But maybe he is Newton. Why Dr, Luttrell are you so cock sure?

 
At 12 December 2008 at 08:29, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

My comments are absolutely not about denigrating new ways of thinking (I am very open to these), but about criticising sloppy use of the scientific approach (i.e. Cargo Cult Science).

The "science" behind Blacklight Power ignores a lot of well-established physics. In the scientific approach you reject any new theory if it is in conflict with what is already known to be true, or if it is internally inconsistent in some fundamental way. On this basis alone I have come to my conclusions about Blacklight Power.

 
At 12 December 2008 at 08:46, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

One more point that has just come to my attention is What Is The Standard Of Proof For Patentability?, in which the specific case of Blacklight Power is discussed, and 3 criteria for determining whether a scientific theory is true are listed:

1. The explanation of the theory is consistent with existing generally accepted theories. If it is not, it should provide a better explanation of physical phenomena then current theories and should be consistent with any accepted theories that it does not displace.
2. The theory makes testable predictions, and the experimental evidence shows rival theories to be false and matches the predictions of the new theory.
3. The theory is accepted as a valid explanation of physical phenomena by the community of scientists who work in the relevant discipline.

These criteria were applied to Blacklight Power's "Grand Unifying Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics", and Blacklight Power accepted that on the material before the Hearing Officer the theory was probably incorrect.

 
At 20 December 2008 at 02:55, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 
At 20 December 2008 at 10:00, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Huh? Could you elaborate?

 
At 30 December 2008 at 14:19, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Black Light, Cold Fusion, and some HHO anomalies are all unknowingly utilizing Casimir Cavities.

Method cited in a 5/8/2008 CalTech patent and description is proof enough of actual method at work. The cal-tech patent chose to use nano holes drilled in plates where BLP used skeletal catalysts to provide cavities. This means that Cold Fusion and HHO kits are about to go on steroids now that the theory is out of the bag, see my proposal below.

I propose that anomalous heat readings reported in failed cold fusion experiments are being generated by Casimir force. Instead of just pushing microscopic plates together and extinguishing the exclusion field, we utilize Casimir cavities where permanent exclusion fields exist because the plate geometry is fixed. This creates a "safe harbor" where longer vacuum fluctuations are restricted and the ratio of short to long fluctuations is different than normal. These cavities can be formed inadvertently thru chemical leaching of metals immersed in an electrolyte to form primitive skeletal catalysts some portion of which will meet Casimir geometry. These cavities allow gas atoms to relax their electrons into novel orientations only possible inside the Casimir exclusion field which will be lost when the atom exits the field. The SECRET to making these relaxed atoms into a hydrino molecule is that they must form a covalent bond while still inside this exclusion field. The covalent bond then preserves the novel electron orientations outside the field with one atom’s orbital leveraged against the others' through their molecular bond. When this new molecule exits the Casimir field the stream of normally chaotic vacuum fluctuations must align in an organized boundary of potential energy waiting to sweep these arrogant little electrons back down into their normal orientation of least resistance and contributing energy to the reaction that released the bond. If Casimir geometry gets smaller the exclusion field becomes stronger causing orientations that accumulate potential energy in excess of the covalent bonding force and immediately rips the hydrino apart releasing the potential energy as the "anomalous" heat readings under discussion.
VR
Fran

 
At 30 December 2008 at 15:28, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

The Casimir force, and physics generally, is conservative so you can’t generate heat from it in the way that you describe. You do understand the meaning of the word “conservative” as used in physics? You have heard of physics? I won’t delete your comment above because it is a perfect example of its genre.

 
At 10 January 2009 at 00:09, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dr Luttrell,

With all due respect...

I understand the matter of heart that...(something along the line of) when you really want something badly, you really end up hating/afraid of it because you want it with all of your being.

It is good to have an insider with cold, firm understanding of "current established" physic acting as a counter balance to possible or perceived emotional understanding.

If I may presume, I have a strong feeling that you too also want something out of ordinary that will bring about the new age of physic and put all the messy questions of physic into a neat and clear glass box. Probably most of people who chose science as their passion may fall into this group.

And you are acting as the devils-advocate and that is very very good thing to have in situation like this. We appreciate the effort and time you are putting into this.

I am not a trained physicist however I have been following BLP for a while now. As you might already know, BLP now has two commercial license agreements (non-exclusive) with small Cooperatives in New Mexico, USA.

Yes, they are of very small scale operations and etc. However, at same time, because of their small scale cooperative operation, they would be extremely careful of how they would spend their capital since they would not have much to begin with and can not afford to flush it down the can (Or you could argue because they are like outback country mom-and-pop operations without who-is-who physicists on the staff warning them of a cracker jack box slight-of-hand trick).

I ended up getting a job at one of the national Lab in NM not too long ago and one thing I found about New Mexico, USA is that there are many people (lot of them formal professionals who moved to NM for alternative life) looking into alternative energy scenarios and many of them, if not formally trained physicist, are above average minds with passion for understanding and knowledge.


Therefore, I can understand why NM may have gotten pick by BLP...along with the idea that one of the Univ of NM professor is a hydrino convert, etc.


At this point, since your standing has been that you do not want to spend your valuable time and energy reading about hydrino and coming up with your own conclusion using your analysis/though experiment etc., (meaning getting your hands dirty), therefore, by just waiting a little longer (you already waited for three or fours years) you would get the answer without much effort on your part.

If the two energy coops do well using the hydrino concept then that is your cue to jump in and try to
see if the outcomes are really from
out of ordinary thing like hydrino or something totally different or if it can be explained by your own discipline but nobody thought of before or missed. You could make name for yourself if you find something then.

Sounds like you have a win-win situation here. If hyrino proves to be without any merit you win.

If there is some merit but not fully capable of replacing the established energy status guo, you still win.

If hydrino proves to be what it say it is then you win and most of us win too (a possible down-side, there is chance that this-i.e no need for oil-may create more fanatics for export from certain oil producing nations generations after generations) because this is something you too might have been hoping and waiting for long time too.

The curtain finally raised up and now BLP seems to be moving into the "proving ground" now.

Let us wish them all best and see what happens next.

For me, one of the average joe, anything that will explain the "particle-wave duality" without any glossing (i.e. I-don't- understand-this-area-but-lets-put more-exotic-concepts-over-it-so now-it-is-more-confusing-but-more- grand-sounding-which-will-frighten lesspeople-to-question-it-and accept-is-as-the-true) will be the winner! and, of course, also lots of cheap, clean and plentiful energy.

Regards

Jung

NM, USA

 
At 10 January 2009 at 00:49, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Naturally, I am very interested in new physics, whatever it turns out to be. However, the fact that Blacklight Power has commercial license agreements does not imply that BLP has actually discovered new physics. I never believe hearsay, I need concrete evidence.

I have spent some time looking at BLP’s published material on the “physics” that underlies their claims, and the small subset that I have read is so riddled with fundamental flaws that I haven’t bothered to read further. The most charitable interpretation is that BLP might have discovered something new, but they haven’t explained it very well. However, based on the BLP material that I have read, the most likely interpretation is that they are not making enough effort to interpret their experimental results using well-established physics.

I agree with your criticism of obfuscation in explanations of phenomena such as “wave particle duality”. There are too many people who believe everything that they learnt at university, and who dogmatically pass their rote-learnt “understanding” on to anyone who will listen. It’s so much better to reorganise what you learnt earlier before trying to pass it on to other people.

 
At 12 January 2009 at 19:14, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If I remember back about a quarter century or so, when I took my freshmen year physic 101...

"Quantum mechanics allows things that are completely mutually-exclusive (at least intuitively in our macro mind/experiences) to each other to exist without problem...".

On the other hand "EPR paradox".

The Titans of Physic have had struggled over these from the Golden age of Physic and may still going on even nowadays, somewhere.

Even though QM may lead for now, each seemed to take a lead depending as new tidbits coming into the picture.

You wrote that "...the small subset that I have read is so riddled with fundamental flaws that I haven’t bothered to read further"

And for my point especially "...not making enough effort to interpret their experimental results using well-established physics".

My understanding was that Dr. Mills do away with the "well-established physics" and came up with his own way looking at some fundamental questions.

It seems that you think he took too much "liberty" with what had been written on the stone and created a fantasy world where with a magic wand made of Hydrino seemly impossible is more than feasible...actually it might well be producing something can be used daily for everyone's consumption, becoming a part of everyday life... the reality (even though the interpretation of it could be different for everyone...just like in QM too, if I may point out).

Therefore, just to indulge a little here since everyone here is having a little fun discussing this issue in some habitst way, isn't it better to for you to put a rest to your familiar discipline for a short time and approach Dr. Mills's material with his point of view and see where it takes you.

I know it would not be easy to swallow the blue/red pill however, again, just to indulge the Dr. Mills since you have taken up a public stance against his view.

I believe Dr. Mills went through traditional QM courses on the other hand.

If you ever have spent some hours of your life watching or reading fantasy/sci-fi movies or book in your life, you sure can spend a few hours assuming a role of Hydrino convert and go over the Hydrino material.

Who knows you might see something that could be interesting-just like it says in any tactician book worth its weight, know thy opposing force before you engage that force.

Anyway, as I wrote in my previous post, you can wait-and-see for failure or success of a actual and practical power generation from the licensee and then jump into what is going, hoping that it is something that "established-physics" missed somehow.

Jung

NM, USA

One interesting contrast (if BLP claims check out by practicality in near future).

Even after so much money, efforts and time went into the commercial fusion energy production (aka hot fusion) researches, not to mentioned the numbers of all those smart PhDs who spent their best critical time of their careers trying so hard, nothing that I am aware of came out from that end (yet)...not even a co-op style power generation setup as...in BLP picture.

After a half century, "A recent paper, part of the IAEA Fusion Conference Proceedings at Geneva this Oct claims that small 50 MWe Tokomak style reactors are feasible." but don't know when that will be implemented yet while BLP has already licensed "...generator may produce gross thermal power up to a maximum continuous capacity of 250 MW or convert this thermal power to corresponding electricity"

Anyway, everything depends on the proven real product that we can use on daily basis without too much negative compare to oil, gas, bio etc.

 
At 12 January 2009 at 20:24, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

You pick-n-mix populist quotes about QM. That approach isn’t going to convince me of anything. Unfortunately, QM is one of those areas where there is a lot of confusion, even amongst people who call themselves physicists. For instance, the phrase “EPR paradox” is bandied about even though there isn’t actually any paradox for people who understand QM, which Einstein (the E of EPR) never did, or at least he never accepted QM.

I will not be reading any more about BLP’s “grand unified theory” (not even to play devil’s advocate against myself by swapping red/blue pills, as you put it) because, as I have already pointed out, the subset that I have checked has many flaws, so I have already hit the point of diminishing returns. Of course, if some experimental results came in that clearly demonstrated that “new physics” was happening, then I would update my assessment of BLP to assuming that they actually did have something new but they hadn’t explained it very well.

In the meantime I will get on with other things that have a much higher chance of success.

 
At 14 January 2009 at 18:44, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I feel lucky that I am working in a National lab where things are always being discussed and look into.

Since it comes across as you are into spending every valuable second of your life looking into something "real" I hope your will come up with something that can help the Humanity eventually, very soon I might add.

At this point in our civilization, anyone with anything that can lift us out of the energy crisis will be more than appreciated. Does not matter what direction he/she might be coming from.

wish you luck.

BTW. If you really understand the QM and EPR debate, it is NOT a populist quotes. It is a progress, a way to further our knowledge. It is questioning the validity of something you might be considering your absolute true.

Remember, because there is a something called "human mind" in the loop...if there was no "human mind", it would not matter one way or other whether QM is complete or there is that "spooky actions" to the Universe. Universe will exist as it had since the beginning till the end, if there is such a thing.

Something like "wave-particle duality" (weird to us) dose not have any intrinsic means to Universe; it simply is as it is.

However, because human mind wants to get to the bottom of things, we now have human affair coloring everything. At least, it makes living interesting to us.

Anyone who says we have a finalized perfect understanding is almost like saying that the all knowing God created everything and that is that...no more discussion is required, period. And anything other than is blasphemy, strong eligible candidate for prompt, painful execution at the stake.

Again, The Titans of the Physics (core creators of physics knowledge you could be considering YOUR OWN) found it worth while to discuss and have had interactions over it. And mostly likely still going on among high level physicists.

And I truly hope the debate goes on forever to helps us advance forward forever.

 
At 14 January 2009 at 19:42, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

It is good to that you have the freedom to think and act independently, and since you doubt what I have said, I hope that you have the time to look into the claims of BLP to find for yourself the flaws in their underlying “physics”.

Whatever it is that I might be doing in the way of research is not obliged to make any public appearance soon. Why? Because I haven’t made any premature claims about what I might have discovered. When I have published my work in the past I have made sure that it fitted into the structure of related work, and where my work appeared to differ from related work I have gone to great lengths to explain exactly what was going on, using the language of the related work rather than overriding it with my own invented language.

“EPR”, as used today, is purely a quote used by journalists and "pop"-scientists. I agree that at the time the EPR paper was published it was a necessary step to gain a better understanding of QM. But we now have that better understanding, and have had ever since Hugh Everett showed us what QM was about. The goalposts have moved to that Everett is now the norm, and we need experimental evidence to believe otherwise – I would be fascinated to see anything like this turn up.

As for “human mind”, are you seriously implying that there is something special about the human mind? As far as I can see the “human mind” is irrelevant – it might as well be an “artificial mind”. There is no fundamental difference that I am aware of. As ever, I am prepared to change my mind in the face of experimental evidence.

I have already spent a significant amount of my time examining BLP’s claims, and I have come to a very clear decision that it is not worth while looking any further. BLP’s theoretical writing is riddled with flaws, and it resembles Cargo Cult Science. The only way forward is for irrefutable experimental evidence to be presented.

 
At 14 January 2009 at 22:34, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, Yes, Yes...YES

Our good ol boy "graviton"!!!. Hope CERN will have some findings on this attaboy in near future. Cheers everyone.

Until then a successful theory QG (quantum gravity) is well...you know what I mean.

Which leads to MWI.

This as much my freshmen year Physics 101 (from the well-established physics , If I may say so) thought me a quarter century ago. Now is 2009. Anything Changed?

Finding graviton, that is only as a starter...after that what I can only only guess as large volume of sweats from smartest minds of our generation and possibly generations after that to make sense of everything. Or it could be resolved soon by someone out of nowhere (e.g . Fermat's Last Theorem)

Come to think of it, If CERN finds that good old boy graviton and that bad boy hydrino is still around that time, it would be very interesting to see how they would complement each other.


BTW I was hoping that you would see the "human mind" in the context that I was using it as in "not that special in the scheme of Universe chugging along as it has since the beginning till...whatever".

What we consider
"weird/strange/absolutely -does-not-make-sense/simply improbable/ impossible" could be nothing more than simple fact of Universe.

It is only important to "us" that we know what is going on "in there" and try to make some comfortable senses to our slowly freaking-out "human mind" as we understand more and more.

 
At 17 January 2009 at 18:14, Anonymous Anonymous said...

For fun I like to read pseud-science debates... Take a few minutes and read up this conversation. You'll find a common theme as you will in all other pseudo-science arguments; the captains of the "cargo ship" can never really provide a rebuttal with valid equations, solid numbers, or anything concrete. All you'll find are sob stories of how the science books will be rewritten and they are being brought down by the establishment. It is a heresy to relate people like Mills to Einstein, the difference is that Einstein had actual equations, sound rebuttals, and was Einstein! So please "parrots" (I like that) stop at the phrase "I am not a physicist, but I have been following BLP" go read a book and do something constructive with your time. Any common sense person would validate and prove their findings before advertising the "solution" for humanities problems. If your so set on finding a solution, why don't you go down to the local soup kitchen and volunteer some your time.

 
At 17 January 2009 at 18:31, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

I knew what I was letting myself in for before I started the above thread(s), but I insist on using logic and reason to settle any issue. Unfortunately, this approach never works with these people, and you always end up sounding like you are closed-minded. How does the saying go? "Never wrestle with a pig; you both get dirty but the pig loves it."

 
At 21 January 2009 at 08:08, Anonymous Anonymous said...

For a guy who claims he is not a trained physist, he seems to understand where MWI <- QG <- graviton stands relation to your HE MWI (your only real counter to his previous light musings). That’s pretty good counter to your QED background. Your own QED guy R Feynman sounded (watch his famous Auckland lectures) just like what he said in his last response to you. BTW. R Feynman acknowledged that gravity failed him.
You and the last Anonymous (who does not seem to have any scientific background therefore missed the graviton picture entirely) need to watch the Richard Feynman Auckland lectures or read the QED book by RF. It seems to me he is having a fun testing you to see if you are really sincere about blogging for diverse opinion or just showing off your QED background and canned knowledge. You did not even respond to his mention of graviton to your mention of HE's MWI. Because you felt lost? Are you going to wait till CERN finds (if ever) the shadow of graviton or BLP fails? Are you always going to wait for someone's hard work to hand-feed you the answer? If you started a blog then you need to be a man about it and give a honest response to people who responded to you response instead of waiting till some anonymous guy to give you an emotional support and then you jump in and say "you and I are buddy now even though I do not have proper response" and "heck with BLP crowd".

By the way, guys, this is an informal blog. Have a fun throwing wild ideas around. Have a laughs. Your own man R Feynman did lot of that too.

 
At 21 January 2009 at 09:51, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Please read all of my above responses before wading in. I have explained how BLP should use the scientific method otherwise they will get nowhere. All other issues are distractions from this main point.

 
At 22 January 2009 at 11:27, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

It's very rare that I have to do this but I deleted a comment by Gofeymen. The substance of the comment was similar to but worded more strongly than Gofeymen's previous comment (which I have left in place). This blog is not about opinion, it is about factual science, which then sets the framework for postings and comments. There is no point in making comments that are incoherent or off-topic, because I will usually ignore them. However, I do try to extract something positive from each comment and then comment back constructively.

 
At 1 February 2009 at 16:44, Blogger Unknown said...

As a graduate student in Theory, it is upsetting to see a group of people bicker over points which they don't understand and who also don't provide sound arguments for those points which they are trying to make. This entire blog is seemingly a slapping match betwix the 'conventional' thinker and the great 'outside genius' (like Tesla). In all truth, after having read the paper http://www.blacklightpower.com/pdf/BLPIndependentReport.pdf
I can come to assertive assumptions. I feel a great need for independent verification of both the claims of BL AND Rowan Uni. I agree with Luttrell in as much as the timed runs should be expounded. The entire thread may interest me to waste $100.00 buying Mill's book so that I can take it apart and see how it works.

I am far more interested in seeing the equations used by his modeling program (which I am sure are now as locked in 'proprietary' hell as those for Gaussian).

There are deficiencies within both sides of this argument which have consequences to the nature of scientific ethics and the responsibility which scientists have to the remainder of the populous. We MUST be open enough to accepting arguments and new thoughts as we don't want to cause another Boltzmann situation (if you don't know to what I speak, read a biography of the man, or a history of science - it was an extremely sad situation). WE also have a standing as stewards of truth; we shouldn't allow the claims of a charlatan or lunatic draw wool over the eyes of the uneducated public. My personal opinion at the moment is that Mills is a mountebank; but I won't mind being proven wrong - just years of education down the drain.

As for the arguments posted by 'Jung': I should think that you need to exercise some amount of reserve to the amount you will follow a pied piper until you know he's kosher. You are acting like an over-excitable undergraduate. Until you are sure about the pharmacist you should continue going to the apothecary.

-R

 
At 1 February 2009 at 18:53, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Thank you for your support – at least, I think that’s what you are offering.

Most (all?) of my responses have been advice on how to use the “scientific method”, which is where BLP is weak, and disappointingly several of the above comments also show this same weakness.

You don’t need to spend any money to obtain Mills’ book, because you can download a free copy from here. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the book’s contents.

“Mountebank” is a new word for me, and having looked it up I believe that you are using this word appropriately. “Snake oil salesman” is perhaps another way of saying the same thing.

 
At 5 February 2009 at 11:56, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is your opinion about the article of Jan Naudts (University of Antwerp - Belgium) "On the hydrino state of the relativistic hydrogen atom".

You can find it at arXiv:physics/0507193

Marc

 
At 5 February 2009 at 14:37, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

In the preprint On the hydrino state of the relativistic hydrogen atom by Jan Naudts I would draw the opposite conclusion from Naudts. The fact that the Klein-Gordon equation admits a highly relativistic solution (the “hydrino” state) whereas the Dirac equation does not (i.e. it is not square integrable) tells me that the KG solution is not physical, and should be discarded – i.e. the “hydrino” state does not exist.

My intuitive interpretation of this is that a highly relativistic KG solution is OK for a free KG particle, but when there are interactions all bets are off. You should then enlarge the theory to take account of both particles and antiparticles (i.e. the Dirac equation), and you should do a full quantum field theory analysis to take account of (virtual) multi-particle states. The fact that the above KG solution is OK, but the corresponding Dirac solution is not, strongly hints that my intuition applies in this case.

 
At 26 March 2009 at 18:04, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i just find it weird that this story comes right after BLP signs 2 deals for the production of power using his process.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j2QobOQnlULUZ7oalSRUVjnlHjng

 
At 27 March 2009 at 00:48, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Are you suggesting that there is a connection between hydrinos and cold fusion? As far as I know BLP hasn't ever claimed anything about fusion. Maybe they are saving those important advances to be revealed later on.

 
At 20 April 2009 at 21:08, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve wrote:


"There is a teeny little problem with this fractional quantum number idea. The wavefunction has to be multi-valued or has to diverge at infinity to accommodate this sort of quantum number, and since the wavefunction is the projection of the state vector onto a set of orthogonal basis states, this means that this projection would have to be multi-valued (or have to diverge). What is that supposed to mean? It means you have got it wrong."

I am not a Blacklight "believer" but I can say that your logic is infuriating and symptomatic of the problem of new ideas in Physics.

Your entire issue is one of formal mathematical representation, not physical reality or experimental results. The formal mathematics in QM is a reaction to experimental reality but does not define or limit that reality. If QM was developed without all possible efects accounted for, the math may represent that by missing certain physical effects.

Basically, you cannot disprove an experiental effect by a theorectical argument. You are just playing a game with the math when you use language such as
"and since the wavefunction is the projection of the state vector onto a set of orthogonal basis states" and speak of that like it is something real. Nature does not require "a set of orthoganal basis states" as she does just fine by herself. You can only show Mills wrong by showing that he has erred in the experimental data or its intepretation.

 
At 20 April 2009 at 21:27, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve:

In the previous post of 20 April 2009 21:08, I forgot to mention that I understand the formal language of QM (at least some of it as I have a Physics degree) and that the sense of disconnect where physicists believe the mathematics to the point where the math becomes the physics, goes all the way back to grad school. I have followed Mills for more than ten years ocillating between pro and con but have always sensed that the typical reaction to Mills' work is to try to filter what Mills says through standard QM, find that it deos not agree with QM, then pronounce the whole thing a failure. No one seems to look at Mills or oothers works through fresh eyes where they (pretend) they know nothing of QM to bias their views. Always, people are too busy. Where I am going with this argument is that it seems impossible for someone to rewrite modern physics from scratch (even if it needed that) based on the biases and rigid fixed standard models now in place.


You mentioned in an post in this thread that Mills work may be nothing more than some cute calculationsal trick. I think that is possible especially if you look at the results of Mills program 'Millsian' which seems to work rather well. If Millsian (2.0
is coming out) really does calculate things quicker and more accurate than the various QM packages out there, what does that say? A related thought is this, is it not possible that there exists more than one set of assumptions (models) that can calculate physical effects well?
What does that say about the nature of mathematics vs. Physics?

 
At 21 April 2009 at 12:20, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

In response to your first comment:

You say “[my] entire issue is one of formal mathematical representation”. That is certainly not my intention, because I regard the mathematical representation as a succinct encoding of the laws of physics as experimentally observed thus far. Experimental observation is the dog that wags the tail of mathematical representation. It would be better to say “[my] entire issue is one of succinct encoding”.

This view positively demands that the mathematical representation should be updated (or the existing mathematical representation reinterpreted) in the light of new and unexpected experimental observations, so that the totality of all experimental observations is thereby encoded. Usually, you can explain unexpected observations by reinterpreting the existing mathematics, rather than by inventing new mathematics to “explain” the observations. Reusing a code in a new context is much more economical than inventing entirely new codes, because it keeps the overall encoding as succinct as possible.

As for whether mathematical representation might (or might not) be one and the same thing as reality itself, there are some parts of quantum mechanics (specifically quantum field theory, and even more specifically quantum electrodynamics) where the agreement with experimental observation is astonishingly good, e.g. the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron (see here) where the agreement is 10 significant figures (from calculations done thus far). In cases of such extreme accuracy I am prepared to believe that mathematical representation and reality may well be the same thing. However, more generally in other areas of physics agreement is far less accurate (possibly due to poor experimental accuracy, or due to poor mathematical representation, or both), and I am then ambivalent about identifying maths=reality.

So, when I respond using mathematical arguments, it is because they are a succinct encoding of the physical content of what I want to say, and not because the mathematics is in itself the last word.

You say “you cannot disprove an experimental effect by a theoretical argument”. This statement assumes that all sources of error are in the mathematical representation, and ignores the fact that all experimental observations are subject to error. If you have a mathematical representation that accurately agrees with all experimental observations, and then along comes a new observation that wildly disagrees with the maths, you have to ask yourself whether the new experimental result is flawed in some way.

In response to your second comment:

Like you, I have noticed that most (theoretical) physicists work entirely in terms of the mathematical representation rather than in terms of the real-world physics. There is a good reason for this, because the maths offers a succinct encoding that is very amenable to doing calculations that would be virtually impossible to do using intuitive physical arguments. Usually, you do your whole calculation in maths-world whilst wearing a blindfold to how it corresponds to the real-world, and then valiantly attempt to interpret the correspondence between the real-world and only the final result of the math-world calculation. If you have a lot more time, you could build up this correspondence to include the real-world interpretation of all of the intermediate steps of the maths, but generally people don’t bother to do that.

As for rebuilding physics from scratch, or “refactoring” physics, this would be a major project that would need to be done by a single hyper-genius individual working in isolation rather than a committee working together. In the meantime, we ordinary mortals will just have to make do with the mathematical representation that we have inherited, and to tweak it a bit here and polish it a bit there. Always try to reuse the succinct encoding that we already have rather than extend the encoding.

Is there more than one way of representing physics? In response to this I always come back to the example of QED and the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron with its 10 significant figures of agreement. There is a lot of very subtle interaction between an enormous number of Feynman diagrams in order to obtain this 10-digit agreement. You have to ask yourself whether this is a unique property of that particular calculation, or whether there are other ways of representing physics (i.e. other than QED) that might produce the same result. When you have 10-digit accuracy it is a very unlikely (but not impossible) that there might be another way of doing things that is not trivially related to QED.

 
At 21 April 2009 at 23:36, Anonymous Anonymous said...

First, thanks for the response.

Maybe I should have illuminated how your original argument takes Mills' fractional quantum number idea and tries to
show that it does not come out of the math. But the math you were discussing was not Mills system where he derives
his model, but standard QM. So by forcing Mills classical solution into the standard model, of course it does not
work, principally due to the fact that the standard model was constructed, over time, with the belief, based on
data at the time, that the ground state was truly the lowest state. There are several points here I want to make.
Many critics (like Dr. Park) have stated that there cannot be any lower state than the ground state of Hydrogen
based on standard model not predicting it (and the strong belief that if it were possible it would have been found
already). While both points may be true, they are not sufficient to close the case. Further, there seems to be a
misunderstanding that Mills thinks Hydrogen, in isolation, can go to a lower state. Neither standard QM or Mills
model predicts that. Mills has always said that a fractional state can only come about in a multi-body reaction
where hydrogen is coupled to (temporarily bound) to a catalyst which has the property of twice the Hydrogen bound
electron energy or about 27ev. This reaction then supposedly leaves a n=1/2 Hydrogen atom. Mills claims to have
much spectroscopic evidence but generally physicists discount that apriori. Most physicist tend to think that the
claim itself is too absurd to waste resources actually doing an experiment (atomic Hydrogen and certain catylists)
so with only Mills data to go on, the whole idea is rejected. In a sense, if Hydrogen was more complicated than
currently thought, and if these sub structures were not trivial to achieve or notice, it would be very hard for
physics under the current regime to deal with it. If Chemists said they found it Physicsts would doubt them. I see
a general problem with professional science being too conservative and funded almost entirely with government
and other grants. The idea if new physics regimes made from scratch seems a very difficult proposition.

Regarding the great success of QED, I understand the process though I myself have not done the complex calculations
involving Feynman diagrams beyond a few grad school homework assignments. It seems to be there are some logical
issues with the summing up of many terms each representing a possible process and the answer being the average of
all possible processess up to so many orders. In the real world, perhaps only one term actually happens in a given
experiment yet the values come out the same. Mathematically, QED seems to be summing a series so It seems any model
that uses a convergence of terms to approximate a physical effect may lead to the same result- after all there are
many ways to sum things so I am not surprised that enought terms get very close. I think one could do that with a
different model also. Mills does seem to be able to calculate virtually all atoms, molecules and ions fairly
close and it seems odd that a model that gets virtually everything close is all bad even if it is mode math than
physics. It does not surprise me that a simpler model could do that. Well see how many chemists buy Millsian.

Regards,

Rob

 
At 24 April 2009 at 17:26, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

I have already explained that you should strive to use known science to interpret experimental data before inventing “new” science.

Also, the onus is on the author of a new (and possibly crazy-sounding) new idea to find ways of explaining it in terms of pre-existing concepts that their readership will already understand. For instance, when the revolutionary ideas of quantum mechanics and special relativity were originally introduced they were both explained in a language that was readily understood (by experts) at the time, though of course the language has matured in the years since then, so that a modern explanation would perhaps be incomprehensible to the originators of these ideas.

In the case of the so-called hydrino state, I gave an explanation of why this state is an illusion in my response (on 5th February 2009) to an earlier comment (search for “Jan Naudts” on this page). To put it bluntly, the Millsian approach is fundamentally flawed and is thus bad science, and there is no point spending further time on it as a possible fundamental theory.

As for your comments about summing Feynman diagrams, you are trying to develop an intuitive verbal argument to describe what is actually a rigorously defined mathematical procedure battle-hardened in numerous comparisons with experimentally observed results – your beguiling approach is thus bound to fail. For instance, you use the word “seems” 4 times, and there is no mathematical counterpart to this piece of terminology. Also, there are many other problems with what you say. For instance, is highly non-trivial that summing a huge number Feynman diagrams results in 10-digit accuracy in agreement with the experimentally observed value of the same quantity. This is like winning a lottery by guessing the correct lottery number out of 10,000,000,000 possibilities. Even if you sell 10,000,000 lottery tickets the chance of 1 person winning is very low (i.e. 1 in a 1000), so the chance of 2 or more people simultaneously winning is minuscule. So I am very impressed that QED gets it right to 10-digit accuracy, and I don’t hold out much hope that there is another (inequivalent) theory that will work as well as QED, though there may be refinements to QED that are needed to get better than 10-digit accuracy, but we will have to do the calculations to check this out.

 
At 24 April 2009 at 23:47, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for your response. In the earlier post from Feb 05, you wrote:

"I would draw the opposite conclusion from Naudts. The fact that the Klein-Gordon equation admits a highly relativistic solution (the “hydrino” state) whereas the Dirac equation does not (i.e. it is not square integrable) tells me that the KG solution is not physical, and should be discarded – i.e. the “hydrino” state does not exist."

And;

"I have already explained that you should strive to use known science to interpret experimental data before inventing “new” science."

I understand that you are a theorist specializing in QCD. That explains why in your argument above you equate the mathematical properties of the KG and Dirac equations as known science. It
makes sense that a theorist would see theoretical constructs as solid, established science
over weird data. Yet, in another place you stated that data is the most important basis for science. In this case, I think the best way to falsify Mills' work would be so show how Mills spectroscopic data may be interpreted in a more conventional way rather than as proof of the stated Hydrino.

Then you wrote, "Also, the onus is on the author of a new (and possibly crazy-sounding) new idea to find ways of explaining it in terms of pre-existing concepts that their readership will already understand."

Yes, but the authors of QM had a difficult time explaining QM in terms of Classical physics. Mills is going back to a Classical
approach so it should be comprehensible if it were consistent. I understand many say it is not.

Regarding "As for your comments about summing Feynman diagrams, you are trying to develop an intuitive verbal argument to describe what is actually a rigorously defined mathematical procedure battle-hardened in numerous comparisons with experimentally observed results – your beguiling approach is thus bound to fail."

I would like to see the details (I am not asking you to provide them
but if you know a reference where the entire calculation of the example you gave with 10 digit accuracy is worked out) that would be appreciated very much. I would like to see if there are hidden assumptions to get that experimental number, or if one goes through it with fixed rules and no deviation and get that accuracy. Since QED is called the most accurate theory ever devised, I want to know if, behind the scenes, there is just a little exaggeration in that statement.

Thanks!

 
At 2 May 2009 at 00:54, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Steve :-)
fancy a Feynman/Hawkins style bet on the outcome? I'll bet you a tenner that you're right; that way if I'm right, I don't have to feel bad about it ;-) Of course I only take the opposite position as a matter of form - one must respect the existing structures...
Your friend, Mart

 
At 2 May 2009 at 11:29, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

It was the Thorne-Hawking-Preskill bet (see here), which was a stand-off between general relativity and quantum mechanics in the area of black hole physics.

The situation with BP is not comparable to this, because the bet would then be between (1) science and (2) junk "science", which would give BP more credibility than would be wise to allow.

 
At 6 May 2009 at 12:39, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

In response to "Anonymous" on 24 April 2009:

I don’t do QCD now - QCD was the topic of my PhD.

As I said before, the purpose of a successful physical theory is to “encode” the experimental observations that have been collected thus far, and to make predictions of yet-to-be-measured observations. In the case of the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron the 10-digit accuracy is so good that I am prepared to believe that the theory (QED, in this case) accurately represents the structure of reality for energies that are not too large, rather than merely be a low-fidelity model of reality. Because of this, if someone suggests a modification to QED, then they will have to work very hard indeed to convince people of the correctness of what they propose. For instance, they would have to demonstrate that they have a deep understanding of QED (the notation, the way calculations are done, etc), and then explain their proposed modifications using this same language. BP has not done any of this, in fact BP seem to go out of their way in doing things differently just for the sake of it, so their theoretical proposals are rightly ignored.

A description of how the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron or muon is measured is here, and a description of the corresponding theoretical prediction is here. You will see that there are contributions from QED, weak, and strong interactions, where the weak and strong contributions come about from the corresponding virtual particles running in loops, so the result is not determined purely by QED.

The calculation of this result to the 4th order that is mentioned on the above web page above would have involved a prodigious amount of computation, and it would have been automated by using symbolic algebra techniques (etc). I am certain that the details of the calculations have never been exhaustively checked by a human. I have done a cursory search and there is a paper on measuring the magnetic moment here, and equation (6) in the paper points to the 4th order theoretical calculation which it says is summarised in reference [10] of the paper. Good luck in following this up!

 
At 15 May 2009 at 23:43, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would like to say that the "independent" confirmation experiments were done by a colleague of Mills, and the materials (the generators) were provided BY BlackLight power. This just screams foul play to me.

My own guess is that BlackLight will create energy with normal means for its contracts, albeit secretly. It will somehow import traditional fuels and provide energy, until many naysayers turn into potential stock-buyers. Then, Mills will sell stock, become extraordinarily rich, put it in a Swiss bank account, and disappear to some third world country.

 
At 16 May 2009 at 10:26, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

Yes, disappearing with the money would be BP's optimal strategy. I wonder if they will pull it off successfully.

 
At 24 May 2009 at 21:46, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just found this blog. Do you all know about the "Hydrino Study Group". Lots of comments from "true believers" and scientific skeptics. In particular you might find the thread about Kunze's paper debunking Mill's spectroscopic evidence for hydrinos informative. Here's a direct link to the that particular thread although I don't know if it will come unbroken:

http://forum.hydrino.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=73&start=0&hilit=spectrometer&sid=c884f2c1f2621c5e14bdb27113d2cd13

Also in that group you will find many posts from Dr's. Connett and Zimmerman pointing out the gaping holes in the "Grand unified theory". Enjoy.

--Lynn
math.asu.edu/~kurtz

 
At 29 May 2009 at 16:53, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am not expert. But in the double slit test, delayed decision portion, it shows that the electron's behavior acted outside of the bounds of time.
So tell me scientists, isn't it possible for this timeless dimension to have properties that are yet understood and can be the reason QM is unable to answer the paradoxes it has? And since we know the electron operates in both dimensions, maybe the electron fluctuating between the the 2 dimensions is what enables the atom to go to a lower ground state then they thought possible?
But to call a 1 MJ energy burst meaningless unless they can produce a formula to back it up is foolish. To produce enough power to energize a light bulb for 7 hours with just one thousandth of a gram of fuel is unheard of, no?
I don't give 2 shits about the formula being right as long as the energy is showing up, we can use it. What formula did Franklin use before he put the key on the string? Imagine the guy inventing the wheel needing a formula or else he can't work on the wheel.
There is the possiblity that we can harness the untapped energy without any formulas initially. Remember, these nah sayers told us the universe had to be static, oh sorry,the universe is a billion years old, oops, 3 billion yrs old, errr 5 billion years, oh no the earth is 3, billion, err 5 billion. No no no, the universe is at least 10 billion years old. or 15 billion.
And now with the problem of complexity in DNA they need the earth to be Quadrillions of years old for all their dice rolls and on and on. Einstein was right! There are no probabilities. When you roll dice, there are no chances, the dice roll is determined once all the physical parameters are set, once it leaves your hand. We are just too slow and stupid to be able to make all the calculations fast enough to tell you the roll result before the dice finishes it's movements. What they called probability I call ignorance. Seems to me the establishment scientists are know it alls and don't know much of any reality. Pons and fliecshmann weren't frauds, they were on to something, and people like Mills chose to pursue it and the establishment types threw it in the trash.
That something is ZPE, it is in the fabric of our universe and 1 square inch may contain enough energy to light the entire universe many times fold. Whether they understand it or not, excess energy is there for us.
And you know it alls should be looking for it rather then bashing people that are. But I guess in their eyes, why should they look when they already know? You know what I mean?

 
At 29 May 2009 at 18:22, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

What a rant! It is probably the best example of its genre in the comments on this Blacklight Power blog posting, which seems to have attracted a large number of comments from “non-experts” who are convinced that they can safely ignore most (all?) of well-established scientific knowledge, and use their “infallible intuition” to guide their arguments. Despite what you appear to prefer, the correctness of a proposed new scientific theory is not decided by rhetoric or emotive arguments. One of the main advantages of having a formal scientific education is that it trains you so that you don’t use intuitive and sloppy lines of thinking, but instead it guides your thinking within a highly coherent framework (e.g. laws of physics, scientific method, etc) that is formalised mathematically. If you try to use anything less than the strictest criteria to decide what is worth adding to the scientific knowledge base, then you are really storing up trouble for the future. “Mother Nature” will always catch you out if you try to cut corners in your rush for fame and/or gold.

 
At 19 September 2009 at 03:15, Anonymous Anonymous said...

To Stephen Luttrell

I am sure glad Einstein did not have a "formal scientific education..." which "trains you so that you don’t use intuitive and sloppy lines of thinking, but instead it guides your thinking within a highly coherent framework (e.g. laws of physics, scientific method, etc) that is formalised mathematically" or the formulation of the theory of relativity might have been delayed indefinitely. For that matter if Galileo's thought process was guided by the then conventional theory we might believe the earth was the center of the solar system still.
Shutting out the ideas of Joseph Newman and other perpetual machine promoters makes perfect sense but Mills is in a different league. He is publishing peer reviewed papers (albeit not the most prestigious journals) has a theory that on a physical level makes much more sense than SQM and is working with a University. Mills theory is much more in the direction of what Einstein intuited was the nature of reality than collapsing wave functions,virtual particles, renormalization etc.. and I would take Einsteins intuition over your dogmatic close-mindedness any day.
Even if Mills is wrong it is good to see someone who is looking for a rational theory that does not suspend classical laws because they are inconvenient when trying to overcome problems such as a point particle having to radiate etc..

 
At 19 September 2009 at 10:57, Blogger Stephen Luttrell said...

I have dealt will all of these "issues" before. I also thought I had closed this blog to new comments. I have now!

 

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