[extropy-chat] Elvis Sightings

[Keith Henson]

At 06:17 PM 1/29/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>"Gary Miller" <aiguy at comcast.net>
>
> > It may be possible that impurities in the test materials or water are what
> > makes the experiment irreproducible.

It's reproducible, it just isn't consistently reproducible.  And far worse, 
there is no accepted or even plausible theory.  It is so random in when it 
turns on that you think of cosmic ray hits.  Maybe it is muon related and 
*does* take cosmic rays.  Or perhaps it is the result of a few free 
quarks.  Google charge niobium spheres and read a few articles.  Physics as 
we know it does not permit fractional charges.

>Then it was a miracle, Extropians do not deal in miracles.

Uncontrolled variables are not miracles.  You really should look into the 
early history (1930s) of semiconductors.  Did you ever hear the horror 
story about Joy detergent?  I can tell you one myself about some bad epoxy 
destroying millions of dollars worth of parts in the early 70s.

> > And then again if the government did discover this, and the potential for
> > misuse as a weapon was too great  [.]

 From what I know about it, and I have followed this business for a long 
time, even if they do figure out the physics, it may be useless for 
anything but pocket warmers.

>And Elvis is deep within Area 51 turning water into gasoline.

An amusing fact is that the deuterium in a gallon of water has about the 
same energy content as a gallon of gasoline.

>This is the
>Extropian list people, it has a long and noble history, get real.

I was here almost from the beginning.  I don't think that being totally 
dogmatic about something is a extropian virtue.

How about carbon nanotubes?  Do you have a fixed opinion about how strong 
they will turn out to be?

Keith Henson