[ExI] Efficiency of wind power

[Damien Broderick]

On 4/7/2011 8:51 PM, spike jones wrote:

> Nobel laureate
> Luis Alvarez describes an experiment they were doing at Berkeley (as I
> recall from reading it over 20 yrs ago), in the mid 1950s.  They couldn't
> explain it, but there appeared to be excess heat being generated.

My understanding is that some serious, experienced physicists are 
reporting that they see unexplained excess heat from Rossi's set-up. If 
that is true and isn't due to some overlooked glitch, while nuclear 
explanations are inapplicable, it just means that some other kind of 
account is needed (maybe of some new sort).

I'm always surprised when science buffs think that "It can't be due to 
X" means that an observed phenomenon therefore doesn't exist, or if it 
does exist it can't be anomalous, must be due to fraud or carelessness 
or stupidity. Yes, often that will be the case. The history of science 
shows that often enough it *isn't* the case.

In this instance, it looks to me as if time, and lots of scrutiny, will 
tell; it's too soon to bit-bucket the claim. Since it's already had 
quite a lot of initial scrutiny without falling over, it is interesting 
enough to track.

Damien Broderick