Atomic Motor - Site Usage Policy
Terms and Conditions (last update 2007)
By using and visiting this site you agree to abide by the following site usage policy. All trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks on this site are the property of their respective owners. No information on visitors is collected, but simple page view statistics. By no means whatsoever am I a spokesperson in any way shape or form for the cold fusion field or the DoE. I'm just a blogger with an opinion to share. All opinions expressed are those of the blog author, who has never worked for the DoE, but would like to (Hint: see past Annual Reviews of Energy and the Environment).
This site is purely in support of bringing visibility to a historically down trodden field, and supports charities with free banner ads. Note: This site doesn't control the Ad Sense display advertisings, nor the content of such display ads. The responsibility for use and misuse of the information contained within this site (as with other sites on the internet) is the responsibility of 'you' the reader. If you take risks with investments as some have done, have fun, but bear in mind the responsibility for those risks are with 'you'. If you do become wealthy someday - great!, but please share the wealth and help the field grow. [ Note: If you already happen to be a wealthy individual, there are many fine researchers who could sure use some help to make their dreams a reality with your kind generosity].
With the above brief introduction and with some hopes and dreams, I'm glad you've stopped by to visit. I wish you success in whatever you wish to help this branch of condensed matter physics to become.
Q. What is the Investment Potential in Cold Fusion ? Answer:
From what I've witnessed first hand and read over the years: HUGE. However, this leads to Rule 1: Cold fusion related science from this blogger's perspective (after following this field since the beginning) is not for those interested in a 'get rich quick' approach, but instead appears more suited to the long term 'value based' approach. But, I hope I'm wrong, and it happens much sooner, for mankind's sake. After 1989, the genie is now "out of the bottle" as the old saying goes. Humanity may have no choice, but to manage it in my opinion. In ways it is THE paradox of our time. The realities are unmistakeable, and many who fear it and its history prefer to ignore it. However, it can not be ignored, and thus must be carefully and bravely managed by many members of our global society who witnessed its extreme media birth in 1989.
As Martin Fleischmann himself once said : "it's hard to make a business case for it." Looking at our world today, I can see why that might be in some regards. I also see this field as another ticking clock of sorts and so I try to keep a close eye as a human being on developments with the time and skills that I have available, realizing that there are those who genuinely want to make a business case for it. However, I'm only one opinion - make your own judgements and weigh your own options. Because this field is unique in some ways in its beginnings, I would try and error on the side of caution, as I've always recommended for those who know me.
An appropriate phrase that I'll add to the above comments is the old adage: "What you measure you manage" Hopefully the wider cold fusion community of interest will keep this thought in mind.
For those interested in staying current, studying the science reports and papers being published on the web is a good way to learn about all the opinions, science and history in this field. There are controversial sites, and their are credible sites just like any on the internet. There are also many brave souls world wide who publish regularly despite the rejection (or invitation to publish) of major science journals to anything on the subject (a sad state of affairs indeed, but this appears to be changing as I write this).
However, for those who love extreme sports, and feel technically competent to jump all the global technical and political hurdles required, and weigh the possible risks - major conferences tend to be held twice per year and announced on the internet. In many ways, today's world of condensed matter nuclear science (CMNS) theory and low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) experimentation, is like the early years of the last century when physics saw a revolution of ideas occur that drew public interest. Ideas then developed in parallel - in key areas. As the decades progressed, the 1930's arrived and things started changing and the infant nuclear physics had grown a bit more mature and was looked upon quite differently than the lab curiosity of the early 1900s. So it's up to us all as internet enabled human beings to help carefully educate, manage and bravely apply any knowledge from this field to help society, or perhaps suffer the consequences of ignorance.
Q. Why the media emphasis ? Answer: Because it is through a variety of on-line media that many in society now articulate, receive, evaluate and digest information and form their opinions on a subject matter today. Besides, show me a blog today that doesn't use media in some form or another. For millions of blogs , it's now the norm.
Q. When did this site start? Answer: This site started via the blogging efforts of a lone nuclear engineer blogger "lab rat" back in the summer of 2004 as a weekend and evening project in an attempt to help raise awareness about the realities in this field via many RSS media outlets and on a number of issues he saw as being important in public education (including safety) and it continues this tradition with this incarnation of the Atomic Motor. This site has always been about possibility thinking. If this site has succeeded at all in any of its goals, it's because of the many suggestions I have received by friends, family, acquaintences, and by email suggestions by kind individuals trying to help. But it's just a simple site. Rule #2: I don't comment on any internet related materials that may have a conflict of interest with my employer. There are also ethical reasons why I don't blog on certain subjects: Life gets too complicated.
Q. Are you trying to solve all the world's energy related issues (water, population, education, safety) all by yourself? Answer: No, certainly not. There is a simple answer: I have two children and many relatives and family and friends just like anyone else. If we all don't think about the future and help make small changes (even by blogging), to help navigate where we all end up on this planet earth for this generation and the next, then who will? An increasingly complex world on autopilot run by the uneducated masses with the power of the internet scares me more than anything else. It starts with each of us in small ways to help educate.
Q. Why is cold fusion taking so long to commercialize? Answer: The dilemmas posed by the commercialization of cold fusion (in the opinion of this blogger). It's as much a cultural one as a technical one. Many outside the field often ask this question. There is no single "right" answer as to why in my opinion, though historical lack of funding appears to top the list. Also, as Ed Storms recently stated in a very well written new book, there were perhaps selfish motives by some to ignore the scientific evidence. An apt analogy I posted way back in August 2004 (and that others have also used) is equating it to the discovery of fire by cavemen. Man had to adapt to handling this simple technology and some would not share their tricks or some even quietly walked off into their own caves to quietly experiment. It took time to fully understand the ramifications and uses. I often wonder how long it took primitive man to co-exist with his new fire. Looked this way, one can see the challenges ahead for cold fusion related science.
Q. How should one manage such "outside the box" research that struggles to be commercialized? Answer: I personally feel there is a "great awakening going on" quietly in the scientific community worldwide that started after 1989 and it does have the potential to be enabled by the internet in untold ways as it moves through development phases and as society finds the proper means to fund and deal with it all safely. Who knows?, it might even take us to the stars someday as more and more people see its potential and join the community in nurturing it along in a safe manner. We also have to deal with some harsh realities and the potential for possible misuse. This is what makes this field unique and it takes 'time and money' as the saying goes, a paradox indeed.
However, science has always surprised mankind, and I think this field will do the same despite the early skepticism and even some present day skeptics who see no hope at all. Hard facts also seem to indicate to me, that we may be stuck on a planet with sustainability issues, without a power source of sufficient "energy density" for a growing population of "energy hungry" humans if we certainly don't make an effort to try and investigate the potential of new energy sources. Both atomic energy (including forms of CMNS) and solar energy ( if further developed ) appear to have the greatest potential to meet those needs.
Looking back at the history of commercialization successes in science, there may be a direct linear relationship between commercial and public funds expended and the time it takes to commercialize a technology. Please send money, help change public policy and educate others if you believe in cold fusion (CMNS and LENR) science and want to speed its commercialization.
Could the commercialization of the aircraft industry after the Wright brothers happened any sooner? Perhaps. Could Radio and TV electronics have happened sooner? Perhaps. Could the computer industry and internet have happened sooner? Maybe. Most of these took decades. Many of these industries relied on simple technologies, yet needed the right guiding hands to nurture them to commercialization coupled with the right public education and enabling technologies to further them along. The same may hold true for cold fusion from this blogger's perspective on the field after observing its past history. The 1989 announcement and media frenzy hasn't made it easy to live up to past public expectations in many ways, much like the frenzy the high temperature superconductor community went through in the 1980's.
..."there may be a direct linear relationship between commercial and public funds expended and the time it takes to commercialize a technology. Please send money, help change public policy and educate others if you believe in cold fusion (CMNS and LENR) and want to speed its commercialization."
To me it would also be very unrealistic and unethical to say it would happen quicker without better emphasis on some education issues. Educating on this subject is one of the most difficult things that I know of, given the general lack of emphasis on the sciences in today's mass media outlets who center on feeding societies' cultural wants and needs.
These are the kinds of challenges requiring generational and societal changes that evolve over spans of time. The discovery of X-rays by Röntgen and of radioactivity by Curie at the turn of the last century is perhaps as close an analogy I can think of and how it took decades to understand the breadth of the new phenomenon at hand and to find a safe means for public use and benefit from it. And by safe, I do mean "clean, but possibly easy to misuse". As one of my favorite scenes in the movie Contact states "small moves Ellie, small moves."
Q. What is the acronym 'SAFETY' often used on this site? Answer: This is a tradition of this site in using the term "SAFETY First". It's a reuse of the old safety motto (saves money!), but as an acronym in the context of this blog spells out "Sometimes A Few Experimenters Tell You" First. What is meant by this is that often times the lone experimenter or group of experimenters in this field of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions can have an insight "outside the box" of the existing status quo, not only of nuclear physics, but of the field itself when reporting a new phenomenon. This has already happened several times within the field itself over the last two decades. It is important to pay attention to these new reports from a "risk assessment basis" as they occur.
Another aspect of this field not touched upon by members of the community nor DoE is the paradox of "personal safety" for a field not officially recognized by DoE because of the extreme way in which the field was born in 1989, hence the term SAFETY used in this context as well. My feelings are that this is a tremendous personal risk to take on because of this past history, so please be careful. Watch out for each other if you chose to help. Ethically, I have to stick my neck out and provide this advice, even if DoE seems to prefer the usual silence.
In some ways the condensed matter nuclear science CMNS and LENR community as a whole needs to reach a general conclusion on any reported phenomenon and decide the merits of the release of more public information on a particular subject. Another difficult area. This can take time given that funding is sparse to follow up on experiments and techniques at times. Since LENR phenomenon often happen at lower energy regimes than typically used in modern experimental physics, don't be surprised by the unexpected report of a new phenomenon when an "aha occurs". We may very well be surrounded by other LENR phenomenon in nature and not even realize it yet. I'm a firm believer that God doesn't allow something to be created that isn't eventually put to good use for mankind in some capacity for the good of all.
Bottom line: If you do find something new, I wish you luck in commercializing it !
[ updated May -07 ]
By using and visiting this site you agree to abide by the following site usage policy. All trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks on this site are the property of their respective owners. No information on visitors is collected, but simple page view statistics. By no means whatsoever am I a spokesperson in any way shape or form for the cold fusion field or the DoE. I'm just a blogger with an opinion to share. All opinions expressed are those of the blog author, who has never worked for the DoE, but would like to (Hint: see past Annual Reviews of Energy and the Environment).
This site is purely in support of bringing visibility to a historically down trodden field, and supports charities with free banner ads. Note: This site doesn't control the Ad Sense display advertisings, nor the content of such display ads. The responsibility for use and misuse of the information contained within this site (as with other sites on the internet) is the responsibility of 'you' the reader. If you take risks with investments as some have done, have fun, but bear in mind the responsibility for those risks are with 'you'. If you do become wealthy someday - great!, but please share the wealth and help the field grow. [ Note: If you already happen to be a wealthy individual, there are many fine researchers who could sure use some help to make their dreams a reality with your kind generosity].
With the above brief introduction and with some hopes and dreams, I'm glad you've stopped by to visit. I wish you success in whatever you wish to help this branch of condensed matter physics to become.
Q. What is the Investment Potential in Cold Fusion ? Answer:
From what I've witnessed first hand and read over the years: HUGE. However, this leads to Rule 1: Cold fusion related science from this blogger's perspective (after following this field since the beginning) is not for those interested in a 'get rich quick' approach, but instead appears more suited to the long term 'value based' approach. But, I hope I'm wrong, and it happens much sooner, for mankind's sake. After 1989, the genie is now "out of the bottle" as the old saying goes. Humanity may have no choice, but to manage it in my opinion. In ways it is THE paradox of our time. The realities are unmistakeable, and many who fear it and its history prefer to ignore it. However, it can not be ignored, and thus must be carefully and bravely managed by many members of our global society who witnessed its extreme media birth in 1989.
As Martin Fleischmann himself once said : "it's hard to make a business case for it." Looking at our world today, I can see why that might be in some regards. I also see this field as another ticking clock of sorts and so I try to keep a close eye as a human being on developments with the time and skills that I have available, realizing that there are those who genuinely want to make a business case for it. However, I'm only one opinion - make your own judgements and weigh your own options. Because this field is unique in some ways in its beginnings, I would try and error on the side of caution, as I've always recommended for those who know me.
An appropriate phrase that I'll add to the above comments is the old adage: "What you measure you manage" Hopefully the wider cold fusion community of interest will keep this thought in mind.
For those interested in staying current, studying the science reports and papers being published on the web is a good way to learn about all the opinions, science and history in this field. There are controversial sites, and their are credible sites just like any on the internet. There are also many brave souls world wide who publish regularly despite the rejection (or invitation to publish) of major science journals to anything on the subject (a sad state of affairs indeed, but this appears to be changing as I write this).
However, for those who love extreme sports, and feel technically competent to jump all the global technical and political hurdles required, and weigh the possible risks - major conferences tend to be held twice per year and announced on the internet. In many ways, today's world of condensed matter nuclear science (CMNS) theory and low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) experimentation, is like the early years of the last century when physics saw a revolution of ideas occur that drew public interest. Ideas then developed in parallel - in key areas. As the decades progressed, the 1930's arrived and things started changing and the infant nuclear physics had grown a bit more mature and was looked upon quite differently than the lab curiosity of the early 1900s. So it's up to us all as internet enabled human beings to help carefully educate, manage and bravely apply any knowledge from this field to help society, or perhaps suffer the consequences of ignorance.
Q. Why the media emphasis ? Answer: Because it is through a variety of on-line media that many in society now articulate, receive, evaluate and digest information and form their opinions on a subject matter today. Besides, show me a blog today that doesn't use media in some form or another. For millions of blogs , it's now the norm.
Q. When did this site start? Answer: This site started via the blogging efforts of a lone nuclear engineer blogger "lab rat" back in the summer of 2004 as a weekend and evening project in an attempt to help raise awareness about the realities in this field via many RSS media outlets and on a number of issues he saw as being important in public education (including safety) and it continues this tradition with this incarnation of the Atomic Motor. This site has always been about possibility thinking. If this site has succeeded at all in any of its goals, it's because of the many suggestions I have received by friends, family, acquaintences, and by email suggestions by kind individuals trying to help. But it's just a simple site. Rule #2: I don't comment on any internet related materials that may have a conflict of interest with my employer. There are also ethical reasons why I don't blog on certain subjects: Life gets too complicated.
Q. Are you trying to solve all the world's energy related issues (water, population, education, safety) all by yourself? Answer: No, certainly not. There is a simple answer: I have two children and many relatives and family and friends just like anyone else. If we all don't think about the future and help make small changes (even by blogging), to help navigate where we all end up on this planet earth for this generation and the next, then who will? An increasingly complex world on autopilot run by the uneducated masses with the power of the internet scares me more than anything else. It starts with each of us in small ways to help educate.
Q. Why is cold fusion taking so long to commercialize? Answer: The dilemmas posed by the commercialization of cold fusion (in the opinion of this blogger). It's as much a cultural one as a technical one. Many outside the field often ask this question. There is no single "right" answer as to why in my opinion, though historical lack of funding appears to top the list. Also, as Ed Storms recently stated in a very well written new book, there were perhaps selfish motives by some to ignore the scientific evidence. An apt analogy I posted way back in August 2004 (and that others have also used) is equating it to the discovery of fire by cavemen. Man had to adapt to handling this simple technology and some would not share their tricks or some even quietly walked off into their own caves to quietly experiment. It took time to fully understand the ramifications and uses. I often wonder how long it took primitive man to co-exist with his new fire. Looked this way, one can see the challenges ahead for cold fusion related science.
Q. How should one manage such "outside the box" research that struggles to be commercialized? Answer: I personally feel there is a "great awakening going on" quietly in the scientific community worldwide that started after 1989 and it does have the potential to be enabled by the internet in untold ways as it moves through development phases and as society finds the proper means to fund and deal with it all safely. Who knows?, it might even take us to the stars someday as more and more people see its potential and join the community in nurturing it along in a safe manner. We also have to deal with some harsh realities and the potential for possible misuse. This is what makes this field unique and it takes 'time and money' as the saying goes, a paradox indeed.
However, science has always surprised mankind, and I think this field will do the same despite the early skepticism and even some present day skeptics who see no hope at all. Hard facts also seem to indicate to me, that we may be stuck on a planet with sustainability issues, without a power source of sufficient "energy density" for a growing population of "energy hungry" humans if we certainly don't make an effort to try and investigate the potential of new energy sources. Both atomic energy (including forms of CMNS) and solar energy ( if further developed ) appear to have the greatest potential to meet those needs.
Looking back at the history of commercialization successes in science, there may be a direct linear relationship between commercial and public funds expended and the time it takes to commercialize a technology. Please send money, help change public policy and educate others if you believe in cold fusion (CMNS and LENR) science and want to speed its commercialization.
Could the commercialization of the aircraft industry after the Wright brothers happened any sooner? Perhaps. Could Radio and TV electronics have happened sooner? Perhaps. Could the computer industry and internet have happened sooner? Maybe. Most of these took decades. Many of these industries relied on simple technologies, yet needed the right guiding hands to nurture them to commercialization coupled with the right public education and enabling technologies to further them along. The same may hold true for cold fusion from this blogger's perspective on the field after observing its past history. The 1989 announcement and media frenzy hasn't made it easy to live up to past public expectations in many ways, much like the frenzy the high temperature superconductor community went through in the 1980's.
..."there may be a direct linear relationship between commercial and public funds expended and the time it takes to commercialize a technology. Please send money, help change public policy and educate others if you believe in cold fusion (CMNS and LENR) and want to speed its commercialization."
To me it would also be very unrealistic and unethical to say it would happen quicker without better emphasis on some education issues. Educating on this subject is one of the most difficult things that I know of, given the general lack of emphasis on the sciences in today's mass media outlets who center on feeding societies' cultural wants and needs.
These are the kinds of challenges requiring generational and societal changes that evolve over spans of time. The discovery of X-rays by Röntgen and of radioactivity by Curie at the turn of the last century is perhaps as close an analogy I can think of and how it took decades to understand the breadth of the new phenomenon at hand and to find a safe means for public use and benefit from it. And by safe, I do mean "clean, but possibly easy to misuse". As one of my favorite scenes in the movie Contact states "small moves Ellie, small moves."
Q. What is the acronym 'SAFETY' often used on this site? Answer: This is a tradition of this site in using the term "SAFETY First". It's a reuse of the old safety motto (saves money!), but as an acronym in the context of this blog spells out "Sometimes A Few Experimenters Tell You" First. What is meant by this is that often times the lone experimenter or group of experimenters in this field of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions can have an insight "outside the box" of the existing status quo, not only of nuclear physics, but of the field itself when reporting a new phenomenon. This has already happened several times within the field itself over the last two decades. It is important to pay attention to these new reports from a "risk assessment basis" as they occur.
Another aspect of this field not touched upon by members of the community nor DoE is the paradox of "personal safety" for a field not officially recognized by DoE because of the extreme way in which the field was born in 1989, hence the term SAFETY used in this context as well. My feelings are that this is a tremendous personal risk to take on because of this past history, so please be careful. Watch out for each other if you chose to help. Ethically, I have to stick my neck out and provide this advice, even if DoE seems to prefer the usual silence.
In some ways the condensed matter nuclear science CMNS and LENR community as a whole needs to reach a general conclusion on any reported phenomenon and decide the merits of the release of more public information on a particular subject. Another difficult area. This can take time given that funding is sparse to follow up on experiments and techniques at times. Since LENR phenomenon often happen at lower energy regimes than typically used in modern experimental physics, don't be surprised by the unexpected report of a new phenomenon when an "aha occurs". We may very well be surrounded by other LENR phenomenon in nature and not even realize it yet. I'm a firm believer that God doesn't allow something to be created that isn't eventually put to good use for mankind in some capacity for the good of all.
Bottom line: If you do find something new, I wish you luck in commercializing it !
[ updated May -07 ]
Labels: SAFETY, Terms of Use
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