The Randi Show - Cold Fusion and Carl Sagan

[Music] welcome to the Randi show I am jrf field coordinator brian thompson and with me is james randi good to be here how you doing huh hand there let's say just hanging in there are you doing something different with your beard well I I did have it professionally trimmed you see it's very hard to get these beards they're professionally trimmed properly most of them just want to hack away at it and make it square or long or whatever I am looking for like Darwin everyday I'm less like like someone on his last legs but both Darwin was on his last legs at one point too so well first thing we're going to talk about is this news story that's come out about another gentleman who claims to have created a successful cold fusion machines so what do you what do you know about cold fusion well first of all my only experience with the not the creators but one of the original pair that came up with the idea of cold fusion pons and Fleischmann was Oh many many years ago I think it was in Baltimore at a meeting of the American Association of physics here API for what it is but a carl sagan was there and Carl and I stood at the back of the auditorium because the night before the conference officially got started they were actually going to interview pons and Fleischmann and I was happy to see that Carl and I looked at one another after the first three or four questions and did this kind of thing into the other original and we both came up with exactly the same comment they were being asked questions by the from the audience and they were answering them or currently answering them but as I said when I turned to Carl I said hey do you get the same idea that I do and he said yes they're not answering the question I said exactly what they're doing and every question they were asked you're saying that's a very good question which is a sure sign that it's not a very good question for them to answer and they usually start out that way by complimenting you on your era skewed observations you see but what they're really trying to do is say I'm pretty going to answer this question and they didn't they did not address any of the questions that up until that point they had presented with and Karl and I sort of solved that and we just turned around and walked out reporters outside asked what did you think and I just looked at one of the reporters I said cold not fusion and and Karl chuckled at that we walked away but that is my only confrontation with pons and Fleischmann they simply couldn't answer questions as we know we don't talk about pawns with Weitzman anymore but this one is just another one of so many of these stories that come up and and you notice from name for the text of the article that you sent me there for consideration he's not really saying anything anywhere he's playing cagey he's almost saying things but not quite so basically the story is the sky aundrea Rossi he's a physicist in Italy and he claims to have created a machine that successfully performs cold fusion he calls it an e cat machine and for those who may not know cold fusion is the fusion of atoms using less energy than what would typically be required which is basically you know the interior of the Sun yeah in other words low temperature experiments that will produce fusion that at a slower rate and not quite as dangerous as we might think because it wouldn't go up in our faces so to speak it may make us where we're sitting but it wouldn't go up in our faces like an atomic explosion yeah and I guess if somebody actually did create a cold fusion machine that worked it would completely redefine how energy was created and across the entire planet we would say yes so this person is in for a lot of fame and fortune if this thing actually does work so why don't you think that this isn't this is why isn't this making gigantic news well first of all I think maybe people are considering the fact that they were burned by pawns of Fleischmann because governments Japan for example spent millions and millions of dollars to set them up with a whole laboratory from which nothing emerged whatsoever but people people will go for anything if it becomes a business and they're going to sell stock and I think that's probably the next thing we're going to hear about that they're going to sell stock in their company or this general but it's going to sell stock in his company if he owned to thing outright the idea that is and they'll always be promising something or other is always just around the corner in two weeks we'll have the definitive demonstration for you and it's going to go on like that for quite some time and then suddenly the stock market in his respect will completely collapse and the investors will lose their money they'll shake their heads and say wonder if anybody else has got a scheme I can invest in the research behind this machine hasn't been published in any sort of scientific journal yet according to the article though there are a few eyewitnesses that have seen it work apparently there was a demonstration on October 28th at the University and then this might be ironic I can't say I'm not going to say one way or another whether this machine actually works I've never seen it but it was demonstrated at the University of what we would pronounce Bologna the University yeah I spotted that I was going to mention that I'm glad you did I'm not sure how they would pronounce it in Italy Melania is that it I don't know yeah I'm not Italian so yeah University of Bologna this was demonstrated and a few people saw at work someone who runs a website devoted to alternative energy says that he vouches for it oh yes of course because that's his be-all and end-all he's got to have something like that or he hasn't got anything to cling to and remember these people said they saw what to them to be successful demonstration but what are their qualifications and did they have any control over the demonstration itself did they have any any look at the innards of this thing well of course not okay hold out of our secrets you know till we sell the stock and then we move to to the southern Spain or wherever and he says that they don't have to prove this to scientists they don't have to prove it to anyone but their customers well of course if their customers cost you that a few scientists who might have something to say about that that might be a different matter altogether but again they probably won't allow them to really look at the innards of the thing all right so do you think that there's a future for of the e-cat machine in Leonardo Court I suspect not I'm always willing to be shown and I can be shown and the world can be shown but I predict that as I said just a moment ago there that this man will probably go on the stock market and sell all kinds of shares and issue all kinds of wonderful reports left and right and the reports will influence everybody and are not everybody but those who have money to waste and they will invest in it and then gradually it will become apparent to everybody P maybe it doesn't work now that's what I predict but then I'm not a very good prognosticator I can't even tell what tomorrow is but if I look at a calendar I can figure it out because I depend on Authority using but it is a shame you know that people aren't better informed on matters like this that they don't actually go through the trouble of calling in a scientist reversed they call in scientist after scientist after scientist until they get one who says well no it's not impossible oh that's what I want to hear they just want to get some sort of reassurance because they don't only want this to be true Brian they need it to be true they need something they can spend their money on or invest their faith in or their emotional security or whatever they have to invest they really need something like this and these people who invent these things almost overnight they they know that they and human psychology the Randi show is a production of the James Randi Educational Foundation to learn more about how we promote science and critical thinking go to Randi dot org [Music]

Channel: JamesRandiFoundation

Views: 106,110

Rating: 4.830986 out of 5

Keywords: The Randi Show, JREF, skepticism, science, James Randi

Id: 3BemTGkjl6U

Length: 9min 5sec (545 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 18 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/davideo71]

Not so much debunking as putting forward a bunch of suspicions about the claims (and pointing out how money is usually made from similar but always false claims). Go Randi!