sci.energy.hydrogen

Don Lancaster wrote:
| Morris Dovey wrote:
|| Don Lancaster wrote:
||| Morris Dovey wrote:
|||| daestrom wrote:
||||
||||| I've often wondered if a hi-frequency component on a DC
||||| 'carrier' would have a similar affect on electrolysis. By
||||| causing H2 bubbles to be released from the plates more easily
||||| it might be possible to continuously expose more plate and thus
||||| improve the efficacy. I know it won't create more H2 per
||||| Joule, but it might make the process more productive per unit
||||| of plate area.
||||
|||| If you have some idea of the frequencies you'd like to try, I'd
|||| suggest looking for help from your local amateur radio club.
||||
|||| There're usually a at least a couple of people who can and are
|||| willing to help out with this kind of experiment...
||||
||| The experiment is utterly and totally pointless to anyone with
||| even the faintest clue what thermodynamics and exergy is all
||| about.
|||
||| /glib/
||
|| Perhaps we have differing notions of what makes an experiment
|| "pointful". I'm inclined to think that an experiment is worth
|| performing if it provides insight or understanding that wasn't
|| there before.
||
|| Belittling someone who lacks your own understanding, but is who is
|| nonetheless capable of wondering - and of designing his own
|| experiment to satisfy his curiosity seems unworthy of you.
||
|| I expected better.
|
| I expected worse.
|
| An hour on the web is worth a month in the lab.

[ posting from ... ]

Hmmm. My mileage varies somewhat on this one. I've found more garbage
on the Internet than I ever encountered in any of the labs in which
I've worked. There /is/ good info to be had on the web, but there's a
definite sorting obstacle.

| If you do not believe in Faraday, you have to have some credible
| justification for that belief. An observable, quantifiable and
| unambiguously independently duplicatable unquestionable hard core
| result,
|
| One that countless tens of thousands of daily repeated experiments
| do not overwhemingly fly in the face of. And not one that
| thermodynamic fundamentals involving exergy ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE
| ain't gonna happen.
|
| And one that goes beyond obvious incompetence and instruments that
| clearly lie like a rug. While making the same stupid mistakes that
| everybody else does.
|
| The point is that if they refuse to admit they don't even have the
| necessary background and tools, and refuse to try and prove
| themselves wrong, and refuse to ask for help, nothing whatsoever is
| accomplished.

Wow. I think I could understand where that diatribe came from if
daestrom exhibited Guth-like behavior, but I haven't ever seen that.
What I /have/ observed have been mostly thoughtful, constructive
responses - a behavior that I've often wished more usenet posters
could manage.

That an experiment has already been performed and been well-documented
does not mean that it performing it again can't provide a worthwhile
learning experience and facilitate internalization/understanding of
the principles involved. Why else would (for example) a chemistry
course have a lab component?

IME, claims to the contrary are only made by those posessed of a petty
intellectual conceitedness - and by those who fear that others might
learn enough to pass them by.

If what you're saying is that an experiment is only worthwhile if it
provides _new_ knowledge, then I'm obliged to conclude that your
knowledge of the human learning process lags far behind your knowledge
of physical science.

I've read enough of your printed articles over the years to conclude
that you're a fairly bright guy - and to conclude that you can, in
fact, do better at helping others to learn - I'd like to encourage
that.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
/DeSoto/