From: hal@finney.org
Date: Sun Feb 06 2000 - 00:02:42 MST
Here is a post I made to the list on February 24, 1998. I have not
looked into the topic further since then but this was my evaluation
based on studying the web site at that time:
> I don't find Dr. Mills' credentials or his theory very impressive.
>
> He's a medical doctor, with no degree in physics. He has created a theory
> that says that the electrons in hydrogen atoms can drop to lower than
> the standard lowest-energy orbital, when interacting with a "secret"
> catalyst that he has invented. This releases heat, so he is trying to
> get people to invest in his mysterious energy-production technology.
>
> He runs these chambers with hydrogen gas and his catalyst. He has to
> input heat to ionize the hydrogen, but when he measures heat output it
> seems like more is coming out than was going in.
>
> This is very similar to the cold fusion story. Doing calorimetry
> (measuring heat in and out) accurately is much more difficult than
> non-specialists realize. It is easy to get false results by not
> accounting for all the changes properly. There is also the possibility
> that some chemical reaction is occuring with the hydrogen.
>
> The hydrogen atom is the most thoroughly studied in physics. The chances
> that some chemical interaction can cause electrons to take up orbitals
> forbidden by quantum mechanics, but that nobody else has noticed it before
> this MD did, seem impossibly small.
>
> The secrecy, the attempts to raise money by claiming a virtually
> inexhaustable source of energy, setting up a business rather than doing
> conventional scientific research, all point to it being a scam.
>
> Hal
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