People who have been following the E-Cat story for any length of time have noticed that over recent months he has been less free and open in sharing information about his work on the Journal of Nuclear Physics. A poster on the site today called attention to the fact and asked Rossi why this was the case. Here is his response.
Andrea Rossi
September 20th, 2013 at 10:37 AM
Jan.Gustavsson:
Honestly, I think you are right and I understand your feeling. As a matter of fact, in these last months my situation is strongly changed, because the validation and R&D work is shared with a Team that thinks it is not opportune to give any specific information before the end of the very throughly work of validation, tests, R&D in course upon the plants that have been manufactured and delivered to the Customer. This decision has been taken by the Team I am part of and I think this choice is proper. I can guarantee you that when we will have reached consoliated results, positive or negative, such results will be shared with the scientific community and eventually with the wider public, with a press conference that will be made by our communication agency. Totally different is the situation regarding the third indipendent party, whose work is made indipendent from us: the results of their work, whatever will be after the 6 months- 1 year test period, will be published from the Professors of the third indipendent party when and where they will decide, so I do not know whatever they will do, which will be totally indipendent from me.
All this will limit my communication, until the reports will be published, but, nevertheless, I will say what I will be permitted to.
Take also in consideration that my work now is much more intense, if possible, than before and the time at my disposal has been further narrowed.
Thank you for your kind attention,
Warm Regards,
A.R.
I think that many people have been able to deduce what has been going on, and now Rossi has confirmed that he has been put on a short leash by his new partners with regards to sharing details on what is going on. It probably does not suit him too well — I think he likes to communicate about his work, but he is a disciplined person, and I am sure will fulfill the agreements he has made with his team.
It makes me wonder how much use Rossi has for the Journal of Nuclear Physics now. He has often said how much he has learned from people posting on his site, but it’s likely that he is getting much of his advice on developing the E-Cat from members of his team, who seem to consist of experienced engineers and scientists. I expect he will still be happy to get input and suggestions from JONP readers, but they are probably not as valuable to him as they once were.
I am glad he has not shut the JONP down. Despite the muzzling that has been imposed, he still makes interesting posts, and as the only person publicly identified with the new E-Cat team, he is a valuable source of information for those of us curious to know what is going on. I am of the conclusion that some information, however vague, is better than nothing. I’m hoping we won’t have to wait too long until the news conference he speaks of will be held.
