Buona Fortuna, Andrea Rossi!

From time to time over the centuries inventions come on the scene which have fundamentally changed our world, profoundly affecting the way people live their lives. If we look back in time we can see landmark inventions whose imprints are everywhere to this day — for example, the printing press, the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, aircraft, the telephone, the radio, the television, the computer chip. In each of these cases, the first iteration was primitive and crude by modern standards, but even so, in each case a working model was created and introduced to the world, sparking development and innovation which led to technology probably far beyond what the original inventor envisioned.

We may be on the eve of the introduction of yet another landmark piece of technology. Tommorrow Andrea Rossi will put his work and reputation on the line as he conducts a test of his energy catalyzer that will be open to inspection by selected scientists and journalists, and apparently published reports will be available at the NyTeknik web site soon afterwards.

There’s no guarantee that the test will go smoothly. Early models of many machines have been clunky and far from perfect (the first flight by the Wrights only lasted 12 seconds), but for the sake of everyone who is hoping for a better energy source for the future, let’s hope that tomorrow’s test will show that Andrea Rossi really has discovered a new fire.