moyg (myoldyourgold), I think I have made my position clear that I think the para/ortho question has little bearing on our situation. If you have some good information from other than the pseudo science sources I keep getting in a net search, I would be appreciative. A good paper, weather it is a study or a lab report, usually has a prodigious amount of valuable information in the sources listing and footnotes. I will keep looking in classic science reports for anything that might apply to our situation. If you can post some of the sources or snippets of quotes that refer to the para/ortho question I would be appreciative. It may take time as the search slows down once we start poking into .edu's and .gov's and such.
And, I do not have a lab in my home or business that has the capability to do analytic chem tests or nuclear quantum tests.
I do have connections to several universities and a government forensic lab to run some of the tests of para/ortho existence, amount and reactivity. It is not as simple as walking up to them and giving them a pile of money. You must DEFINE the work or they will not know what to make of you. Once there is clarity, then there is the work of setting up the equipment to make your required tests. The time frame and the costs involved make it clear why it is important to look at the research that has come before so that we are not just simply reproducing old work.
Once there is a need for such tests, I will have to gather the funding either through direct means or through research granting and such.
Since talk is cheap, and thought is free (or should be), we can continue to discuss and gather data and previous studies and define our testing path.
I do keep an open mind. That is why I am here on this forum. I am one of the science and engineering types that knows that this works. Believe me, this does not make me popular with my peers. They do think I am crazy.
And one must remember that science is a human endeavor to understand the physical world around us. Little by little, we creep up on this understanding. Questions become answers, become truth. When another question pops up, you do not abandon the previous truths or fall back to anarchy of thought. You build on the previous truths and move forward.
You use your acquaintance as an example of close minded academia. And yet, lay people fall into the same trap. They are not immune to the disease of narrow thought. Look at the posts on this forum. There is example after example of those that cling to their hollowed beliefs against all reason. Fact and reason. The physical world will present you with the facts. You just have to reason it out.
We both agree that HHO works. We just disagree HOW it works. And that is ok. I have a heavy science and engineering background to build on. I will approach the problem from my viewpoint. Others will take their unique experiences and move towards the answer, which is there, unmoving and waiting to be discovered.