I believe that one of the most compelling reasons for taking Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat seriously is the involvement of Sergio Focardi in its development.

Focardi was one of the preeminent physicists in Italy, being a researcher, teacher and administrator at the University of Bologna. I have never heard anyone, even the most fervent critics of the E-Cat, question Focardi’s professional integrity and credibility as a scientist. In fact most of Rossi’s critics seem to conveniently ignore the involvement of Focardi in the development of the E-Cat.

Focardi seems to have been a consummate scientist. His support of Andrea Rossi’s work was based on his own observations and measurements from experiments he had personally been involved in. The way Rossi tells the story is that Focardi was originally hired by Rossi to disprove what Rossi thought he was seeing in his experimental work – but apparently Focardi couldn’t do that. Andrea Rossi mentions that “he has always worked with us with total, absolute and disinterested attitude, thinking only of the Interest of the science behind the E-Cat.”

In all the public statements I have read or heard from Focardi there has never been any suggestion from him that the E-Cat was anything but absolutely real. In fact, the fact that we are discussing the technology at all stems from Focardi’s insistence that he and Rossi go public with a demonstration and press conference in January of 2011.

When the full history of the E-Cat is written, I think we will find that the role played by Sergio Focardi will have been absolutely essential in its emergence. His work on the safety of the device has been such that, according to Rossi, “without his help in this matter I couldn’t make my work.”

With the passing of Professor Focardi we have lost one of the most important witnesses of Andrea Rossi’s discovery. It is a great pity that he is no longer here to voice his thoughts about the E-Cat. In the past he has referred to it as one of the great discoveries pertaining to energy production. It seems important to me that his statements about the technology should be collected, preserved and made available to the public as a testament of the reality of the E-Cat.

Below is a short clip of Focardi talking to ecat.com

UPDATE:

Thanks to Tom Florek for making me aware of this video clip from an interview he conducted with Andrea Rossi where Rossi speaks of the contribution of Focardi.

Andrea Rossi talks about working with Dr. Sergio Focardi from Thomas Florek on Vimeo.