Cold Fusion Back From The Dead

misterfusion writes "Looks like the IEEE is warming up to cold fusion with the latest story "Cold Fusion Back from the Dead". This has been a good year for this field with several leading science journals (Physics Today, MIT Technology Review, etc) contributing stories. Things are warming up and if science Research & Development funding can be stimulated with a positive DoE report (due soon), it might be an interesting rebirth."

Comments

Article Summary for lazy people

[PatrickThomson]

Waffle waffle

Cold fusion regarded as a joke for ages

waffle waffle

"THE FIRST HINT that the tide may be changing came in February 2002, when the U.S. Navy revealed that its researchers had been studying cold fusion on the quiet more or less continuously since the debacle began. "

waffle waffle

"At San Diego and other research centers, scientists built up an impressive body of evidence that something strange happened when a current passed through palladium electrodes placed in heavy water. "

waffle waffle

"Other researchers are finally beginning to explain why the Pons-Fleischmann effect has been difficult to reproduce. Mike McKubre from SRI International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher who is influential among those pursuing cold fusion, says that the effect can be reliably seen only once the palladium electrodes are packed with deuterium at ratios of 100 percent--one deuterium atom for every palladium atom. His work shows that if the ratio drops by as little as 10 points, to 90 percent, only 2 experimental runs in 12 produce excess heat, while all runs at a ratio of 100 percent produce excess heat. "

Summary: Cold fusion wasn't reproducible because not all factors were accounted for, and millitary scientists think they nailed it.

Should be looked at regardless

[nizo]

Thus spake the article:

Over the years, a number of groups around the world have reproduced the original Pons-Fleischmann excess heat effect, yielding sometimes as much as 250 percent of the energy put in.

(snip)

Other researchers are finally beginning to explain why the Pons-Fleischmann effect has been difficult to reproduce. Mike McKubre from SRI International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher who is influential among those pursuing cold fusion, says that the effect can be reliably seen only once the palladium electrodes are packed with deuterium at ratios of 100 percent--one deuterium atom for every palladium atom. His work shows that if the ratio drops by as little as 10 points, to 90 percent, only 2 experimental runs in 12 produce excess heat, while all runs at a ratio of 100 percent produce excess heat.

Something is going on here that we don't understand, and it looks like it can be reproduced. Yeah I would say it would be worth looking into further. The 250% heat output sounds like a good thing (especially if no toxic by-products are produced) so how does that compare to other types of heat generation I wonder?

Re:Would that rebirth include...

[pete-classic]

I haven't made any great study of what happened, but I'm not sure any apology is in order.

As I understand it, they made an astonishing scientific claim. That claim, while it might be absolutely true, was not substantiated by the experiment they describe.

There is more to good science than turning out to be right.

-Peter

Science working again?

[harlows_monkeys]

Here's an interesting article, written about 10 years ago, by David Goodstein of Caltech, pointing out that the scientific process was not working correctly with cold fusion. (Basically, almost all CF was junk, but there were a couple of results by careful and competent experimenters, that should have been examined more deeply, but were dismissed as part of the "it's all junk" reaction).

The article is a good look at the whole CF phenomenon as of 1993.

Re:What if Slashdot was right...

[Jason Ford]

Insightful? Would wondering if Val Kilmer might steal her research from her get me a '+1, Informative' moderation?