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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."
Apart from the fact that there were problems reproducing the cold fusion effects, it's very easy to see why cold fusion has always been given the cold shoulder. It would effectively end the fission power-based business aswell as fossil fuel generated electricity.
Patriotism - the last resort of scoundrels.
Too bad Elizabeth Shue isn't spearheading the research. At least she's something to see.
It is good to finally see a fair balance in the study of this idea. It may not generate anything usable, but then agin, it might. I think that is the key... to get real science studying the situation, not having the ideas tested and approved through the media.
With ITER in a political freeze, there is ample time to study cold fusion concepts further. I don't see how one can create fusion conditions at room temperature. But if we understand how to control the collisions of the atoms better, then we may lower ignition temperatures. If the temperatures required were only several tens of thousands of degrees, then we do away with the complex containment systems and have a very viable energy source without multi billion dollar energy stations.
Bottom line: Let real science work. The worst case scenario is that we have a better understanding of the atomic interactions that will be used in whatever fusion reaction processes that we eventually use.
"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. "
Does this mean Pons-Fleschmann used the 100 percent ratio? Why in the world didn't the other scientists use this exact same setup when trying to reproduce the results? If you're trying to repeat a result, don't you make sure all variables are the same?
From the article it seems like Fleischmann saw more energy coming out than he put in (up to 250% apparently) and thought to himself:
"Aha! This must be cold fusion."
Is it just me, or does that seem to be a bit of a leap of faith? After all, if one sets light to petrol one gets more energy out than a match puts in. Surely there are other possibilities.
Occam's razor anyone?
I'm not sure about "strong evidence" from a single research laboratory either...
Well, maybe you decide you understand what's going on, and therefore that particular variable can't possibly be important, or you overlook it, or the variable isn't reported correctly etc.
Scientific papers and experiments are just as susceptible to bugs as software. Generally peer review and repetition and further work on the subject of the papers catches these eventually, but it can take time. The claims of cold-fusion were so startling (and hyped), there wasn't an awful lot of attempts to sort mistakes and understanding out before it was declared unscientific.
Best analogy I can think of is a software project that launches, claiming it will revolutionise user interface or something, but that only works on the developers own system, as they've hacked up much of their OS and hardware. It could be years before the software would work on a general computer, but if nothing works to start with, then most people won't be interested in developing and improving it.
Look how long it took to get the linux kernel reasonably mainstream supporting common hardware, and compare to Hurd...
I suspect that, if this was the case, it was accidental. That is, P&F didn't set out to saturate their electrodes with D, but it just so happened that they were. So they were unaware that they had achieved a special case condition prerequisite for cold fusion.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Yeah. Physically impossible. It would be cool if you could just, oh, 'tunnel' through the barrier or something, but that would be absurd...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Since when is deuterium toxic?
But if it were fusion that were doing it, the researchers would be dead from radiation poisoning.
What is with this idiotic groupthink that if its nuclear it must be radioactive? Not everything involving a nucleus is radioactive, and not everything radioactive causes cancer and kills people. For example, at princeton plasma physics labs, they deal a lot with fusion experiments, and there is radiation present... FROM THE TRITIUM AND DEUTERIUM THAT THEY STARTED WITH. The beginning materials in this case are radioactive. It's all this kneejerking nonsense about radiation that makes people pissy every time you try to discuss fusion research with a layman.
And for the record, until I see better results otherwise, I still think cold fusion is horseshit
Tritium is a byproduct of the reaction, not a required fuel source. What they need it deuterium. Also moderately expensive to produce, though.
The article blurb referred to Technology Review as a "leading science journal". It isn't. It's a magazine. I like to think it's a good magazine, as I've written for it, but it is most definitely not a scientific journal.
Oil companies would be richer than ever if this pans out. The oil won't stop being needed, it'll just stop being burned. And quite a few "oil companies" have figured out that they are in the energy business, not the oil business. And would probably be in the forefront of providing high-grade deuterium for your cold fusion units.
"Mr. Fusion", anyone?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I love this notion that "the POWERS THAT BE suppressed the IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE for their own evil ends!" It's such a charming fantasy.
The Evil Vested Interests of the world are regularly blindsided by new technology. The usual pattern (*cough*RIAA*cough*) is that they ignore it until it really starts to hurt them, and then they try to make it go away through legal action. Those folks do not have a magic ability to predict the future. In fact, they demonstrably suck at it.
When "cold fusion" was announced, the people who discredited it were academics who tried like hell to reproduce the effect, and found it to be irreproducible based on the information they had at the time. This is called "peer review". Scientists are supposed to be profoundly skeptical. In that respect, they differ from conspiracy theorists.
If you RTFA, you'll notice that no extravagant claims are being made. If it turns out that there's something there which really is both reproducible and interesting, we'll hear more about it.
You can't make sure all the variables are the same if you don't know what all the variables are.
If you believe that you are studying the effects of an electrical current on two metal electrodes submersed in water then you would make note of the current strength, the composition and dimensions of the electrodes, the temperature of the water and that kind of thing. You don't often record what kind of shoes you are wearing when you set up the equipment, what you ate for lunch or how long the fluorescent lights in the room had been on before you started taking measurements. Why not? Because it never occurs to you that it would be important.
Good experimental procedure is to document everything as well as you can, but if you are investigating something entirely new you can't always know what matters.
Sometimes even very smart people overlook small things that turn out to be important. Ask Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee about that if you see them.
They didn't fabricate results, their results just became public too quickly, and so when there was trouble duplicating the results, there was serious backlash against them.
I guess I need to bow down to Robert L. Park as God. If he says that "cold fusion" is impossible, then it must be. Physics, of course, knows all -- there's no more problems to solve, and the theories explain everything. If there's an effect observed in some experiment which seems to violate all the theories (that cannot be explained in any way), then the effect DOES NOT EXIST and those who observe it must be executed at dawn for their apostasy and unorthodoxy. Of course, no one will be allowed to reproduce the experiment, and those who attempt to do so will also stand against the wall.
All hail Robert L. Park, the keeper of scientific orthodoxy!
I think the article sums it up -- there is clearly *something* going on to produce the excess heat. Apparently the researchers have now figured out how to get more reproduceable results, so others may now verify the effect and thereby focus on studying the effect itself rather than just trying to reproduce it.
Now what that *something* is, is another matter. Maybe it is a chemical reaction of some sort, or maybe some other energy-release mechanism based on the thermophysical or thermochemical properties of the palladium substrate. Or maybe it is some unusual type of catalyzed nuclear reaction ("cold fusion".) Or maybe it is something else heretofore unknown. Now that the effect appears to be more reliably reproducible, it will now be possible to study the effect itself and solve the mystery. Although I am skeptical it is "cold fusion", it nevertheless appears to be interesting enough to study it in earnest.
Regarding "the Second Law" as Mr. paugq mentions, I suggest he brush up on his thermodynamics since I assume he is uttering it with respect to energy conservation, which comes under the First Law.
Nothing is impossible. If you think the limit of our knowledge is already in textbooks, you have quite a rude awakening coming.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
If you can't describe the environment in which an experiment can be reproduced reliably, you don't understand the phenominon properly enough to be calling press conferences.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Unfortunately, that is precisely the hallmark of junk science: experiments that appear to show amazing results that cannot be explained by conventional theory and as a result the exact requirements to duplicate the experiment are unclear. The crackpots are then free to argue that negative results by other researchers are due to a problem with their experiment. Scientists have good reason to be skeptical of discoveries with these characteristics.
Now, Pons and Fleischman may have just been unlucky in having discovered a real effect that happened to have these characteristics. On the bright side, if they turn out to have been right their place in history is secure.
I was at the APS meeting where Cold Fusion was officially debunked.
About five different highly respected labs, including at UMD and
Caltech, tried and failed to reproduce the results.
BUT.
Here's the thing: at least one (maybe two?) of the labs noted that
Pons & Fleischmann's results could be reproduced if one neglected one
of the steps needed to reproduce it (stirring?). If one failed to do
that step, you would get a chemical reaction of about the magnitude
P&F described.
Note well that the likeliest reason for any other researcher to
observe the reaction P&F describe would be a similar carelessness.
Could it be cold fusion? Could be. But it's very, very, very
unlikely. The chances of human error are alot higher than the
chances that physical theory is so wrong.
There was one embarrassing mistake. The funding agencies had already
promised funding for cold fusion. Thus, a (sometimes persuasive)
constituency was created for keeping cold fusion research dollars
flowing. That constituency is basically being paid to keep the cold
fusion myth alive. That's anothing thing you should keep in mind when
you hear about cold fusion nonfailures (because it's as likely that
you'll see cold fusion generators as it is that you'll get a real
opportunity to own the Brooklyn Bridge...)
What, "entropy tends to increase in a closed system"? I think you mean first law of thermodynamics. "When _all_ energy forms are taken into account, energy is neither created or destroyed in a closed system".
This isn't about creating energy from nothing, it's about finding a suitable high entropy form of energy to convert to lower entropy kinds, thus allowing physical processes to occur. Physics cannot prove anything impossible by the way, but it can measure how unlikely something is.
With all due respect to the above journals, they are not peer-reviewed journals where research results are reported. If the journals had been Nature, Science and Physics Review, then I'd be excited. But they aren't, so I'm not. Besides, I read the articles, and I didn't get the impression they were all that enthusiastic...
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Though it appears that he may be right in the end -- cold fusion does exist -- that is how science works. It was extremely difficult for people to reproduce it and since the success rate was on par with anomolous behavior, it was regarded as a fluke.
The same thing happened to Henry Bessemer when he produced high-quality steel by blowing air through it. When others couldn't reproduce it on a regular basis, he had to go back and review what he had done. It nearly broke him, but in the end he found that by pure chance, he had used low-phosphorus steel in his experiments. Once this was shown, uptake was initially slow, but as soon as it was proven to be reproduceable, it caught on and allowed the widespread use of modern steel -- and allowed Bessemer to become very wealthy.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Right now, CFML is the only language that will run on either a Java Server or the .NET framework
Sure, there are better cheaper tag-based languages out there, but CFML is still one of the easiest languages I've ever come across. If anything, it's too easy, that's why there is so much disdain for it, in many ways, it's so easy -- it doesn't feel like a real computer language.