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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."
I thought the article was referring to Macromedia Coldfusion!
Phew!
You guys could've fit at least ONE MORE "warming up" pun in the summary. It's like you weren't even trying!
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.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
Too bad Elizabeth Shue isn't spearheading the research. At least she's something to see.
In the next Slashdot story perpetual motion is shown to be possible.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
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.
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...
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?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
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
Cold fusion was dropped because it could never be replicated, and perhaps because of Pons and Flesichmann's attitude. Science is not done by press conference, and you don't call an anomalous heat effect 'cold fusion' and cause a global hoo-hah without some damn good evidence.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Heh... Cold Fusion Back From The Dead is almost as good as Stealing Fire from the Gods
For the last time we did not steal it, we borrowed it. We fully intend to give it back one of these days.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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.
Oh, shit! This again and again.
Cold fusion is impossible and Physics have long demostrated it.
Robert L. Park, the President of the American Physical Society, wrote a book that deals with this and explains it clearly: Voodoo Science. He will probably treat this "rebirth" of the hype on his What's new science column.
How long until the USA Government understands they cannot beat the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
1) The research will only go forward with more funding 2) SRI International is involved ("No, really, Uri Geller *is* a psychic!") 3) "Mike McKubre from SRI International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher who is influential among those pursuing cold fusion" is not the same as "Mike McKubre, a respected researched who is also working on cold fusion" 4) It's an election year and DOE, hardly a bastion of good science under Bush, is about to announce Cold Fusion is workable at a time of record world oil prices?
Pons and Fleischmann, the original perpertrators of Cold Fusion, were from the University of Utah.
What's the bet that this "re-birth" of Cold Fusion has something to do with SCO?
Judge: Mr McBride, do you have anything to say before the jury adjourn to find you guilty and sentence you to death by stoning?
Darl: Look! Excess neutrons!
Jugde: Where? [Looks away]
Darl: [Exit, stage left]
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
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.
If you read the article (I know, this is Slashdot...), you'd note that some of the problems in reproducing the effect have been discovered. One problem turned out to be the "density" of deuterium atoms in the palladium electrodes. Above a certain threshold, you'd see the excess heat every time. Below that, even by only 10%, you'd only see excess heat in one out of every six trials.
From this, it seems like the problem wasn't that the experiment was made up, but that the problem was the researchers had no precise concept of what steps and requirements were necessary to repeat it accurately.
sPh
While apparently hard (but not impossible) to reproduce, and not well understood, there is now credible evidence that something happens that generates heat and helium out of hydrogen.
If the phenomenon is real, and we manage to reproduce it reliably, it probably is fusion, albeit only a couple of atoms at a time (which has the side effects of (1) no harder-to-control chain reaction over vast amounts of fissible material and (2) trivial to contain generation).
Might not be too easy to use, though. I could see how the heat could be made to give energy to a conventional steam turbine though.
At any rate, your quip about dead from radiation poisoning is a strawman. Even if all is as the researchers hope, we are observing the fission of minuscule amounts of atoms at a time (hence the manageable heat) and what little radiation escapes from the reaction medium unabsorbed and unconverted into heat is most likely unmeasurably small and completely drowned out by the background radiation we live in.
-- MG
The article is a good look at the whole CF phenomenon as of 1993.
Fire isn't physical property, it's knowing how to make fire that's valuable, and that's intellectual property. In other words, we're all engaged in acts of pyrotechnic piracy. Sooner or later the DFA (Deistic Fire Alliance) will come down on us...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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.
Yes, just like every other new technology around the world which makes old technologies redundant gets given the cold shoulder. Thats why we're still cooking over fire stoves (after the wood industry prevented any electrical ovens ever being developed), still riding horses (after the horse industry quashed those people trying to invent the automobile), using Windows (after Microsoft quashed Linux and the Mac OS) etc .... although hold on, that one might turn out to be true ....
Anyway, lets just judge the science on its merits, not on conspiracy theories. If it has merit, you can be pretty sure theres lots of investors are going to start seeing the potential for a lot of zeroes after those $$$ signs and jump on it, and that probably the first companies to jump on the bandwagen will be the energy companies you claim are holding it up.
Well, that's the rub, isn't it? It doesn't matter if it's a nuclear effect "in your mind". Your mind doesn't enter into it. Neither does Pons or Fleischmann's minds. What matters is whether nuclear fusion is actually occurring, and that is to be settled by experiment.
Pons and Fleischmann might have seen a real effect. Certainly, carefully-constructed experiments have consistently given hints of excess heat. But that doesn't make them "right". Lucretius wrote about "atoms" centuries before Dalton. That doesn't mean the ancient Greeks invented modern chemistry.
Pons and Fleischmann violated just about every tenet of the open, peer-reviewed scientific process. In so doing they abandoned any claim to legitimacy. If this effect turns out to be real, they didn't "get it right". They just got lucky. And if this effect turns out to be real, it will be the paintstaking, not-by-press-conference slow work of real researchers who understand how science works, that will ironically provide actual justification.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The only people who claim there is a conspiracy to shush up cold fusion are crackpots.
The physics community would have carried Pons and Fleischmann on sedan chairs to Sweden if they'd really discovered cold fusion. But they didn't, and they ignored all scientific process. They refused to share details of their experiment and refused to acknowledge errors in their experiments.
Read Taubes' _Cold Fusion_ or Huizenga's book for a clear understanding.
Advice: on VPS providers
I'd highly recomend the wikipedia article on cold fusion, here.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
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
...ever bothered to pick up a copy of Infinite Energy magazine?
If you had, you might have noticed that there have been papers posted from labs around the world with consistent, reproducible results, for the past 10 years. I realize it's fashionable in some circles to read Skeptical Inquirer and be devotees of The Annoying Randi, but an open mind and a real scientific inquiry is actually sometimes needed. Rejecting something out of hand because you don't understand what's occurring doesn't qualify as objective scientific inquiry, no matter what experts are doing the rejection. (And yes, that's exactly what the reaction was of many of the experts in both the fusion and fission communities... "I don't understand what's happening here and it contradicts all my pet theories, and, more importantly, may affect my sources of funding and research grants... so it MUST be a lot of crap. Even though I've never investigated it, I just know it.")
BTW, for the tinfoil hat crowd, shortly after the DoE announced that they going to reinvestigate the published research, the founder and editor of Infinite Energy magazine, Dr. Eugene Mallove, was found murdered in his home. Make of it what you will.
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.
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.
I thought they meant Macromedia Cold Fusion was back from the dead.
Insightful? Would wondering if Val Kilmer might steal her research from her get me a '+1, Informative' moderation?
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer