Posted on 06/01/2008 12:47:24 PM PDT by hripka
On 23 March 1989 Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton, UK, and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah, US, announced that they had observed controlled nuclear fusion in a glass jar at room temperature, and — for around a month — the world was under the impression that the world's energy woes had been remedied. But, even as other groups claimed to repeat the pair's results, sceptical reports began trickle in. An editorial in Nature predicted cold fusion to be unfounded. And a US Department of Energy report judged that the experiments did "not provide convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result from cold fusion."
This hasn't prevented a handful of scientists persevering with cold-fusion research. They stand on the sidelines, diligently getting on with their experiments and, every so often, they wave their arms frantically when they think have made some progress.
Nobody notices, though. Why? These days the mainstream science media wouldn't touch cold-fusion experiments with a barge pole. They have learnt their lesson from 1989, and now treat "cold fusion" as a byword for bad science. Most scientists agree, and some even go so far as to brand cold fusion a "pathological science" — science that is plagued by falsehood but practiced nonetheless.
There is a reasonable chance that the naysayers are (to some extent) right and that cold fusion experiments in their current form will not amount to anything. But it's too easy to be drawn in by the crowd and overlook a genuine breakthrough, which is why I'd like to let you know that one of the handful of diligent cold-fusion practitioners has started waving his arms again. His name is Yoshiaki Arata, a retired (now emeritus) physics professor at Osaka University, Japan. Yesterday, Arata performed a demonstration at Osaka of one his cold-fusion experiments.
Although I couldn't attend the demonstration (it was in Japanese, anyway), I know that it was based on reports published here and here. Essentially Arata, together with his co-researcher Yue-Chang Zhang, uses pressure to force deuterium (D) gas into an evacuated cell containing a sample of palladium dispersed in zirconium oxide (ZrO2–Pd). He claims the deuterium is absorbed by the sample in large amounts — producing what he calls dense or "pynco" deuterium — so that the deuterium nuclei become close enough together to fuse.
So, did this method work yesterday? Here's an email I received from Akito Takahashi, a colleague of Arata's, this morning:
"Arata's demonstration...was successfully done. There came about 60 people from universities and companies in Japan and few foreign people. Six major newspapers and two TV [stations] (Asahi, Nikkei, Mainichi, NHK, et al.) were there...Demonstrated live data looked just similar to the data they reported in [the] papers...This showed the method highly reproducible. Arata's lecture and Q&A were also attractive and active."
I also received a detailed account from Jed Rothwell, who is editor of the US site LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) and who has long thought that cold-fusion research shows promise. He said that, after Arata had started the injection of gas, the temperature rose to about 70 °C, which according to Arata was due to both chemical and nuclear reactions. When the gas was shut off, the temperature in the centre of the cell remained significantly warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours. This, according to Arata, was due solely to nuclear fusion.
Rothwell also pointed out that Arata performed three other control experiments: hydrogen with the ZrO2–Pd sample (no lasting heat); deuterium with no ZrO2–Pd sample (no heating at all); and hydrogen with no ZrO2–Pd sample (again, no heating). Nevertheless, Rothwell added that Arata neglected to mention certain details, such as the method of calibration. "His lecture was very difficult to follow, even for native speakers, so I may have overlooked something," he wrote.
It will be interesting to see what other scientists think of Arata's demonstration. Last week I got in touch with Augustin McEvoy, a retired condensed-matter physicist who has studied Arata's previous cold-fusion experiments in detail. He said that he has found "no conclusive evidence of excess heat" before, though he would like to know how this demonstration turned out.
I will update you if and when I get any more information about the demonstration (apparently there might be some videos circulating soon). For now, though, you can form your own opinions about the reliability of cold fusion.
Ping to Mr. Mercat.
There’s a supposed photo of the apparatus at:
http://www.lenr-canr.org/News.htm
It reminds me of a wry observation from the F-P days.
The evangelists for CF (mostly physical chemists) were
convinced CF was real, but were taking no precautions
against radiation in their attempts to confirm.
The skeptics (mostly physicists) were convinced CF was
illusory, but did shield their experiments, just in case.
Hydrino theory is a complete and utter fraud.
The scientists should keep up the research. Its clear that excess heat occurs at certain times, but the mechanism isn’t known. But that it because we really don’t understand the subatomic structures and their actions as much we pretend to. Some of the trendy Quantum mechanics structures although stemming from brilliant minds sometimes seem like voddoo hand waving and invention to me. (although I am just a lowly engineer, not a Physicist )
For example One of the big arguments that scientists give against Cold Fusion is that the average density of deuterium atoms in the palladium rod seems vastly insufficient to force pairs of nuclei close enough for fusion to occur according to mechanisms known to mainstream theories. The average distance is approximately 0.17 nanometers, a distance at which the attractive strong nuclear force cannot overcome the Coulomb repulsion. Deuterium atoms are closer together in D2 gas molecules, which do not exhibit fusion.
Well to that I say that first off the Coulomb repulsion is normally only valid for static (non moving) charges. Once the charges begin moving and create magnetic fields then all bets are off. In my opinion it could very well be the correct alignment or movement —and thus the creation of a unique magnetic field or alignment— that is required and that pops up from time to time and creates the required fusion and excess heat. Obviously lowering the Coulomb repulsion in effect changes the distance or space between the Deuterium atoms. The effect of that space being a square term working against the charge attraction which is is linear. I wonder how much they have experimented with magnetic fields around the cold fusion rods in the heavy water. I would think there would be promise there.
Also the scientists who report getting the excess heat to occur always report a linear increase in helium products. So its the conversion from Deuterium into helium that is assumed to occur. But there is danger in ASSUMING that it is the Deuterium combinations alone that produce the helium products. I say this because its easy to make the assumption the the Deuterium combination will produce helium products or else tritium. Naturally one would include that the only way helium products could be produced would be the Deuterium combination, but its usually these kinds of assumptions that throw up road blocks. I wonder if the experimenter can calculate a decrease in the Deuterium? Most likely this is the cause but that should be verified.
Anyway its interesting and I would love to see more solid funding on this kind of research.
ping!
Is Mills still around?
For years and years, I’ve kept hearing that a revolutionary breakthrough from these folks is just around the corner.
If there have been any results, they haven’t been well publicized. Has anything been produced after all this time?
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9951,baard,11218,1.html
The talk now is about commercial applications, perhaps within seven years...
This article is dated December 21st, 1999.
Bunkum, balderdash, blather, claptrap, drivel, garbage, idiocy, nonsense, piffle, poppycock, rigmarole, rubbish, tomfoolery, trash, and twaddle.
Maybe you held your divining rod too high over your head in the last thunder storm.
Intrade opened up a contract on the replication of Dr. Arata’s experiment.
Dr Yoshiaki Arata’s Cold Fusion Experiment
Dr Arata’s experiment to be replicated in peer-reviewed scientific journal on/before 31 Dec 2008
M Trade - 9.0 - 0 0
I found copies from this link provided by Brian Josephson on the Physicsworld.com blog posting #25 located here.
Thanks for bumping the cold fusion threads.
How Can Cold Fusion Be Real,
Considering It Was Disproved By Several
Well-Respected Labs In 1989?
Steven B. Krivit, Editor
New Energy Times
http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library/2005KrivitSHowCanItBeReal.pdf
12th International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KrivitShowcancolda.pdf
Bruxelles, Belgium, August 21-26, 2005
Thanks for the links!
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