Warming Up to Cold Fusion

The Washington Post ^ | Sharon Weinberger

[Arkie2]

A little light Saturday morning reading. The DOE is currently reviewing Cold Fusion research and is due out with the result soon. This is a fairly long readbut interesting

[Oblongata]

"This is a fairly long readbut interesting"

I think I'll wait till the WP posts the shorter version with more pictures, LOL. Just kidding.

[ClearCase_guy]

If Cold Fusion ever becomes viable, the Environmentalists will come out against it. Why? Because it will permit the Western world to continue in our comfortable, affluent ways. They'll hate that.

[cripplecreek]

This country really needs to get ahead of the game on alternative energy sources.

[Arkie2]

Personally I think the DOE will put the nail in the coffin of cold fusion but if the Feds even hint some of the research needs further review all bets are off.

[UseYourHead]

I really hope they can figure out what the real dynamics are that allow this experiment to work only in random and rare circumstances. It seems they are so close but yet not really understanding the truth behind the result. It really makes it hard for the research to be taken seriously. I know thy must feel like they have a singing frog.

[SoFloFreeper]

so the bottom line? is it gonna happen soon or no? :)

[syriacus]

Cool article. Thanks for posting it.

[Arkie2]

Well, the DOE report is due out before the end of the year. Is that your question?

[Seruzawa]

Finding new energy sources is far less important than protecting the reputations of all those bloated professors who publicly claimed that cold fusion is impossible.

[Odyssey-x]

What kind of fundamental breakthroughs has the physics community achieved since quantum mechanics? We're still using chemical rockets to lauch space craft. These were invented in the 50s and rely on much earlier principles. I think physics is in a slump. String theory is just a bunch of math piled on top of math. These particle accelerators generate new particles but it seems that it's all just taxonomy.

[Arkie2]

Even the top experimenters in the cold fusion field admit they have real difficulty in reproducing their results. If the experimenters can't get past that barrier there's no science there.

[e_engineer]

One could argue that the existence of the DOE is unconstitutional, but this meeting is nothing the DOE should be ashamed of. It can easily be justified by their mission statement:

Hotlinked from:http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do?BT_CODE=ABOUTDOE

[blanknoone]

I have a degree in physics (don't work in the field), and this is pretty far from my speciality. With that caveat, I don't understand what all the secrecy and hoopla is about. From a brief review of what has passed for 'cold fusion' in the recent past, I don't think there is a lot there...it was sloppy science at the very least in that it was not replicable. Perhaps hoax, perhaps mistake, perhaps there was some unknown variable that we haven't accounted for.

However, that does not mean that it CANNOT happen. I don't think anyone wants to stop all cancer research because we have not found a cure for cancer yet. Nor is all cancer research opposed because some quack holistic energy healer claims to have a cure. Cold fusion may or may not be possible. Let's look into it. If there are serious scientists with serious ideas on how we might better understand fusion I see no reason why their science shouldn't be considered as relevant as any other funding grant.

Chemistry is full of examples of two compounds that won't react, but in the presence of certain conditions and catalysts will react. Obviously the forces involved are fundamentally different, but I think the idea that there is some catalyst and conditions that could allow the energy barriers between protons to be overcome other than massive energy is not inconceivable. I have no idea what they might be, but I think it foolish to be unwilling to consider the idea.

[Arkie2]

I don't think the DOE is necessarily embarrased by this because I saw a press release some months ago saying they planned to review the results. I think the embarrasement spoken about in the article is in the mind of the writer.

[syriacus]

50,000 hours of experiments, he says, he has recorded 50 times when the setup "unmistakably" produced excess heat.

I wish this had been worded differently, because it leaves the impression that 50 out of 50,000 experiments have produced successful results.

Was the author too lazy to find out how many times the experiment has been performed or did the author purposely tinker with words in order to give a negative impression?

It would be more meaningful to know how many times the experiments have been run.

I don't care about the number of hours of experimentation.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I think you're on to something.

[Oblongata]

This article looked cool, till I read this part on page 2:

"(the blast had nothing to do with fusion; hydrogen mixed with oxygen, creating the equivalent of rocket fuel)."

I didn't know water was explosive, and it would make a pretty heavy rocket fuel.

[genefromjersey]

Just a thought ( I'm not competent to make a scientific comment ! ): A parallel situation existed in archaeology,with a hard-core scientific "establishment" insisting there could not possibly have been "pre-Clovis" humans living in North America.

This establishment ridiculed, and attempted to ruin anyone who presented hard evidence that disproved their conclusions.( Some of them are still balking,years later !)

Yesterday's "established scientific truth" has a way of becoming tomorrow's discarded notion,and it only makes sense to re-check the evidence.

[Arkie2]

I know what you're saying is true. I hope cold fusion gets some vindication and respectability but even the people involved in the field say the experimental record isn't good.