[ml/nj]

ping for later

[sourcery]

Thanks, Jed. I've been following the saga of 'Cold Fusion' since March '89--patiently waiting for the scientific process to come to a definitive conclusion on the matter (it's not my field of expertise, so I don't presume to have an authoritative opinon, one way or the other.)

[xedude]

There is no new information here. Since Pons & Fleischman threw away the scientific method and peer review process in 1989, follow up experiments in cold fusion show one consistent result: no reproducibility.

When someone can reproducibly show excess neutrons, energy, He, gammas, or whatever, outside systematic and experimental error, then I'll get optimistic.


I'd say the conclusions of the DoE review are consistent with the state of cold fusion research at this time, which is to say people shouldn't be getting too excited about cold fusion reactors powering their houses.

Peer review and the scientific method should not be discounted simply because we would like a certain result to be true. If there is an anomalous effect in these systems, it needs to be shown conclusively.

[Captain Beyond]

bump

[Paul_Denton]

Real or not, it is fascinating to me. Each fusion of hydrogen isotope nuclei releases 17.6 MeV of energy and a neutron.

It would take slightly less energy than 17.6 MeV to fuse the nuclei. About 2% or 3% less. This makes the process inefficent without raising the temperature of the nuclei to several million degrees in a vacuum where the heat overcomes the mutual repulsion of the positivly charged nuclei.