Posted on 01/25/2005 1:01:04 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
BOFFINS FROM the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) have managed to replicate controversial cold fusion experiments.
A March 2002 an article in Science (Vol. 295, March 2002), indicated that boffins had managed to use bubble fusion successfully, but this data was questioned because it was made with imprecise instrumentation.
Now Physical Review E is publishing an article by the team of researchers stating that it has replicated and extended previous experimental results and this time has used the right instruments. Cold fusion is a bit of a holy grail in the science world because if it could be made to work, it could produce a lot of energy without having to have a large amount of energy to start it.
Scientists have managed to do it in the past, but it always required more energy to be put into it than could be taken out, which is defeating the point a bit. A press release going into the details can be found here. µ
expat, while you are corret to me hearing someone say free energy is like telling kids there is no gravity in space..
Highlighting the papers presented will be reports of reproducible experiments producing both the heat and nuclear signature of fusion (helium). Additional papers will show the characteristics of materials involved in these solid state fusion reactions as well as showing that classical nuclear reaction fingerprints of fissioning metals are also found in solid state fusion materials.
Ardent skeptics of this field have consistently demanded that researchers must show both the heat and ashes of fusion. APS presentors trust those skeptics will be in attendance for these historic presentations of precisely that evidence.
A reception will follow the presentations where presentors will be available to the press for questions and do their best to be gracious while serving delicious poultry capapes to those most ardent of the cold fusion skeptics of the last 15 years.
I thought cold fusion was Bill and Hillary mating.
Does this mean we don't need whale oil anymore?
Hmm.... But that is an old article. It's been a while since I read it, but I'm thinking that I read a more recent article that said they'd re-examined it, and declared that it could not be verified. The article made it sound like they were pretty certain it was bunk.
The article that is referenced in the post sort of alludes to what I read, as well, which makes me think I'm not imagining things. It mentions that the experiment had originally been criticized for its inexact measurements. I think that is what the US DOE said in the article I read.
Too bad I can't lay my hands on it now.
I though a "boffin" was some sort of flightless bird akin to a penguin.
AHA! I found it:
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-58/iss-1/p31a.html
Cold Fusion Gets Chilly Encore
Claims of cold fusion are no more convincing today than they were 15 years ago. That's the conclusion of the Department of Energy's fresh look at advances in extracting energy from low-energy nuclear reactions. A report released on 1 December 2004 echoes DOE's 1989 study that followed the headline-making claims of cold fusion by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann.
Since Pons and Fleischmann's claims, cold fusion has fallen into disrepute among scientists, with only a few soldiering on under professional adversity. Most are funded by industry or various governments.
DOE revisited the topic at the behest of cold fusion researchers (see Physics Today, April 2004, page 27). The researchers submitted a 30-page document, "New Physical Effects in Metal Deuterides," which DOE had peer-reviewed by 18 scientists, 9 of whom also attended a day of oral presentations by 6 cold fusion research groups.
Reviewers were split on whether the experimental evidence for excess power production is compelling. But, the report says, most reviewers, even those who accepted the evidence for excess power production, "stated that the effects are not repeatable, the magnitude of the effect has not increased in over a decade of work, and that many of the reported experiments were not well documented."
Cold fusion researchers put a rosier spin on the report. "The greatest vindication for the cold fusion community was that, instead of being treated like cripples, lepers, and idiots, we were treated like normal scientists in the handling of this review," says Michael McKubre, an electrochemist at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. "Just the fact of the review has heightened the level of discussion. There's been a huge upswing in interest in funding cold fusion research." Adds MIT theorist Peter Hagelstein, "A door has been opened by the reviewers. Whether anybody actually manages to go through it remains to be seen."
The DOE report does not recommend setting aside government money for research into cold fusion. Rather, it identifies areas of research that "could be helpful in resolving some of the controversies in the field"specifically, characterization of deuterated metals and the search for fusion in thin deuterated filmsand recommends that agencies consider funding individual proposals in those areas. Considering individual proposals is nothing new, says Jim Decker, principal deputy director of DOE's Office of Science. "We have always been receptive to research proposals. We make decisions on funding research proposals on the basis of peer review and relevance."
DOE's summary of the reviews can be downloaded from the Web at http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/ News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy; the reviewers' individual reports are available at http://newenergytimes.com/DOE/DOE.htm.
Previous thread this subject
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1321476/posts
CONSORTIUM FORMED TO STUDY ACOUSTIC FUSION
Another boffin attack!!!!
My question is why is the Inquirer publishing this story now? The "press release" that is linked is almost a year old.
I can understand a physics journal taking about a year to publish a paper, but where was all of the excitement when RPI release the presser in March 2004?
Agreed. But I sure hope so. LOL!
It's not really contained. It dissipates in a flash of light.
I know, I had that same question ...lots of caution on the part of the researchers and journals ....is the only answer that I have.
rface...is that..note at #62 for real....or somebody just having some fun?
Any hint why the press release is 10 months old?
The original press release is dated: March 2, 2004.
That's 10 months ago.
If this was really real, we should have heard a lot more about it since. I assume that the Phys. Rev. E article came out in March 2004 as well.
Something is not right hear.
However, the idea is interesting. They are using the same basic physics as sonoluminescence. However, the sonoluminesence temperatures were no where near 15 mega Kelvin, closer to 10 kilo Kelvin; about a factor of 1,000 lower.
W00t! indeed. This ought to be an interesting paper.
Hmmmmm.... you're right. But I don't remember reading that the experiment had been duplicated back in March of last year.
Are either of those known to have deleterious effects on Superman?
I don't think that puffins do scientific research, but I could be wrong....
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