Cold fusion information available at LENR-CANR.org

http://lenr-canr.org/ ^ | May 6, 2003 | Jed Rothwell

[JedRothwell]

Greetings. I am the librarian at http://lenr-canr.org/

Several people at this site have evidently been discussing our web site.

Our site is devoted to cold fusion, a controversial discovery in physics. It was first reported in 1926 by Paneth and Peters, and sporadically thereafter. In 1989 Fleischmann and Pons repored much more definitive results than any previous researchers, and they are generally given credit for the discovery. Or they are blamed for it, since most mainstream researchers reject the claims. Despite this rejection considerable work has been done on it and hundreds of peer-reviewed papers have been published. A small sample of peer-reviewed and proceedings papers are available at our site.

This subject is off-topic in this forum, and normally I would not bother people with it. However, during the past few weeks around 40 to 100 referrals per week have come from this site. In other words, someone here posted hyperlinks to our site. I cannot trace where exactly these links are. I cannot tell which individuals have visited our site, and I would not track them if I could. In any case, there appears to be some interest in the subject. Whether your comments have been pro or con, we welcome all readers and we thank you for your attention.

Cold fusion is mainly an apolitical subject. Most of the papers in our Library are strictly technical. A few touch on the political and social aspects of the research and its treatment in the hands of the establishment, subjects which may be germane to the themes here. For example, the journal Accountability in Research devoted an issue to cold fusion. The editor, Adil Shamoo, kindly gave us permission to reprint the entire issue.

Here are the names of some of the authors on our site who have written about politics and history. These names appear in the first index you see when you access the Library:

Beaudette
Bockris (See "Early Contributions from Workers . . .")
Chubb
Goodstein
Fleischmann
Nagel
Rothwell (me)
Shamoo

Cold fusion is a very involved subject so I do not think it would be fruitful to engage in a discussion of the technical details here, and the political aspects make little sense to people who are not well versed in the technical details. In other words, if you want to know anything, I am afraid you must start by doing a great deal of tedious, difficult work. As Storms and I wrote in our Appeal to Readers:

"These papers are not easy to read. This is not a subject a person can master in a few days or make a snap judgment about after reading one or two papers. We are pleased to see how many people are taking the trouble to learn more, and to make an informed, scientific judgment. We are confident that given a fair, objective hearing in the traditions of academic science, LENR will be accepted, and research will once again be funded in the United States."

http://lenr-canr.org/Appeal.htm

Please note we do not necessarily refer to government funding. We would be delighted to see corporate research. Unfortunately, after the U.S. Government declared that cold fusion does not exist in the 1989 ERAB report, industry followed suit and has not funded the research. The state of Utah spent $5 million on a project led by Fritz Will, one of the world's leading electrochemists, from General Electric. These results were definitive, and in my opinion they should have convinced every scientist on earth that cold fusion is real, but when Will "shopped them around" to leading corporations, they all cited the ERAB report and turned him down. (See Will, F. G. and ERAB in our Library) Fortunately, corporations and government agencies fund this research in Italy and Japan.

While I cannot do justice to the subject here, I invite people who would like to know more to send a message to me at JedRothwell@mindspring.com. I will refer you to a paper or relay your message to a researcher.

- Jed Rothwell

[Diogenesis]

For FReepers and scientists who care about what is going on:

New Scientist Features Cold Fusion

"No sooner had cold fusion surfaced than it was written off, and the idea of
extracting virtually limitless free energy from water became taboo. So how come
a small band of experienced researchers working for the US Navy just can't let
it drop?"

Theoretical Framework for Anomalous Heat and 4He in Transition Metal Systems

Deuteron Fluxing and the Ion Band State Theory

Calorimetric Principles and Problems in Pd-D2O Electrolysis

Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Systems, Final Report

Thermal and Nuclear Aspects of the Pd/D2O System, Vol 1

Thermal and Nuclear Aspects of the Pd/D2O System, Vol 2

"...California is experiencing rolling blackouts due to power shortages.
Conventional engineering, planned ahead, could have prevented these
blackouts, but it has been politically expedient to ignore the inevitable.
We do not know if Cold Fusion will be the answer to future energy needs,
but we do know the existence of Cold Fusion phenomenon through
repeated observations by scientists throughout the world.
It is time that this phenomenon be investigated
so that we can reap whatever benefits accrue from additional scientific understanding.
It is time for government funding organizations to invest in this research"
Dr. Frank E. Gordon
Head, Navigation and Applied Sciences Department
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego

---

Cold Fusion Times

[AdmSmith]

I'm fresh out of standard models; would a supermodel do, instead?

Sure, a supermodel at leasure time and the standard model at work.

(The Standard model is the name given to the current theory of fundamental particles and how they interact. A super model is the name given to a nicely configured DNA entity.)

[Drammach]

Bump

[JedRothwell]

I suggest you read the technical papers at LENR-CANR.org and judge this issue for yourself. That is why we posted them; to give readers the opportunity to look at the evidence and decide whether or not "other researchers were able to reproduce." Hundreds of other researchers claimed they reproduced. You should read their papers and decide whether you agree with them.

- Jed

[Diogenesis]

Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics

[AdmSmith]

Did I miss the "and how they interact" part?

[JedRothwell]

AdmSmith wrote:

"No, nothing has changed. there are still people trying to violate the thermodynamic principles, building perpetual motion machines, trisecting an angle etc."

On the contrary, cold fusion experiments are predicated on the principle that thermodynamics work according to the textbooks. The experiments depend on calorimeters, mainly on the design perfected by J. P. Joule himself in the late 1840s. If, as you suggest, thermodynamic principles did not work, cold fusion experimental results would be meaningless.

I refer only to experiments that measure heat. In some cases, heat is not measured, and only experiments measure tritium, helium, neutrons and other nuclear effects are monitored. In some cases calorimetry interferes with these other measurements.

- Jed

[Diogenesis]

Yes. you must mean the band theory. So impt to semiconductors
and cold fusion.

Britney's Band theory

[js1138]

It will not be fruitful in your lifetime or in your afterlifetime. Another clue is that Arthur Clarke believes in it.

[RightWhale]

It's been a long time and no results. There's a lot of new stuff in science, but this ain't it.

[JedRothwell]

r9etb writes:

"It's difficult to separate fact from fiction, however, because of the tremendously political charge surrounding the topic . . ."

I do not see why this presents a problem. I recommend you read original source papers published in peer reviewed journals and proceedings. They are not affected by the politics you refer you. Politics do influence accounts of cold fusion published in newspapers, magazines and Internet discussion groups, but these are not good sources of information on any scientific or technical subject.


". . . and the very high threshold set up by the apparent falsity of Pons and Fleischman's claims."

In my opinion they were not false, since they were widely replicated at high s/n ratios.


"The problem is made worse by the close association between cold fusion and the perpetual motion/500 mpg carburetor crowd.”

Where does this close association occur? In a publication? In the opinions of many people? If so, I suggest these people have not reviewed the actual experimental literature in detail. Cold fusion researchers mainly work at places such as Los Alamos, China Lake, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industry. These institutions are not noted for supporting or publishing perpetual motion or 500 mpg carburetor claims.

- Jed

[Diogenesis]

You must be talking about something other than cold fusion.

There have been hundred of good papers and results.

Cold fusion got a bad deal, both by the coverup in 1989 and thereafter.

[JedRothwell]

Ggekko wrote:

"To the best of your knowledge, has a theoretical interpretation of physics or maybe quantum chemistry been posited by some of the new researchers that would provide a basis for believing that Cold Fusion could work?"

I know little about theory, so I cannot judge this issue or comment on the theories that have been published.

However, I would note that many breakthroughs in science have been made and widely accepted even before a theoretical basis for them was established. J. Schwinger gives some good examples in one of his papers at LENR-CANR.org. I believe high temperature superconducting is anther example. As far as I know, there is still no generally accepted explanation for it.

- Jed

[RightWhale]

You must be talking about something other than cold fusion.

A flash in the pan; fool's gold; when we got to Jerusalem, we discovered it wasn't there. My own cold fusion setup sits unused since its first violent moments of sizzling life, waiting for further instructions and a fresh supply of Canadian nickels.

[Diogenesis]

Some went to Jerusalem and found it was there, after all.
[Perhaps the nickels had too much copper.]

[JedRothwell]

Return to the Public writes:

"Clayton at Los Alamos . . ."

That’s Claytor.


“. . . he would like to see a massive trial and error program to test every possible palladium alloy, since tiny impurities seem to catalyze dramatic performance gains. 'This is how ceramic superconductors were developed,' he points out,'by testing 5000 different compounds.' But no laboratory has mounted such an effort for cold fusion."

That would be an excellent idea, especially if someone of Claytor’s caliber were in charge. Unfortunately, no laboratory could possibly afford it. It would cost millions of dollars. Most cold fusion researcher pay for all equipment and materials out of their own pockets, and work after hours. The ones I know have spent between $100,000 and $300,000 of their own money and could not begin to do this kind of study.


"It seems that the key to repeatability will be found in creating a reliable pure alloy of palladium or perhaps some other material not yet discovered.

What do you think?"

I think that is a fascinating and vital issue, but it is beyond the scope of today’s discussion, as they say in academia. (Translation: I do not know enough to answer that easily.) The subject is too big for me to address off the cuff, but you are right that purity, dopants, poisons and the correct balance of elements in the alloy are a key issue.

- Jed

[AdmSmith]

Most cold fusion researcher pay for all equipment and materials out of their own pockets, and work after hours. The ones I know have spent between $100,000 and $300,000 of their own money and could not begin to do this kind of study.

... and I will defend your right to waste your own money, but no not ask for us (=taxpayers) to spend our money on it.

[Cautor]

Thanks for the post. Because of all the press, I had assumed "cold fusion" was a total fraud. However, I had a chance to meet Chubb and Nagel at a recent discussion of the topic and found there are some serious areas of research that need to be done. However, they are largely taboo because of the bad name that has become attached to the area dubbed "cold fusion."

[Comus]

http://www.blacklightpower.com/

These guys have been messing around with cold fusion or something close to it according to their information. I am not enough of a physicist to judge.

[anymouse]

JedRothwell - Since May 6, 2003

Since you are new here, maybe you don't know that it is a "no no" to use a FR thread to plug your own web site.

Especially one as dubious as this.

Especially on the first day you sign on to FR.