Talk:Cold fusion

This article was the subject of mediation during 2009 at User_talk:Cryptic C62/Cold fusion.

All mention of NASA has been deleted from this article 2

see also Talk:Cold_fusion/Archive_42#All_mention_of_NASA_has_been_deleted_from_this_article.

There is another mentioning of NASA and LENR this time in wired.co.uk titled "Race for cold fusion: Nasa, MIT, Darpa and Cern peer through the keyhole"[1].

I think a lot of readers will wonder why there is no mention of NASA in our article. --POVbrigand (talk) 18:06, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The article says: "However, when questioned, a Nasa spokesman stated out that there was no Nasa cold fusion project, and no budget for it. The work appears to be carried out on the side by interested Nasa scientists", it also again takes the information from Dr Zawodny's blog where he downplayed the reproducibility etc of CF. No NASA project, nothing to see here, etc. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:41, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

No official NASA project, but research nevertheless: "The work appears to be carried out on the side by interested Nasa scientists."

• A filed patent for a "cold fusion" device (mentioned in the wired article)
• A video explaining the patent (mentioned in the wired article)
• Self published presentations explaining the research (mentioned in the wired article)
• An interview with a chief scientists who gives his expert opinion on the topic
• A reference to an early NASA experiment in a peer reviewed paper
• 2 Technical Memoranda

From the wired article: "LENR tests carried out at Nasa's Glenn Research Centre "consistently show evidence of anomalous heat," indicating that cold fusion was taking place." --POVbrigand (talk) 08:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As per WP:SELFSOURCE the sources (video, Bushnell interview, presentation slides) are already sufficient to add that "Scientists from NASA are working on LENR"

What is happening here is simply refusal for consensus --POVbrigand (talk) 11:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You've tried other venues [2] but they disagreed as well: "NASA researchers are working on LENR" is not an appropriate claim to make because it misleadingly implies that NASA endorses LENR research. It seems best to give it a rest. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

If you really wish, do an RFC on it, that will at least settle the issue. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You are following me around, stop that. You have become totally obsessed with what I do around here after you failed to kick me off the project in the Arbcom case.

My discussion at [[3]] is aiming at improving the Verifiability page "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Verifiability page." --POVbrigand (talk) 07:29, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I looked at your edit history when I made my reply, that's hardly "following you around". I have over 300 articles in my watchlist, take a look at my recent contributions, notice how little of it is for this article or is even distantly connected to you. Also, you choose to use your designated cold fusion SPA account, if it was a general issue you would have used your other account. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:18, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

You are following me around and misrepresenting my conduct to make a point.

I do not use my other account at the moment, at all.

Your tendentiousness is obvious, because you deliberately cherry picked only the bit that supports your view. The mentioned editor also said "It would be accurate to say that certain scientists who are involved with NASA are involved in LENR research in their spare time. The question is where you should say it: in the main cold fusion article or in a separate article about LENR? I would suggest the latter for the time being" --POVbrigand (talk) 12:41, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

George H. Miley (UIUC) is an expert in the field.

He will be speaking on the upcoming NETS2012 [4]

"A Game-Changing Power Source Based on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs)"

"Indeed, such applications have already been explored in conceptual design studies by scientists at NASA Langley assuming Rossi-type cell performance. Their extremely encouraging results support the game-changing advantages of developing this technology. While our present test units are at lab bench power levels (multi 100s watts), scaling up to RTG power levels seems quite feasible using larger amounts of nano-particles and an improved heat management de-sign." --POVbrigand (talk) 09:31, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/nets2012/pdf/3051.pdf from [5] talks about work performed at NASA. I'm not sure whether it's been mentioned here yet. 70.58.13.84 (talk) 02:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

The amount of sources mentioning LENR research at NASA is overwhelming.

We have

• peer reviewed papers (Li 2006, Biberian 2008) mentioning the 1989 experiment from Fralick.
• a NASA Technical Memorandum (TM-102430) about that experiment and another one TM-107167 from experiments in 1996.
• a NASA website mentioning research at NASA
• a NASA video mentioning research at NASA
• a radio interview with chief scientist Bushnell mentioning research at NASA
• a NASA LENR workshop and its proceedings by NASA scientists mentioning research at NASA
• an invited talk by another NASA scientist about "LENR @ Langley" [6]
• conference proceedings from other scientists (Celani, Miley, ...) mentioning LENR research at NASA.
• a patent for a LENR device filed by NASA.
• secondary sources: two main russian news outlets mentioning research at NASA and a main UK news outlet mentioning research at NASA
• we have several news outlets commenting on the NASA video.

The straw man argument that "NASA is not endorsing LENR" completely misses the point, this is not about whether NASA is endorsing LENR, but what research is being performed at NASA.

The resentment against mentioning LENR research at NASA in light of this overwhelming amount of reliable sources which actually state LENR research at NASA as fact is one of the finest examples of POV pushing in wikipedia history. A consensus to deny.

--POVbrigand (talk) 13:43, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

the lack of nuclear byproducts

" ... and because there is no generally accepted theoretical explanation that accounts for the lack of nuclear byproducts. ..."

The lack of nuclear byproducts is not the only thing that fails an explanation, the mystery of the high coulomb barrier tunneling is the other.

Huizenga's 3 miracles:

• the lack of strong neutron emissions;
• the mystery of how the Coulomb barrier is penetratedy;
• the lack of strong emission of gamma rays or X-rays.

I just wanted to highlight this, maybe we can rewrite the line somehow.

--POVbrigand (talk) 11:40, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

also i'd add that "the lack of nuclear byproducts" is grossly inaccurate. if anyone actually proposed that the total mass gets substantially less with out an increase in output energy e = mc^2, or that the full mass of the protons and neutrons are getting converting into energy... well that's just outright ridiculous.

what they really mean is lack of _expected_ nuclear byproducts given the theoretically predicted reaction pathways for high temperature plasma -- namely, way too few neutrons. one proposed possibility is that their nuclear byproducts might helium. that would not be a lack of nuclear byproduct, that would be a _different_ nuclear byproduct. Kevin Baas^talk 15:00, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

also huizenga's not doing his probabilities right. he seems to imply that the probabilities of his "3 miracles" multiply together. but he forgot to first look for conditional dependance; you have to establish the bayesian priors. what miracle 1) and 2) are saying is simply that they don't fit predicted reaction pathways for high temperature plasmas, which is unsurprising because, well, this is not a high temperature plasma. so really those 2 miracles are only 1 miracle, namely, the mystery of how the Coulomb barrier is penetrated in a non high-density high temperature plasma. oh look, that's really the "2nd miracle". so really the "3 miracles" are just 1 miracle. and there's a pretty obvious solution here: the coloumb barrier is a classical physics construct, we should be considering this from a quantum physics perspective, and in the context that you're in a solid state crystaline metal. so where' in the context of "block waves" and so forth. very interesting. unfortuatley, also very difficult. in any case now we see there is only 1 miracle, attached to a very distinct and uncommon quantum-physical environment. okay, bayesian priors now established. go. Kevin Baas^talk 15:11, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree that the claim in the first paragraph is misstated. The generally accepted theoretical explanation for the lack of nuclear byproducts is no nuclear reaction occurred. What is instead missing is a generally accepted theoretical explanation for cold fusion as a reaction. 24.215.188.24 (talk) 01:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Removed for discussion

I removed this sentence from the section on "Subsequent research programs"

In 2007, nuclear physicist and engineering professor Jean-Paul Biberian published an update surveying the previous 15 years of work, stating that nuclear reactions which are not predicted by current theories have been proven.

The sentence may be superficially true, but it is focussing on a singular review by a cold fusion experimenter who has an obvious point-of-view that is counter to that of the mainstream. The strong claim that "nuclear reactions... have been proven." deserves explication if it is to be believed, and there is no explication forthcoming. As the only sentence in that section, it is highly weighted towards a recentist perspective revolving around LENR of the fringe researcher rather than the historic position of cold fusion.

Please address these criticisms before reinstating.

24.215.188.24 (talk) 01:11, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

first, to get clarity, I made a "half-revert" putting the Biberian part back in but leaving your edit in the lead.

Regarding your reasons for removing Biberian:

• Biberian has an obvious point-of-view -> yes, he is one of the scientists who holds the minority view. There is nothing wrong with using that in our WP-article as long as it is clear for the WP-readers that he is indeed on the minority view side.
• Biberian is stating the minority view correctly, again there is nothing wrong with explaining the minority view in our WP-article, provided we do not mislead WP-readers that the minority view is generally accepted.
• "nuclear reactions... have been proven" is in line with the conclusion of Biberian's paper:"After 15 years of intense work by hundreds of scientists in 15 countries, the proof that nuclear reactions not predicted by current theories occur in solids, during electrolysis, gas loading and gas discharge, has been established. This presentation is an overview of the field that gives convincing experimental data proving excess heat and helium production, tritium and neutron detection, X-rays and transmutation." I believe Biberian explains in his paper how he comes to that conclusion.

I don't think you can call this WP:recentism, the paper is from 2007. This WP-article tries to discuss both the "historical events" of the Fleischmann-Pons era and the ongoing research that continues until today and arguably seems to intensify lately. It has been noted before that maybe the WP-article should be split up between the "Cold fusion - historic view" and the "LENR - ongoing research". --POVbrigand (talk) 08:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

POVbrigand, there is a problem with including ONLY the minority POV which is what this particular section is doing. And I'm not sure he is stating the minority POV "correctly" as you say. The word "prove" is one that is fraught in science and is generally eschewed when talking about theories and observations. "Proving" that there were nuclear reactions would be something done in a court of law or in the context of mathematics. Finally, in a field that is 30 years old, 2007 commentary is pretty recent in comparison to when the major discussions about this (or even "subsequent discussions", as the session outlines) happened. I removed the sentence until someone can workshop a good balanced description of what the subsequent research programs involved and why (this sentence manifestly does not do that). 76.119.90.74 (talk) 18:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

It is not good style to present majority view / minority view comparison line by line. The minority view must be explained the to WP-reader, in order to do that we must spend a section on it. I already explained to you that there is no problem with that as long as it is clear that it is the minority view.

There is no need to post-review a peer-reviewed paper. Regarding the use of the word "prove" it should be noted that the paper was peer reviewed and that none of the reviewers objected to the use of "prove", so your understanding appears over stringent. Furthermore, other sources also use "prove" when explaining the minority view on the observations.

The field is almost exactly 23 years old and since that time research has been ongoing. The 2007 source is discussing the work up until 2007. That has nothing to do with recentism, sorry.

As other editors have noticed, there is no need to delete the line. Your request that "someone" provide "a good balanced description ..." is silly, why don't you do that yourself ? --POVbrigand (talk) 11:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not clear that the peer-reviewers were nuclear physicists who would be the ones capable of making the determination. No, we can't just rely on peer-review as magic pixie dust, and this source is clearly biased. I'll try to balance. Thanks for the green light. 216.217.157.4 (talk) 16:17, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

It's also not clear that the peer-reviewers were not nuclear physicists, but it is fair to assume that peer-reviewers for the International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology will certainly have expertise in that field. It is not our job as WP-editors to question the expertise of peer-reviewers, that is the job of the journal's editors.

The source verifies that it is the minority view that proof exists. The source is not more biased towards the minority view than a mainstream source is biased towards the mainstream majority view. You cannot explain the minority view without making use of minority view sources. We are not claiming that the minority view is the correct one, we are just explaining what the view is. --POVbrigand (talk) 17:20, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I think that the current location of the quote makes a whole lot more sense. Still, I wish we could clarify this a bit. I just reread the paper and am think we haven't done justice to the summary. Biberian seems to be saying that cold fusion community's results more-or-less guarantee that there is some sort of nuclear reaction going on. I would phrase the statement as such:

In 2007, nuclear physicist and engineering professor Jean-Paul Biberian surveyed the previous 15 years of cold fusion research and concluded that nuclear reactions that are not predicted by current theories were occurring in cold fusion reactors.

This may seem stylistic, but I'd prefer this wording. But since this has been somewhat contentious, I'll wait for your green-light, POVbrigand. 71.174.134.165 (talk) 18:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Drive-by reverting

I have no problem with people reverting. However, I have a big problem when people revert without discussing their reverts on the talk page. This is a requirement per WP:REVEXP.

See [7] and [8] for the reverts in question.

On principle, I reverted the user who has not contributed to the talk page.

If someone wants to discuss the changed I made above in regards to a revert they think would be appropriate, please do so.

24.215.188.24 (talk) 02:49, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Summary style

I'm trying to summarize some of the longer sections in single succinct paragraphs. I may have done a bad job, but please edit rather than simply revert, I beg.

[11].

216.217.157.4 (talk) 16:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I think your summaries are great, thanks --POVbrigand (talk) 11:31, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Dubious

"But deuterium nuclei inside a palladium lattice are further apart than in deuterium gas, and there should be less fusion reactions, not more."

sure, in the unlikely event that there is exactly one hydrogen isotope in each lattice cell. i.e. at low "loading ratio"s. But this is _obviously_ not what anybody is talking about. It obviously does NOT describe the situation in a "cold fusion cell".

Per theoretical explanation section: "Hydrogen and its isotopes can be absorbed in certain solids, including palladium hydride, at high densities."

Kevin Baas^talk 12:36, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

DOE 1989 also mentions this p. 7-8, and mentions it again saying that it takes into account high loading ratios p. 33. It has a long analysis in Appendix 4.A pp. 53-58

any reliable sources for "at high loading ratios, deuterium nuclei in palladium lattice are nearer than in deuterium gas"? --Enric Naval (talk) 18:56, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

P.D.: I added more sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:41, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure you mean low ratios or high ratios? A 0.5 loading ratio means 2 Pd atoms per D atom. More deuterium is a higher ratio, isn't it? I'm not sure how much information there is about the statistical distribution of inter-deuterium distances when D is dissolved in Pd at any ratio. It is a very complex set of interlocking electron orbitals in there. 123.30.137.236 (talk) 19:00, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Does this help?

"Dependence of the excess heat generation at the palladium cathode on the loading ratio as well as on the current density shows that the critical loading ratio and the current density to generate excess heat are ca. 0.83 and 100mA/cm2, respectively. The maximum D/Pd of 0.89 has been achieved in the present study, at which excess heat generation of ca. 35% with respect to the input electrolytic power has been observed."

• Kunimatsu, K., et al. Deuterium Loading Ratio and Excess Heat Generation During Electrolysis of Heavy Water by Palladium Cathode in a Closed Cell Using a Partially Immersed Fuel Cell Anode. in Third International Conference on Cold Fusion, "Frontiers of Cold Fusion". 1992. Nagoya Japan: Universal Academy Press, Inc., Tokyo, Japan.

I know it is a Conference paper but it may help figure out what the numbers are. Also see graph on page 13.

Does it say what it appears to be saying?

84.106.26.81 (talk) 23:25, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

note that the loading ratio is an average. most of the lattices on the inside are probably empty. and palladium can be loaded until the pressure makes it crack. Kevin Baas^talk 02:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

sorry, but all of this seems to be already covered by appendix 4.A of DOE 1989. Again, do you have any reliable source for the distance of deuterium in lattice being shorter than deuterium in gas? --Enric Naval (talk) 07:40, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The line is put forward by mainstream scientists in order to "disprove" the D-D fusion theory. It is just another "theory says no" line. The line could be not true, but it is reliably sourced. Much is unknown about how particles behave within a lattice, see for instance the many reports about screening behaviour / increased reaction rate due to laser stimulation of deuteriated palladium that are also not predicted by the currently mainstream believed theory. We could attribute the line a little bit: "Scientists have noted that ...", but I think it is at the risk of the WP-readers to read about mainstream science beliefs that turn out to be completey wrong.

btw, should the section the renamed "coulomb barrier" instead of "repulsion forces" ? --POVbrigand (talk) 08:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

personally, i prefer repulsion forces. besides being esoteric (risking confusing the reader), "coloumnb barrier" is a bit of a misnomer. Kevin Baas^talk 14:22, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

try this one: for something to "crack", the pressure must be greater on the inside than on the outside. Kevin Baas^talk 13:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

read the doe appendix and i don't see any of what i said being covered. were you just betting that i wouldn't read it? Kevin Baas^talk`

i haven't found any source that look at the probability distribution resulting from the quantum mechanics. all i've seen are global averages from a classical perspective, which is altogether quite useless. it's easy to see that the probability distribution is going to be a lot flatter; the "tails" will be heavier due to the sub-fickian diffusion characteristics of the local permeation environment. unfortunately i haven't found any empirical studies confirming _or_ denying this theoretical result. Kevin Baas^talk 13:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

probably the best source i found was one did did an ab-inito simulation. it showed interatomic spaceing of 0.074 compared w/ 0.07 in gas. however, there are many problems with it:

• it's an spatial average
• it's a temporal average
• it uses classical physics
• it's an ab-inito simulation of a large system, which means the total sim-time's probably on the order of nanoseconds. conversely, anyone w/experimental results have reported that it takes hours.
• it doesn't account for or examine the effects of defects in the lattice. this is a big problem. a lot of research seems to indicate that defects are key; that the defects are the "activation" sites.

all in all, while the reference seems "verifiable" in it's very limited scope, it is at best a red herring. Kevin Baas^talk 14:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

No, on the contrary, I want you to read p. 7-8, p. 33 and Appendix 4.A pp. 53-58, and realize that a lot of people have already looked at this theory and that they have found it wanting.

And I am still waiting for a reliable source saying that distance in smaller in the lattice. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Then i recommend you re-read what i wrote above. the key phrase you may have missed is "i haven't found any". Kevin Baas^talk 00:14, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the references, Enric. I see, yes, that is much more on point. Kevin Baas^talk 00:22, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, none of the sources I checked felt the need to take into account quantum mechanics. So, I can't really on whether quantum mechanics could alter the distance. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:14, 19 March 2012 (UTC)