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Nuclear technology in the wild?

Many countries keep reactor research under strict government control and classification. The denial around cold fusion seems to allow for it to freely exist in the wild. The way I see it the excess heat may or may not be a nuclear reaction. That seems a reasonable position to take? Even if you want to argue the excess heat to most likely be a measurement error you can not fully disprove all probability for it to be a nuclear effect. If that happens one day, how will they put the jinn back into the bottle?

Is there anything to be said about this in the article? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 02:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

no, the personal OR from editors is no good for wikipedia --POVbrigand (talk) 19:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

There has to be something written on the topic. It is fine to ask for this. WHAT the say and WHO they are determines if it is worth including. You can read about this in the edit guidelines. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 08:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI about why cold fusion can't possibly work

By way of background, I have 13 patents in fuel cells. I haven’t even read Wikipedia’s “Fuel cell” article because it would be so frustrating to find total garbage written by 16-year-old I.P.s who read in Popular Mechanics that by the year 2014, 20% of American automobiles will be powered by fuel cells. After all—the 16-year-old would argue—Popular Mechanics is an RS and it was obvious from the article that they got their information from Ballard back in 1997. Well… none of that changes the fact that this kind of misinformation has been promulgated by fuel cell companies looking for their next government grant and your average *science* magazine that is suitable for placement next to Turbo Hondas on the magazine rack has editors who just regurgitate claims with abandon. Now…

Platinum and palladium both absorb huge amounts of hydrogen. But first, they atomize and then ionize the hydrogen; which is to say, they break the diatomic hydrogen molecule into individual hydrogen atoms, and then they ionize (strip off the electron), which now becomes a mobile conduction electron in the metal. The proton is now imbedded in the atomic interstitials of the metal. This phenomenon is central not only to fuel cells (their catalyst works that way) and hydrogen storage, but also to membrane separators used in reformers; hydrogen goes across a thin foil of platinum and the carbon dioxide remains behind. It is also the phenomenon underlying hydrogen embrittlement.

There is no way in the world you could get two protons to crowd together into the same interstitial where they would allow themselves to be squeezed together; they are repelling each other and too quickly escape. It would be *pretty* indeed to hope that an interstitial might act like a hammer-forging machine and let in entire hydrogen atoms (complete with their electrons) and the interstitial mauls away at the atoms by ionizing them (allowing the electrons to become mobile conduction electrons) and that this phenomenon would now leave behind the electrically opposing protons, which could be crushed together. After all, cracks and lattice defects would provide sufficient room for a gigantic complete hydrogen atom (that is something like 99.999% empty space) to squeeze into defects. But once you finally ionized the atoms, the protons would “see” each other and repel each other far, far faster than 300 kelvin metal can do anything about it.

Just judging from the picture of the experiment, 20 kelvins extra temperature in that apparatus had to have been the result of something like 2–8 extra watts (guessing). Indeed, the neutron flux—if that heat had been the result of fusion—would have killed Fleischmann and Pons before they could tell anyone about their discovery. So now proponents of cold fusion are advancing unknown nuclear phenomenon as permitting cold fusion to still be responsible for the excess heat. Wishing fervently for something because it is *pretty to think so* is not science; it is faith: a belief that is not based on proof. And faith is not science. In the late 1700s, scientists were called “naturalists”. The equivalent of France’s Einstein at the time was called “the great French naturalist…”. The moniker was used because naturalists endeavored to explain the world around us in terms of natural phenomenon, without invoking supernatural phenomenon.

And so it is with cold fusion; its believers would have the world believe that several watts of excess heat can be the product of fusion—only it is a *new* kind of fusion unfamiliar with nuclear physicists that doesn’t kill people with neutrons and darn near turn them into a pillar of salt by looking at it. If you have to hold hands, close your eyes, and fervently wish for pleasant outcomes that flout known science, then it doesn’t even rise to the level of Carl Sagan’s saying: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof; it is just plain non-science. Something was responsible for the excess heat. But jumping to the conclusion that it is cold fusion is akin to saying “I saw unfamiliar lights in the night sky; it must be interstellar aliens.”

I very much hope that the *believers* (POV-pushers in wiki-parlance) are kept at arms length from this article. Greg L (talk) 01:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

This is all your OR, we don't need any of that on WP even on talk pages. Go publish a book and be happy. Cheers --POVbrigand (talk) 17:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

That's marvelous, Greg L, well-written and plain as day. I'm glad you wrote it, even though it does not conform to talk page guidelines and cannot be used in the article. I agree wholeheartedly that this article cannot be an unlimited playground for cold fusion promoters. Binksternet (talk) 17:28, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Greg will just have to write down his genious theory in a peer reviewed paper and publish it in Nature or Science. ENEA and NASA and SPAWAR will surely notice and it will be a complete eye opener to them. My goodness, how could those renowned institutions ever have thought that cold fusion could be real, when Greg here knew all along that it _just can't possibly work_. Greg, joking aside, in your thoughts here, did you differentiate between "cold fusion" and LENR or is it all the same to you ? --POVbrigand (talk) 19:55, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks Binksternet for your kind response. You saw my post as I intended it. Allow me to explain what stimulated my sudden interest here. I saw an improper edit to this article made by an I.P. who could find his or her way to a Starbucks in Hartford. I thought I’d post a reality-check to flesh out who “had religion” on this voodoo and was active here… interesting.

  In response to your first post here, POVbrigand: I know full well what I wrote is O.R. and isn’t suitable for putting into the article; I hadn’t intended any of it for inclusion in the article and I don’t think any reasonable-minded editor interpreted it that way. It was a call for keeping *those with great faith* at bay so the article is grounded in science. As I wrote, plain as day there at the end, I very much hope that the *believers* (POV-pushers in wiki-parlance) are kept at arms length from this article. Now…

  If anyone needs help here (Binksternet?) with the POV-pushers intent on spreading the *religion* of cold fusion, let me know. I can help establish a consensus that is properly grounded in Wikipedia’s Five Pillars and its requirements for RSs so we cut to the chase and less time is wasted trying to argue with those who push voodoo science. One of the tricks these POV-pushers resort to is to write the equivalent of Cold fusion was shown to have been consistent with the findings and *cite* some peer-reviewed journal but when one actually reads the monograph, it says no such thing; which amounts to lies (or exceedingly poor understanding of science) masquerading as truth. I can help sleuth-out suspected instances of this stunt.

  I want to make sure that Wikipedia best serves our readership. Thanks for the interesting responses and happy editing. Greg L (talk) 20:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Greg L, there is a way that I think you can help here: read the whole article with a fresh eye, and determine if the article properly conveys the extreme skepticism and/or dismissal that fusion experts and virtually all other physicists have for cold fusion. I have been trying to keep that aspect of the article accurate for years now, but I worry that I have been too close to this article for too long to really answer that question. Olorinish (talk) 04:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

• Hi, Olorinish. The article is painful to read. I’ve looked at all parts of it up to the pain threshold and intently focused on some areas. It looks clearly like the wikiproduct of a battleground subject, like our “Race and intelligence” article. It reminds me of Irving Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do” song (♬♩“Yes I caaaan!” “No you can’t!” “Yes I caaaan!” ♬♩). It has a Flesch reading ease of only 16.7% and at 8500 words in the body text, is too lengthy. Over and over it has been amply demonstrated that Fleischmann and Pons made numerous errors in their assumptions and measurements. It’s a very simple experiment and after 22 years, people would be making thousands of watts if there was any merit to it. The article is in sore need of a total rewrite to make it worth a crap as an encyclopedic bit of technical writing. Greg L (talk) 19:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Greg, you didn't answer my question, do you differentiate between "cold fusion" and LENR. Other question: Do you know who Robert Duncan is ? --POVbrigand (talk) 07:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

POVbrigand (I like that screen name), cold fusion adherents *have religion*. There are 3000 religions in this world. All, to one extent or another, think their’s is the most correct one and the others are in error to one extent or another. Whole classes of some religions are wildly at odds with other classes of religions, where they are convinced that the others’ prophet(s) were false ones. That’s quite a difference, don’t you think? Logically, these mutually exclusive differences mean that at least 2999 religions are in error. As a naturalist, I’ve found that religion doesn’t even offer up clear guidance on morality issues. For instance, I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Strangely, the police won’t stop by to kill him. (*sigh*)

If religion stopped at matters of morality and philosophy, that might be OK in my book, but religion also treads into science and there are well-meaning religious adherents who think the earth, having been created October 23, 4004 B.C., is precisely 2201380 days old (← that number updates daily if you want to bookmark this page). I’ve found it is pointless trying to point any of this out to believers with faith; it’s like trying to teach a pig to sing: one only wastes their time and annoys the pig. Why? Because their positions are non‑falsifiable, which is frustrating from a *scientist’s* (naturalists) point of view. Cold fusion might as well be lumped into religion because their arguments too are non‑falsifiable; thus making that 3001 religions on this pale blue dot. Now that I’m done with soap‑boxing about pathological science (as the song goes: a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest), allow me to address your *challenge* to me…

You asked me if I know who Robert Duncan©™® is (honestly, a mental image of a dog with its tail wagging came to mind with that). I am exceedingly pleased to respond, “F--k no, and proud of it.” So I just now googled his name and stopped at the first site that wasn’t Wikipedia (*queue “eye rolling” clip from B‑roll*) or (literally) Cold Fusion Now-dot-com, and looked at this blog about the fellow, where there were individuals who seemed to be less-than-impressed with His Highness Of Cold Fusion. As for what “LENR” means, it’s just one of the many—as Sarah Palin might say—*sciency*-sounding pseudonyms to avoid saying “cold fusion”; an effort to put lipstick on a pig and pass it off as a prom date.

And, speaking of “His Highness Of Cold Fusion,” how about Irving Dardik? Have you heard of him? He literally wrote the book with his “Irving Dardik and His Superwave Principle,” which is a system of treating diseases using wave form technology, which he called "supersonant waveenergy" His system basically involved exercise techniques that were designed to modulate the cardiac rhythms in order to amplify the bodies natural wave frequencies to fight disease. He lost his medical license in 1995 after the medical board found he was engaged in “quackery.” Now he is *into* cold fusion. As the Church Lady on SNL might say: “Well, isn’t that just *extra* special.” Greg L (talk) 18:47, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have heard about Irving Dardik. Ask Robert Duncan what he thinks about Irving Dardik's work. --POVbrigand (talk) 21:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

• Does it amount to “Irving equals ‘poopy’; me smart smart smart”? Inquiring minds want to know. Greg L (talk) 22:19, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Almost like that, read the sources, it's great fun --POVbrigand (talk) 22:43, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Greg, I appreciate your intent in noting for future editors that the original claims regarding cold fusion, if true, would have falsified a substantial amount of established science, and would thus have required very substantial evidence in support. It's also appropriate that you have noted that your views, whilst in line with mainstream scientific thought, are not directly usable on the article without reliable sources, etc, and thus that you were not proposing any direct change. Unfortunately, I suggest that some of your posts since then, and also comments from POVbrigand, have wandered away from anything which would typically be considered allowed talk page discussion. This topic is under ArbCom discretionary sanctions, which provide broad discretion for an admin to take unilateral action, and on this topic over-zealous action is not unknown. Thus, I strongly suggest to you both that if you want to continue a robust and frank discussion of cold fusion and LENRs, etc, that you move it to one of your own talk pages, where the potential for an abrupt termination of the discussion is much reduced. And No, I am not an admin and this is not a threat, merely some advice from a fellow editor. Kind Regards, EdChem (talk) 00:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

• Well, thanks for the heads-up on how chronic misbehavior and BATTLEGROUND mentality lead to ArbCom babysitting of this article to ride herd on POV-pushers. Sometimes candid discussion is required to fix screwed up articles like this one and that’s why I weighed in as I did: to better serve the interests of our readership.

  Olorinish reached out to my overtures here (as an outsider with a WTF? reaction) and invited me to take a fresh read of this article and weigh in and state my opinion. He recognized the opportunity here to better serve the interests of our readership via the infusion of new blood to this article. And what about my opinion(?)…

  It’s clear to me that because of the persistent tug of war between enthusiasts and realists, the article has a palpable But this appeared like positive evidence (no it didn’t)‑look to it. That eroded this article and makes it appear substandard; it looks nothing at all like proper, encyclopedic technical writing crafted in a linear and coherent manner. Moreover, with a Flesch reading ease of only 16.7%, it is far too abstruse for a general-interest encyclopedia. There are terrible examples of launching straight into specialists symbology and terminology without proper introduction, such as Considerable attention has been given to measuring ⁴He production. A proper introduction to such concepts would introduce these things and explain that Helium‑4 is an isotope (a variety of an element with a different number of neutrons) before launching straight into symbols of chemical elements with a superscripted prefix. And with 8500 words in the body text, it is too lengthy. Moreover, entries in the citations and the bibliography have expired and much of it doesn’t really appear to be true RSs. The article, in short, needs a major redo.

  Given the difficulties of trying to revise this article from scratch, on‑line in real time, I’d suggest that the shepherding authors start a sandbox version (perhaps Talk:Cold fusion/New version) and work on it there for a few weeks and then post it to “Cold fusion”. Greg L (talk) 03:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

  
  P.S. FYI, my above post has a Flesch reading ease of 43.3%. If I delete that xt-text sentence with the ⁴He production in it, then my above post has a Flesch reading ease of 45.2%. That’s as low as a Flesch score should go, IMHO, for Wikipedia. A score of 16.7% is ridiculous. Greg L (talk) 03:15, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary break: Looking at improving article

Greg, I was around when the case happened, and ArbCom intervention has certainly calmed things down, certainly once Abd was banned. I'm a scientist and well aware that the article is in dire need of improvement, I just became disillusioned long ago and would hate to see more santions here. Your points about Flesch reading ease are, in my view, entirely appropriate for talk page discussion - perhaps you might start a thread on that point? As for the back-and-forth in the article, unfortunately most scientists long ago gave up on this field so there is not any comprehensive and credible review article that would allow alot of the individual papers to be bypassed and a summary included. Without such a review to trump the inclusion of every claim I fear the battleground will continue as polite POV pushing remains an insoluble wiki-problem. EdChem (talk) 04:11, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

That's right. There are exhaustive reviews from 1989 to 199~ explaining why CF won't work, but proponents claim that they are outdated. Individual experiments get propped up as conclusive breakthroughs, then they are never heard of again, and a new claim gets propped up. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:58, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Also "Famous scientist X said in an interview that CF research is promising", which I can only describe as a celebrity endorsement. CF is already endorsed by two Nobel laurate (Julian Schwinger) and Brian Josephson). As shown by Schwinger's example, getting endorsements from famous scientists doesn't mean that CF experiments are suddenly more replicable, the theories more correct, or the field more accepted by scientists. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem here is you're telling Nature what it can or can't do. Check your ego, bud. Nature doesn't give 2 s**t's what the entire universe has to say about it, nonetheless the tiny speck we call man. Tell it all you want, it doesn't take orders from ANYBODY! Which, BTW, is why these tiny specs invented what they call "science". Kevin Baas^talk 20:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

And want to know what else can't possibly work? Electrons orbiting around protons! It's a complete violation of Newtonian physics. According to everything we know about Newtonian physics, they should just run right into the protons and neutralize in a matter of femtoseconds, annihilating all of electromagnetic force as we know it before the light from nearest atom skims the lens of our eye. Strangely, that hasn't happened yet. Kevin Baas^talk

This is going south quickly. Time to stop the thread as it is not helping the article. Binksternet (talk) 21:01, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

• Binksternet, the discussion hasn’t quite risen to the level of disruption; it just needs to be steered on track.

  Quoting Enric Naval [EdChem]: …unfortunately most scientists long ago gave up on this field so there is not any comprehensive and credible review article that would allow alot of the individual papers to be bypassed and a summary included. Enric [EdChem] speaks of how there are “not any comprehensive and credible review article(s).” This state of affairs—if true—puts mere wikipedians in the position of practicing their hand at being a science journal editor, where wikipedians are chasing our tails arguing about the meaning of science papers; that’s not properly within the purview of mere wikipedians on issues this complex and controversial.

  I suspect there are some high-level review articles by well-accepted, most-reliable, secondary RSs to which Wikipedia can look. I don’t have time to dig it up at the moment, but I seem to recall yesterday reading an article in The New York Times (or something like that) where they were writing of an Energy Department official who sort of <blinked> and said “I didn’t know anyone credible was pursuing that stuff anymore.”

  I suggest we consider scaling back the scope of this article (atomic-level details of “ ⁴He production” and what it purportedly means) and limit the scope of this article to the confines of the overviews of the secondary RSs in this subject. We have to agree that “dueling Jr. Einsteins” doesn’t work; we end up with the standard Wikipedia flaw endemic to some of our science-related articles, where editors plop abstruse lingo on pages partly to impress his or her wiki‑peers (“See, I’m fluent with parsing the lingo in science papers and am not some mook of a wikipedian but am *special and smart*.”) We take our desires to push a POV and subordinate ourselves to the secondary RSs; they must be out there.

  I suggest we re-visit the question as to whether there really aren’t any proper summary materials by most-reliable secondary RSs upon which we can build a better (streamlined and far less abstruse) article that reads like proper, encyclopedic technical writing crafted in a linear and coherent manner (without the “dueling banjos”-effect). That will, IMHO, better serve the interests of our readership. Greg L (talk) 21:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Greg, I think you are actually quoting me, at least in part. Also, I'd be pleased to see a reliable recent review published in a reputable journal by an objective scientist, but I've not seen any evidence of such existing. The only recent reviews I've seen discussed here are comparatively uncritical summaries by cold fusion / LENR researchers and appear written for the insular CF/LENR community. EdChem (talk) 01:33, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Oops. I’m sorry for attributing that to someone else. I struck and revised. Awwe… shucks. I must say that after a bit of searching myself, I am rather surprised at the dearth of comprehensive summaries of cold fusion by highly respected secondary RSs. I found “When Scientists Sin” by Scientific American, which quotes a colleague of Richard Feynman at Caltech, David Goodstein. They wrote Other cases are not so clear. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons’s “discovery” of cold fusion, Goodstein concludes, was most likely a case of scientists who “convince themselves that they are in the possession of knowledge that does not in fact exist.” This self-deception is distinctly different from deliberate deception. But there is no scientific detail in the article. I can see why this article has become a battleground for wikipedians out to promote their favorite author and source. Greg L (talk) 02:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

MIT

In this edit a new user has claimed (without a reference) that MIT is now teaching a course on cold fusion. Evidence offered was basically "contact MIT". I have reverted, I consider that any such claim (even if article-worthy) would need to be supported by an included reliable source. I am posting here as I accidentally hit the enter key while typing my rationale in the edit summary and I wanted the reason for my revert to be recorded. Anyone have any comment / criticism? EdChem (talk) 01:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

• I agree. The red-letter editor who made that edit left an edit summary reading “Contact MIT for the full details.” (∆ edit, here), which is not a proper citation to an RS. MIT’s courses listed under Nuclear Science and Engineering, Spring 2012 doesn’t mention anything related to cold fusion that I can see. It would be difficult indeed for MIT to fill classes if they don’t make it easier for students to know it exists. Greg L (talk) 03:02, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I thought you would just contact MIT for confirmation. Here you go: Start 2012 with Cold Fusion 101 - A new short course on cold fusion science and technology sponsored by the Engineering and Computer Science departments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be held in January 2012. Designed for MIT students, Cold Fusion 101: Introduction to Excess Power in Fleischmann-Pons Experiments addresses the early history of cold fusion science. Please do some research and contact MIT, ask them why it isn't listed in web based course curriculum. Perhaps they are rushing to catch up with others who are publishing papers on the (MIT recognized) science of cold fusion and low energy nuclear reactions. Perhaps it is offered in an interdepartmental newsletter. This red-letter editor now edits his confirmation request: Contact the Engineering and Computer Science Departments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (talk to them) ask if the editor of this Wikipedia Article could attend the class in preparation for a re-write of this article. "Cold Fusion: Is it a Science or a Pseudo-Science". MIT seems to stand on both side of the fence and has for a long time. Now with their first class offered on the "history of cold fusion science" (they charge money for the class) they are making money on the science of cold fusion. Therefore Wikipedia statements of cold fusion as a pseudo-science referenced to MIT, or MIT reports influencing the Department of Energy in this matter, should be moved to Historical footnotes titled "Immature Initial Analysis Falsely Classifies Cold Fusion a Pseudo-Science" Ask the professors teaching the course at MIT if they would object my suggestion. This Science has hundreds of peer reviewed articles published, hundreds of replicated experiments, accepted theories that explain and predict the occurrence of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions taking place in laboratories, nature, and other observed phenomenon which have not been understood. This article should reflect that this is now an accepted science in, its infancy, understanding developing at a rapid rate, with a hypothetical potential for rapid commercialization. Leave the hypothetical out of it till it happens, let's stick with that Wikipedia Rule, but please bring this article up to date. The idea to attend the MIT class and than rewrite the article is a sound one. I bet my reputation they would allow you to attend it for free... energy! Ha ha.... just trying a bit of humor there... sorry this is meant to be a serious academic discussion forum. Is it?

I am a self taught person 53 years old, left high school after my first year, went to community college for an early childhood development certificate and a certificate for elder care in the activities departments of nursing homes. I began studying this in July and am appalled at how out of date, or better expressed, is the POV of this article that this is a pseudo-science. Frankly it has that "flavor" all over it. This articles flavor should reflect our knowledge to date. Cold Fusion/LENR is an interdisciplinary Science with significant contribution from branches of nano physics, quantum physics, harmonic cavitation, wave mechanics of light and electro-magnetic frequencies, and magnetic field effects on micro particles. The folks at MIT will help clarify this much better than I. Of that I'm sure.

 – Greg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory Goble (talk • contribs) 05:17, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

A friend just sent me the MIT link: http://student.mit.edu/iap/nc9.html

Cold Fusion 101: Introduction to Excess Power in Fleischmann-Pons Experiments

Peter Hagelstein

Mon-Fri, Jan 23-27, 30-31, 11am-12:30pm, 4-145, 1/30 class meets in 4-149

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up

Excess power production in the Fleischmann-Pons experiment; lack of confirmation in early negative experiments; theoretical problems and Huizenga's three miracles; physical chemistry of PdD; electrochemistry of PdD; loading requirements on excess power production; the nuclear ash problem and He-4 observations; approaches to theory; screening in PdD; PdD as an energetic particle detector; constraints on the alpha energy from experiment; overview of theoretical approaches; coherent energy exchange between mismatched quantum systems; coherent x-rays in the Karabut experiment and interpretation; excess power in the NiH system; Piantelli experiment; prospects for a new small scale clean nuclear energy technology.

On 1/30 and 1/31 M. Swartz will discuss results he has obtained from a variety of cold fusion experiments he has done over the years. He has observed excess power in PdD and in NiH experiments; typical energy gains in the range of 2-3 are seen, with a few experiments giving higher energy gain; he has carried out a demonstration of his experiment previously at MIT; and energy produced from cold fusion reactions has been used to drive a Stirling engine.

Contact: Peter Hagelstein, plh@mit.edu

Our correspondence on this edit suggestion is being forwarded to the Cold Fusion/LENR Scientific community through various mediums. It will also be released to news organizations through my press agent.

Gregory Byron Goble Monday Dec. 19th 2011 (415) 724-6702 Sponsor: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory Goble (talk • contribs) 06:16, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

• This would be an excellent example of the WP:NOTBYASS (notability by association) that is pushed on these articles. In this case MIT is made out as a cold fusion supporter via the "non-credit activity" Cold Fusion 101: Introduction to Excess Power in Fleischmann-Pons Experiments offered during MIT's Independent Activities Period. The "activity" is being presented by Peter L. Hagelstein, an associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT and the principal investigator for the Energy Production and Conversion Group and yes; the group web-site www.rle.mit.edu/energy does actually redirect to The International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science.

Apparently Prof. Hagelstein has had a little trouble getting his research published in a legitimate peer reviewed journal...

The skeptics have been wildly successful in persuading others scientists (who depend on experimental observations for their own work) that experimental observations of any anomalies in PdD can and should be ignored. The willful disregard of experimental observations in this area is now a part of modern science; this, if nothing else, should cause people to think about what is happening.

Despite all details provided in the manuscript and the apparently rigorous procedure, I cannot recommend publication of the manuscript. The main reason is that the manuscript and the associated documentation target the rehabilitation of the cold fusion concept; unfortunately cold fusion has largely been disproved among the scientific community. (anonymous reviewer, 2010)

Our paper on the two-laser experiment was submitted to many journals over the course of a year prior to publication. It was returned from J Phys C without review. Another journal had tentatively accepted it, and when we submitted the paper in final form for publication, we received notice from the editor that they had received a late set of reviewer's comments and that the paper was now rejected. This criticism is from the associated review. No response to this criticism was allowed.

—source: Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, Progress Report No. 152: Fleischmann-Pons Effect Studies, 2010. • Sponsors: "Nuclear Energy Release from Metal Deuterides", SRI International under subagreement #33-000075, Period: 3/23/09-9/27/11

So there you have it. More pseudoscience than you can shake a marmoset at. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 07:54, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Calling it pseudoscience will not make it go away. The course at MIT is still there. --POVbrigand (talk) 10:53, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, of course it's a "course". Regardless, it is still a pathological activity by the sources. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 11:10, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Here is an opinion with a slant... Apparently Prof. Hagelstein has had a little trouble getting his research published in a legitimate peer reviewed journal... Fact? or Opinion? The Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science is not a legitimate peer journal. Fact? or Slant? ...had a little trouble getting his research published... Why the slant. How many papers has he submitted during his career? To which Journals? How many were denied publication? Slanderous Slant please give me facts. Often when science attempts to explain newly observed phenomenon they get the theory wrong. Here we have science observing a phenomenon, learning how to better replicate it, improving scientists ability to observe it, and creating the arena for improved theories that will most likely lead our to ability to control and capitalize (profit from) our understanding of this phenomenon. This is science. Simply put are these folks pseudoscientists? Is this something Wikipedia finds to be based on fact? I'll tone down my edit request for you a bit...

Edit for introduction: Cold Fusion/LENR is a slowly developing Interdisciplinary Science in its' infancy with significant contributions being made to it from both new and old branches of Science. Chemical Science, Nano Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Harmonic Cavitation, Wave Mechanics of Optical and Electromagnetic Frequencies, and the Science of Magnetic Field Effects on Micro Particles are participating in the observation, creation, and understanding of these phenomenon. Initial advances, from scientists working together, have been made in understanding and creating the materials and conditions that result in longer and better replicable experiments yielding this phenomenon. This is creating new areas of peer review, a new area of established (not theoretical) Science as the experiments increase in, variety and quality of duration. Observation has led to understanding which increases the opportunities for increased understanding. Until theoretical models which accurately predict the effects measured in these experiments much controversy will exist concerning this new Interdisciplinary Science.

Cold Fusion/LENR or whatever handle the theorists give this phenomenon when they really figure out the physics of what's going on, Science or Pseudoscience? Are the groups of people in labs around the world duplicating and improving and reviewing the measuring of these phenomenon... are they scientists or pseudoscientists? Explain that to me. Is the slant on this article accurate for today? Pseudoscience is referenced 9 times in the article as reason to dicredit cold fusion Science, its' scientists, and the research papers presented to peers in the field as you have just done. Why? It is significant that MIT is offering a class in the "pseudoscience" of observable, replicatable, unexplainable phenomenon presently touted as cold fusion or low energy nuclear reactions. Or is it Science? What is the consensus opinion of the facts of this anyway, Wikipedia moderator? Please consider explaining the facts of this stigma. Don't give me continued pathological reosoning to support this stance. They are scientists doing this work, in top notch labs, being reviewed by peers. This is Science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory Goble (talk • contribs) 14:04, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

A friendly reminder that we're already put the matter to rest: Cold Fusion/LENR is pathological science but it is categorically NOT pseudoscience. However, there is quite a bit of pseudoskepticism with regard to it, hence you hear all sorts of arguments in which you can say, e.g., "hmmm.... that's true of biology too. I wonder if biology is pseudoscience." and of course it's not. Anyways, a friendly reminder, the topic has already been discussed ad nasuem, and the conclusion was this is pathological science, not pseudoscience. Kevin Baas^talk 15:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

My take is that it would be misleading to say “MIT is now offering a 101-level course on cold fusion”; that alone would lend a notability and credibility undeserving given the details of who is presenting the material, why he is presenting the material, and what MIT’s involvement in this is. It would also be far too misleading to have what G. Goble wrote (“MIT now views Cold Fusion/LENR as a Science”). Ian Waitz himself might make an edit as an I.P., all red-faced, to discreetly fix that stretch of the imagination. Prof. Hagelstein wants to spread the word about his work and it is not correct to suggest that his being allowed to make it a non-credit course with no enrollment limit equates to an endorsement of the science by MIT. All it says about MIT is they are giving one of their own professors access to a room, which MIT also does for prayer groups and certain other clubs. Everyone from other Ph.D.s to the crazy guy picking up aluminum cans behind Steinbrenner Stadium can audit Hagelstein’s lectures as he speaks about his accomplishments. To properly give background on the totality of the meaning and context of this tidbit would require ponderous elaboration that would result in even more of the effect this article already has too much of: the “Anything You Can Do” song (♬♩“Yes I caaaan!” “No you can’t!” “Yes I caaaan!” ♬♩). This is best left alone since it is a minor issue that becomes yet more tempest in a teapot. Greg L (talk) 16:45, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

"MIT now views Cold Fusion/LENR as a Science" is kinda like "MIT is not beating their wife". Cold Fusion/LENR is and has always been regarded as science. Pathological science, yes, even fringe science, but science nonetheless. the fact that some institution regards it as such is rather unremarkable. To say that some institution "now" regards it as science is to imply that they at one point did not. This is in a sense, "pulling a Fox News". Kevin Baas^talk 17:55, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The MIT non-credit activity has no place in this article. Binksternet (talk) 18:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It’s just that simple. Pathological science is where people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions. Kevin’s argument of Pathological science, yes, even fringe science, but science nonetheless is akin to a “Well… a half-truth is still a truth” and reveals how easy it is to provide a disservice to our readership. What Prof. Hagelstein does at MIT to discuss and promote his personal interests does not mean that his views are endorsed in any shape, form, or fashion by MIT. Latching onto the *But it’s at MIT*-angle is misleading; there is too much “Robin’s best friend’s cousin = Batman” with this. It would be effectively misleading at many levels given its actual importance and the totality of circumstances and has no place in the article. Greg L (talk) 19:16, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

eh, that's not what i was saying. i'm saying that it's not pseudoscience. they actual use the scientific method and all. so no, it's not "half-science" as you seem to imply, whatever that means. it's 100% science. and i'm sorry to disappoint you but scientific hypothesis don't always turn out to be correct. hell, even theories turn out to be wrong. if that weren't the case it wouldn't BE science. so yes, one day someone could discover the mechanism behind the anomolous results people are getting some time, and it may turn out to be something trivial and uninteresting. but the very fact that that COULD happen SUPPORTS the proposition that what they are doing IS science. it boggles me how some people who consider themselves "scientific" are actually expecting out of science what one would from a religion, and thus ipso-facto NOT being scientific. if they would lower their expectations about what they expect to get out of science and shed a little of their faith-based goggles, well they might be able to see the world a little clearer. and maybe they might rediscover - or perhaps discover for the first time - the eternal virtue of the socratic dictum "I know not; yet, I know that I know not." -- a bedrock principle of science. Kevin Baas^talk 21:02, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I see. Cold fusion is “100% science” in your book. That is indeed a splendid belief but I don’t share it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Getting back on track (“MIT”, the subject of this thread), and their endorsement—or lack thereof—of cold fusion: the edit claimed that “MIT” now offers a course in cold fusion because MIT now recognizes it as a legitimate science. The exact edit was MIT now views Cold Fusion/LENR as a Science. MIT offers its' first course in "Cold Fusion 101" this summer. Thus, it was Uppercase “Science”, no less. That is a false claim that—again—is tantamount to putting lipstick on a pig and trying to pass it off as a prom date. “MIT” is doing nothing but giving one of their profs a room in which the curious and faithful may gather. MIT would also allow one of their theology profs to have a lecture room to discuss the Flying Spaghetti Monster (literally). That doesn’t mean MIT considers Pastafarianism to be a religion or a science or atheism-by-proxy. There is clearly no consensus here for the edit that started this thread. That’s all I’m going to say on this thread since I am loath to be dragged down into the depths of arguing against non‑falsiable claims. Greg L (talk) 22:35, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

That would of course be quite futile. I'm not aware of any cold fusion-related claims that aren't falsifiable, but were i to encounter them i'd certainly share your pain. In any case i think we agree, if for different reasons, that "MIT now considers cf a science" is synthesis, at best, and thus inappropriate for the article. As to whether MIT having a course on it is notable for the article, i'm on the fence. Would MIT giving a lecture on pastafarianism be notable enough to be in the pastafarianism article? I actually wouldn't be surprised if that were already in that article, but i'd still be on the fence just the same. Kevin Baas^talk 00:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(and as to uppercase or lowercase "s", you realize it's the title of a course and in titles you capitalize important words, right? besides, i really couldn't care less, if i could roll my eyes at that over the internet i would.) Kevin Baas^talk 15:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

In this edit a new user has claimed (without a reference) that MIT is now teaching a course on cold fusion. Evidence offered was basically "contact MIT". I have reverted, I consider that any such claim (even if article-worthy) would need to be supported by an included reliable source. I am posting here as I accidentally hit the enter key while typing my rationale in the edit summary and I wanted the reason for my revert to be recorded. Anyone have any comment / criticism? EdChem (talk) 01:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

MIT (more)

(COMMENT COPY/PASTED FROM THE TOP OF THE THREAD ABOVE) In this edit a new user has claimed (without a reference) that MIT is now teaching a course on cold fusion. Evidence offered was basically "contact MIT". I have reverted, I consider that any such claim (even if article-worthy) would need to be supported by an included reliable source. I am posting here as I accidentally hit the enter key while typing my rationale in the edit summary and I wanted the reason for my revert to be recorded. Anyone have any comment / criticism? EdChem (talk) 01:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

?show published papers to date establishing the rigourous testing that is replicable that shows beyond a doubt that you are observing the phenomenom of pathological science. What is the "science" that determines pathological science? Opinions? 1) Many prominent scientists are involved. 2} Large rather than small measurable effects. 3) Finer calibrated instruments thru each stage of development of experiments. 4) Improved theoretical models that lead to an increase of improved successful replicable experiments. LENR-Dense Matter- Cold Fusion... whatever the theorists finally figure out... the study of these phenomenon,,, is advancing and clearly a science. Time for you to show me the "science" that shows it isn't. From: ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_science Henry H. Bauer, an emeritus professor of chemistry and science studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, has criticised the term saying that " 'pathological science' is not scientific misconduct (nor is it pathological)", that "it lacks justification in contemporary understanding of science studies (history, philosophy, and sociology of science)", and that "it is time to abandon the phrase".[5] Pathological science, as defined by Langmuir, is a psychological process in which a scientist, originally conforming to the scientific method, unconsciously veers from that method, and begins a pathological process of wishful data interpretation (see the Observer-expectancy effect, and cognitive bias). Some characteristics of pathological science are:[5]

• The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
• The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
• There are claims of great accuracy.
• Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
• Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses.
• The ratio of supporters to critics rises and then falls gradually to oblivion.

--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I will look into this over the next few days. I think the first cold fusion coliquium was held at MIT and than disallowed by MIT and went off-site for a few years. Now cold fusion is part of their listed curriculum,,, Welcome back with open arms... and endorsment. I could be wrong. I will find out if there was a recent change in policy, or not, and why two departments endorse this class.--Gregory Goble (talk) 13:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Gregory, you might also want to check this discussion [1]. I also think that the fact that MIT offers a course is very interesting and one more step in cold fusion regaining acceptance as science, or at least proto-science. However, I think that for now we should not mention it in the article. And as you have noticed the place here is crowded with editors (some while evading a ban) who just hate cold fusion and will argue anything, any tiny detail to delete. And controversial topics like cold fusion are avoided by middle of the road editors who would have common sense. Oh, and editors like us, who think this article could contain some more positive content about the topic are immediately brandmarked as fringe pov pushers. Even if most of the additions are perfectly reliably sourced. Wikipedia policy doesn't work around here, it is a battlefield. Welcome --POVbrigand (talk) 14:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Some weak references

Since there seem to be more skeptical people around, I suggest that you check out one of POVbrigand's successes. At his insistence the cold fusion article currently references a couple of articles that are only weakly related to cold fusion [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cold_fusion/Archive_40#Laser_experiments ]. Olorinish (talk) 12:34, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I removed the short paragraph because it was based on primary source research papers by Huke, Czerski, Sinha and Meulenberg which did not merit wider notice. If the papers were important they would have been described by secondary sources. Binksternet (talk) 17:10, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

These are all primary sources. No secondary sources pointing them out as significant. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Misleading info about reactors being 'available on the market'

"Several entrepreneurs and scientists have claimed in the past to have a working cold fusion energy generator. Despite some claims of being ready for commercialization, no working machine is yet available on the market." taken from "claims of working devices". This fails to take into account that Rossi actually has 1Mw plants for sale, (purportedly already having sold 13 of them). They are however "on the market" at least in the sense that you could order one if you had 2 Million to spend. Although there has been a decent amount of documentation about these sales the buyer remains anonymous so the proof is somewhat shaky. In any case, however, the second sentence is at the very least misleading and should probably be deleted or changed. Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.93.230.190 (talk) 12:49, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

It all amounts to:

a) - - - - > verifiable proof of independent customers having bought working devices. < - - - -

b) WP:REDFLAG "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

--Enric Naval (talk) 13:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

That line should stay as it is, ie. Rossi's device is not yet on the market. There is only the appearance that it is on the market. Maybe in a few months we will have evidence that the situation has changed, but for now the line perfectly describes the situation. --POVbrigand (talk) 13:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• Surprisingly I agree completely with POVbrigand. Paying $2M for a 1 MW plant is cost-per-power of only $2/W. That beats photovoltaic’s $8–10/W big time… if there was truth to the claim. Only a modicum of scientific WP:COMMONSENSE is required to understand that if megawatt-class commercial plants were really available at $2/W, they ought to be selling like hotcakes. Given that the scientists from the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (see thread, below) are proud about how they seem to have some evidence that there might actually be some reasonable scientific basis to believe that the CF phenomenon is real (in experiments that could fit in your hand), to think that megawatt-class commercial plants costing $2/W are commercially available is better explained as being claims from charlatans who failed at Nigerian letters and moved on to greener pastures. If someone has a 2 MW plant, they should show one to the world so everyone can hear the humming transformers feeding the grid. Greg L (talk) 03:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

"From the number of sales I can derive the technology doesn't work"; No you cant. 09:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC) [Preceding post by I.P. 84.106.26.81]

Shear nonsense. Five megawatts??? I can’t *prove* space aliens aren’t traveling interstellar distances to visit earth and fly around over sparsely inhabited areas populated by highly unreliable witnesses. Fortunately, there is nothing about the collaborative writing environment that requires that burdens of proof be lowered to the lowest common denominator; the onus is on the believers to prove interstellar travelers exist. And arguments that amount to “The government knows aliens landed and their denials prove a conspiracy and they know otherwise” don’t fly. The same goes if someone claims to have a terawatt‑class cold fusion generator commercially available to power your starship. Given that the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (real scientists) are trying to demonstrate that CF is a real phenomenon at the single-digit-wattage level, attempts to place the burden of proof on skeptics that 5 MW plants don’t exist is a stunt that doesn’t even amount to wikilawyering; it’s just hocus pocus and such nonsense will not be allowed to foul this article. Whoever claims that they have a commercially available megawatt-class CF generating station (technology that would be lightyears ahead of legitimate researchers) are almost certainly liars and charlatans hoping to dupe uber-gullible investors. Such allegations would be better added to our “List of confidence tricks”. Ultra-extraordinary claims requires, at the very least, a burden of proof of “Really? Will you show me one?” Greg L (talk) 00:59, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Peacock

Please, let's avoid the puffery:

[2].

I have removed some of the special-pleading and spoonfeeding that was going on in the article.

1. Ongoing "scientific" work is using the adjective "scientific" to assume facts not in evidence: that all subsequent work is scientific or that only the work being cited here is scientific. Let's not worry about the status of the work, we know it's work and we can leave it at that.
2. "Numerous peer-reviewed articles" is another example of WP:PEACOCK at work. Yes, they published peer-reviewed articles. We don't need to hit the reader over the head with it.
3. The claim that the Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science linked here is peer-reviewed is a strong claim. There needs to be third-party independent verification that the peer-review process outlined on that website is up to the standards expected of peer-reviewed journals. I am dubious of its claims. Do the editors routinely send papers to physicists and researchers who have been critical of cold fusion in the past? If not, this is a truncated peer-review process, sorry to say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.171.184 (talk) 16:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC) SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 19:12, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

As to your first two points, I agree 100 percent. AS to your last point, I don’t know. Greg L (talk) 17:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

:::::The problem is one of phrasing, I guess. Including this particular journal in the text of this article seems a bit special pleading to me anyway. Other peer review journals have published and indeed continue to publish cold fusion research (generally not the flagship journals, but more out-of-the-way ones), why focus on this one with all the trumpeting that it is peer reviewed? I just don't think that this claim of a singularly peer-reviewed journal belongs in this article sourced only to the website itself. 128.59.171.184 (talk) 18:03, 23 December 2011 (UTC)SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 19:12, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggest reverting

[3] I suggest reverting this edit by User:POVbrigand who is clearly a sockpuppet of User:LossIsNotMore. 128.59.171.184 (talk) 17:37, 23 December 2011 (UTC)SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 19:14, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I responded to this on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard, and then discovered 128.59.171.184 has been blocked for something having to do with fringe science at Columbia University's Astronomy Department. What a mess this topic is. The whole article needs to be re-written from scratch. Selery (talk) 00:55, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Mitt Romney

Romney to the Washington Examiner December 7, 2011: "... I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with -- with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it."[4] (audio.) Include? Selery (talk) 02:10, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

• IMHO, what politicians advocate while on the campaign trail seeking office isn’t sufficiently germane to the subject of cold fusion. I would imagine that if he were elected president and was setting national policy, then it would be quite germane. Then he could join Bush-the-2nd in such memorable quotes as Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? Greg L (talk) 02:33, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Edits to lede

[5]

Explanation:

• LENR is not a common term for cold fusion. We keep it out of the lede, but mention it in the article as a proponent acronym.
• Over-focus on experiments/hypothesis in the first paragraph was unneeded. Cold fusion is claimed fusion at room temperatures and FP were the famous example (and, essentially, the reason the article exists).
• Calling Fleishmann a "leading" electrochemist is a violation of WP:PEACOCK.
• Claiming "They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium." is a violation of WP:WEIGHT as well as unnecessarily technical. They were made famous for their claims of excess heat. "Further reports" were interesting wrinkles on the story but not lede-worthy.
• Claims that cold fusion papers do not receive as much "scrutiny" as other papers is an opinion that was inappropriately stated as a fact.
• Claims that "many scientists aren't even aware that there is new research" need to be corroborated by saying WHICH scientists aren't aware if that's something we want to say. Even so, it's not lede-worthy.
• Listing institutional funding of research is misleading. The funding characteristics of these places are not public knowledge nor are they found in the sources cited. We don't know whether the researchers there are receiving grants to research cold fusion specifically or other ideas more generally. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.169.46 (talk) 00:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC) SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 19:03, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

That all seems reasonable to me. Thanks. Greg L (talk) 02:50, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The IP 128.59.169.46 was blocked for being a SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159. --POVbrigand (talk) 13:43, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

LENR most certainly is a very common, if not the most common, term for what was originally called cold fusion. There are already references in the article which say this. Selery (talk) 20:36, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Japan's cf acolytes as a parallel to India's

Under "ongoing work" was a claim that the Japan C-F Research Society somehow represents an ongoing work or sponsored program. However, that is not at all clear from their website which claims rather broadly that "The CF society is an unofficial organization, without legal standing." It is undoubtable that a core community of Japanese researchers remain committed to keeping that society alive, but there is no indication that the society is sponsoring research. Other than acting as a professional society and coordinating body, there doesn't seem to be more to it than that. It seems to mirror the situation in India rather closely, actually, but there may be some arguments to be had for listing all the national bodies underneath the "conferences" section (indeed, that's the main role of this group).

The following sentence, sourced only to a Conference Proceedings that likely had no independent verification was removed:

Some researchers have been funded by grants of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and private groups like the Thermal and Electric Energy Technology Foundation (TEET)

SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 19:13, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 17:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

FAQ section

I think this article needs an FAQ section in order to deal with the amount of edit warring which has gone on for years now. Thoughts? Pass a Method talk 22:29, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

What questions and answers do you propose? Selery (talk) 00:52, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

The first item would be the naming. Within the field there are a 10+ names used (see page 3 of this presentation [6]) for what it regarded as the same thing from the outside. And that naming issue pops up regularly in the discussion. The naming issue alone is already so full of conflict potential, that we could almost consider writing an WP-article on it. As an example, depending on who you ask, the meaning of "Cold fusion" will be perceived as:

• The historical events in 1989.
• The broader cold fusion including muon fusion, sonofusion, "generally cold locally hot fusion", any tabletop fusion.
• The hypothetical theory that D-D can actually fuse in a Pd lattice by somehow overcoming the coulomb barrier
• The field that is also named "condensed matter nuclear science" for which an international society exists and yearly conferences are taking place
• The numerous youtube videos of DIY "inventors" showing proof of their machine, claiming free energy, over unity machines.
• Just fraud, crackpot, no interest to look into it
• Pathological science
• The couple of "cold fusion" devices that have gotten some news coverage in the past, but were "never" heard of afterwards.
• The field of study that a several scientists at renowned research institutions and some industrial labs have been studying ever since 1989, like ENEA, SPAWAR, NASA, Navy labs, SRI, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, STM, ...

every person has his own opinion on what cold fusion means, or should mean. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:10, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I would like to see a draft of such a FAQ with both questions and answers. But linking to crackpot youtube videos is not a good idea unless they were the subject of very substantial press coverage. I would also hope that claims of "pathological science" be strictly balanced with the alternate points of view from the scientists who have been reporting positive results over the decades. Selery (talk) 23:03, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

My list was only an example to show how different people perceive "cold fusion". --POVbrigand (talk) 23:22, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Why so many failures? Hubler's review explains, but the article lies about what it says

The Navy video and NASA slides both go in to some detailed reasons that they believe so many people who have had plenty of funding, facilities, and institutional support have not been successful in development. Getting past "we see a few minutes of excess heat in 10% of the experiments for 10% of the time they run" to something more substantial and useful for applications has been blamed mostly on the ability to achieve high gas loading ratios and the corresponding apparatus and microscopic characteristics of the metal lattice components, e.g., not enough or not the right kind of lattice defects or contamination preventing hydrogen loading. There is at least one review paper (a peer reviewed WP:SECONDARY source) which explains this in great detail: Hubler's 2007 US Navy Research Labs review.

However, at present that paper ("Hubler 2007") is only cited to support these statements in the article: "In the Fleischmann and Pons experiments, the rate of inferred excess heat generation was in the range of 10-20% of total input. The high temperature condition would last for an extended period, making the total excess heat appear to be disproportionate to what might be obtained by ordinary chemical reaction of the material contained within the cell at any one time, though this could not be reliably replicated." There is only one problem: the Hubler paper doesn't say anything of the sort; not in its discussion of the F&P experiments or anywhere else. Here's what it does say: "Unable to achieve high loading, and, therefore, excess heat most researchers declared that heat production in Fleishmann and Pons cells is not a real effect and ceased working on the experiments." I have added a {{failed verification}} tag.

How can this inaccuracy best be corrected? Does anyone object to replacing the incorrectly attributed statement with the quoted passage?

I think this particular review should have its own section, because the fact so many reputable scientists have failed, or have succeeded only partly with no improvement over time, is the central fact driving the controversy. Selery (talk) 23:35, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for checking so carefully. When I started editing this article this year I was shocked by the amount of references that were completely failed. Like references from 1989 to support comments on events from 2010. It seems that, the "caretakers" of this article didn't give a damn about quality as long as the article depicted LENR research as being stone dead, which we know it isn't. I am really very happy that you Selery and Greg L and Gregory Goble have come aboard. I consider that a X-mass present to the WP-readership --POVbrigand (talk) 00:00, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Weasel words: deletion of inline tags asking for specifics

Deletion of these requests for specific quantities and identities can not be valid. Just because a fact is verifiable doesn't mean it's exempt from WP:VAGUE. What if the Water article cited a reliable secondary source to say that "water boils above 200 degrees Fahrenheit"? Nobody can possibly suggest that it wouldn't be entirely proper to ask for the specific quantity to improve the article. Unless we can agree on this, I intend to place a {{Weasel}} tag on the introduction section, or replace the paragraph in question entirely from scratch. Selery (talk) 10:59, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Reliable sources say that there are a small amount, reliable sources say that mainstream scientists percieve the field as the remnants of the field and that there articles are rarely published in mainstream journals. Saying something is small or rarely done is not an example of a weasel word. It provides an approximate quantification w.r.t other fields. Also, the words are also used by the sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:04, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Is there any reason that anyone should not be able to tag a request for more specific quantities and identification of who, in the opinion of the author of the cited source, constitutes "mainstream scientists"? Selery (talk) 00:08, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Here is a proposed revision of the last paragraph of the intro:

A community of researchers continues to investigate cold fusion,[6][10] claiming to replicate Fleischmann and Pons' results.[11][12] The results do not receive as much scrutiny as more mainstream topics,[13] and many scientists aren't even aware that there is new research.[14] Some mainstream scientists perceive the field as the remains of the controversy of the early 1990s.[14] Some institutions continue to fund cold fusion research, such as the Italian ENEA, the U.S. Navy SPAWAR, and NASA.[15][16][17]

Comments? Selery (talk) 00:16, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

This removal of parts of the sentences introduces a POV. Reliable sources say the community is small and reliable sources say the papers are not published in mainstream journals. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:44, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm willing to agree that the community is small, but I stil insist that term either be quantified from other sources, or my request to quantify that term appear in an inline tag in accordance with WP:VAGUE. As for mainstream journals, the same goes for the term "rarely" -- it either needs to be more specifically quantified, or the request to quantify it needs to remain, or the clause in question should be deleted. Selery (talk) 10:52, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

If this is the wording used by the sources it is not a a case of weasel words, weasel words are those that are inserted by users but not present in the sources. The only meaningful quanties are those w.r.t other fields. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:02, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

That is not what WP:VAGUE says. You can have the most reliable source in the world saying water boils above 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and it is still absolutely correct to ask for a more specific quantity. Selery (talk) 12:48, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see where it says this in the manual of style, can you give a quotation from it. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

"Be cautious with expressions that may introduce bias, lack precision, or include offensive terms. Use clear, direct language." (emphasis added) Selery (talk) 16:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

"What matters is that articles should be well-written and consistent with the core content policies—Neutral point of view, No original research, and Verifiability." --Enric Naval (talk) 19:58, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Selery, I agree to IRWolfie, the sources use those words so we can reuse them. What IRWolfie will not agree with is that it should work both ways, ie when pro CF sources uses such words we should ALSO be able to reuse those. Unfortunately that is something that a lot of editors suddenly will DISAGREE with. --POVbrigand (talk) 18:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Very well. I think I will simply concentrate on adding new material instead of trying to change existing text. Selery (talk) 21:03, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Report to ANI

As we are all aware, this area has been contentious and subject to ArbCom discretionary sanctions for quite some while. Activity on this page has increased markedly recently and I am concerned that (a) there may be other socks posting (other than the already-banned IP of VanishedUser314159) and (b) that debates on this page oftend descend into warfare / abuse. Consequently, I have posted at ANI requesting review from admins. Any and all comments are welcome and invited. Regards, EdChem (talk) 12:02, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Separately, I posted a request for guidance on how to respond to POVbrigand's behavior [7]. Olorinish (talk) 14:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I am willing to wait for administrators to decide whether anyone has been acting improperly before making any further edits to the article. Selery (talk) 00:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I may make mistakes cause I'm a newbie to Wikipedia. How do you do that indent thing anyway? If I am acting improper in any way let me know. I first learned of LENR 4 months ago from a nuclear physicist friend of mine (who must remain silent). Wiki seems more confused on this subject than the rest of the scientific community. I am not pro CF. I am anti pathological science stance for sure for sure. This article has a reverse relevence problem due to those unsupported accusations. Unsupported in the present light of day... stop quoting out of date material, allow up-to-date material please... Please stop censoring this science.--Gregory Goble (talk) 07:00, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Room Temperature

LENR - Low Energy Nuclear Reaction and the Widom Larson Theory does not state "room temperature" as a parameter for experimental or observable phenomenon. It is incorrect to infer it does as in the first line of this article. "Cold fusion, also called low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), refers to the hypothesis that nuclear fusion might explain the results of a group of experiments conducted at ordinary temperatures (e.g., room temperature)."

The majority of LENR experiments require temperatures well above room temperature. Of course I cannot source the info because Wiki does not recognise the journals researchers in this field publish their works in. I am glad researchers do though. Otherwise none of these works would be published, or undergo peer review, no lab would attempt to duplicate and improve the experiments, and we would gain no further understanding of these phenomenon. No, LENR and the Widom Larson Theory is not Cold Fusion and an 'only in speculation' Cold Fusion Theory. Like apples and oranges. Or more like Copernicus and the Hubble Space Telescope. Since this is "pathological" science I guess these fine points aren't worth noticing. Or is it? Or are they?--Gregory Goble (talk) 13:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Truth be told... prejudgment and censorship based on misunderstanding is as harmful to the pursuit of science and understanding as prejudgment and censorship based on 'truths'. An example is the errors contained in the first line of this article. --Gregory Goble (talk) 14:00, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Cold fusion, also called low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), refers to the hypothesis that nuclear fusion might explain the results of a group of experiments conducted at ordinary temperatures (e.g., room temperature).

Study the "banned journals" study the presentations and papers from the "banned conferences" and you will find that what I say about temperature is correct. I hope this heats things up a bit. I hear you get better reactions that way,--Gregory Goble (talk) 13:57, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Persecution complex doesn't help anyone with the article. If you have specific suggestions (with reliable sources) then make them, but do not accuse others of being prejudiced while you do it. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes I do have a specific suggestion do not persecute me with an accusation of my having a persecution complex. Personal attacks are not allowed and I must report you. EDIT suggestion: The first line should read... 'Cold fusion' was the birthplace of research that led to the development of LENR. Various Low Energy Nuclear Reaction experiments using many different combinations of nano powdered metals, gasses, sound, radio frequencies, electrical currents, and light has led to a deeper understanding of the science of LENR. Further observation of phenomenon and analysis of data gained from these various Low Energy Nuclear Reaction experiments (most being much different than the early cold fusion experiment) led to the widely accepted Widom Larson Theory which explains the non-fusion nuclear reactions that take place. The name Low Energy Nuclear Reaction was not adopted to avoid the cold fusion stigma, but rather because the name reflects what is happening while 'cold fusion' does not. I will find sources that are not banned by editors.(off to the library to study and copy what each Encyclopedia (written by experts not amateurs) has to say on this subject. Perhaps all of us will gain a deeper understanding from my efforts. I will continue to address the prejudgment and censorship that I find in this article... step by step. Please do not accuse me of "accusing others of prejudice" or of "while you do it" thereby accusing me of prejudice. I was referring to the fact that stating LENR is cold fusion is prejudgment (just one example) and continuing to disallow journals or papers from conferences that LENR researchers utilize is censorship. I did not accuse an individual of doing that. Sorry if you felt that way but I must now bring charges against you for these unjustified accusations and your blatant attack against me.--Gregory Goble (talk) 21:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Gregory, please, take my advice, take it a bit slower. You will not win a prize for trying to completely redo this article all by yourself. Make small changes, work on correcting the use of sources. Remember, even if this article is completely opposite from what you want it to be, many editors (from both sides) have worked on it. The current state should arguably be somewhere in the middle. Stay cool, stay safe, don't over do it. You are not going to change the world by rewriting this WP-article and you are not serving the WP-readership by 1) overdoing it and 2) getting banned for it --POVbrigand (talk) 21:39, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks... How do you do that indent thing by the way. Your advise is appreciated and is being followed by me. Off to the library and the encyclopedia section, slowly, step by step. The first lines errors provide us with a unique opportunity to allow the cold fusion article to remain the same, allowing those editors that created it to be content with its accuracy. As stated, LENR is a different puppy altogether. It is its' own discipline with its unique accompanying theory and with distinctly different experiments. LENR should now have its' own article.. with a historical footnote link to the cold fusion article... stating that mislabeled and therefore erroneous Cold Fusion experiments set the 'stage' for the emergance of LENR science and the Widom Larson Theory of nuclear reactions that are not "fission" or "fusion".--Gregory Goble (talk) 22:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

"How do you do that indent thing by the way"? Now I'm starting to get a bit worried. You've asked this a number of times now, but my post over a day ago gave you the link that explains how to indent. You do realise that you also have to make an effort to learn if you want to become an effective editor at WP? GFHandel ♬  23:43, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I was sweatin' it as I read the explanation and still couldn't figure it out. Directions in computer shorthand evades me but eventually I caught on. One less worry for me... more to come. Sorry 'bout the slow learn.--12.189.21.162 (talk) 02:12, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

No worries. BTW, you are now editing without logging on (which causes the IP address to appear as your signature instead of your usual WP account name). GFHandel ♬  02:25, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

exceptions

Over 20 years of reviewing cold fusion articles, there are several points that are resilient. Steven Jones achieved room temperature muon catalyzed fusion. There is no physical explanation. I remember the TV press conference from 1989 when Fleischmann said the "pressure inside the palladium crystal exceeded a billion billion atmospheres" - 10^27. Recorded press conference yields that confinement time is the difference between CF and HF. P/F experiment ran for months. HF confinement is in picosecond range. There is speculation that He3 from volcanoes is produced by pressure in the Earth's core by fusion. An astrophysicist said that only other astrophysicists can understand the pressure affect of fusion. Physicists are locked up in their kinetic energy calculus bubble. Also, the Pons / Fleischmann experiment used 5 auto batteries in parallel - over 4000 cold cranking amps - to charge the palladium. I have never seen an attempt to exactly reproduce the P/F experiment. All naysayers were busy trying to patent their own versions. Danarothrock (talk) 21:53, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Should we name the several entrepreneurs or just say they exist

[8] "Several entrepreneurs have claimed in the past that a working cold fusion energy generator is near to commercialization, yet so far no working machine is available on the market."

I added the "who" part. I claim this is perfectly appropriate because the text only talks about the E-Cat. Reverting this requires a better excuse than to call it POV pushing.84.106.26.81 (talk) 14:36, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

What we write should be verifiable. It is not a must to write down each verification. Surely you won't argue that several entrepreneurs have indeed claimed that they had a working machine. Adding them into the article (maybe somewhere else) is something that we can discuss. POVbrigand (talk)

The tag is arguibly correct. Tags like {{who}} and {{clarify}} are just requests to clarify confusing stuff. Physics world (free registration) explains the case of Petterson cells. Park explains it too in Voodoo Science. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:01, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Issues section violates scope

[9] I changed the section title from:

"issues"

into:

"Issues with the Pons and Fleischmann experiment"

While not a very elegant solution it appeared to me that all those sections apply to the Pons and Fleischman experiment. This is not the whole scope of the article.84.106.26.81 (talk) 14:36, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this (even if not very elegant) will solve some of the problems of discussing old and new stuff. It adds clarity. POVbrigand (talk)

The issues apply to the whole field, not just the first experiment: why the fusion shouldn't be happening in the lattice, what byproducts should be observed according to theory, etc.

I will amend that somewhat. Because one of the issues is whether or not any CF experiment can actually produce so much anomalous energy that it cannot be explained without invoking a nuclear reaction. If that issue happens to one day get resolved positively --as far as I can tell, it is the most important issue that CF researchers should be focusing on-- then the theorists can argue the other issues regarding overcoming nuclear Coulomb repulsion, reaction pathways, and byproducts. V (talk) 18:44, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I propose we go through the Issues section and explicitly state when the issues were raised and when the "issues" were debunked. I don't know how, but we need to add clarity for the casual WP-reader. --POVbrigand (talk) 11:54, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

DOE decided to leave research to undefined small group

[10] This should probably have been split over more divs.

I reduce this:

"In 1989, the majority of a review panel organized by the US Department of Energy (DOE) found that the evidence for the discovery of a new nuclear process was not persuasive enough to start a special program, but was "sympathetic toward modest support" for experiments "within the present funding system." A second DOE review, convened in 2004 to look at new research, reached conclusions similar to the first."

Down to this:

"In 1989, and in 2004, the US Department of Energy (DOE) considered a special cold fusion program."

This is all they did. They considered researching it. It isn't even note worthy to be honest. I'm sure you wonder why, let me explain: The US DOE has an enormous budget. Cold fusion was not even significant enough to build one cell. To then jump to the conclusion they investigated the topic is nonsense.

DOE dismissal is non significant. While the sources may not be used many researchers attempted to contact the DOE in a fruitless effort to inform them. I will try find good sources but I think my motivation is clear? While I understand it might appear that way, it has nothing to do with my POV, I'm only interested in accuracy. Feel free to add 100 skeptics who actually tried to build a cell and transcribe exactly what they concluded. It wouldn't bother me at all. No actual work was done by the DOE. They chose not to.84.106.26.81 (talk) 04:13, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Symantics: "they considered" might be read as "they proposed". I don't support your change here. POVbrigand (talk)

removing the negative parts of the DOE review. Then you added the work of a group of scientists that happen to work in SPAWAR, as if it had been promoted by SPAWAR. And implying that the SPAWAR experiment revokes the DOE conclusions (and using a press release a go against the DOE report). And again trying to imply that the new experiments are wholly unrelated to F&P's experiment. I think that people in the talk page are asking you for sources for that change. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

In the same edit I changed this: "A small community of researchers continues to investigate cold fusion" into this "Researchers continue to investigate cold fusion."

We have no credible source for "small". What does small mean in this context anyway? Illustration: http://www.iccf11.org/index2.htm they might look small on your monitor, they are big names in science and they are many. You want to source "small" on this:[11] and this:[12] It looks to me like the sources only confirm there is actual research. The word "small" isn't on any of the pages. Small also suggests there is some appropriate size for such research effort? If the effect is that small we shouldn't expect large numbers of investigations? Are you suggesting there is a big effect?

It should be obvious removing it was not based on my POV. I actually bothered to open all those pages. What is actually going on is that the negative side of the argument has no sources (the small part) while the positive side (the research exists) is completely stuffed with them. If there is any unjust POV that would be it. I removed the unsourced part. If this means cold fusion now looks like something real then that would be something you will have to get used to. I'm very obviously just trying to write things as they are reported. No harm was done.

I do understand it might look that way. Just so that you know ;) 84.106.26.81 (talk) 14:36, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The "ongoing scientific work" section is hopelessly underdeveloped. But the community is small and we should state that. POVbrigand (talk)

Implying that it continues to be researched by a non-small group, against sources. [sources] don't say the word "small", because "a small community" is an attempt at summarizing them. It's not a word-by-word copy of one of the sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

heat after death

[13] here I change this:

"By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead,<ref name="Browne_1989" /><ref name="most scientists">{{harvnb|Taubes|1993|pp=262, 265–266, 269–270, 273, 285, 289, 293, 313, 326, 340–344, 364, 366, 404–406}}, {{harvnb|Goodstein|1994}}, {{harvnb|Van Noorden|2007}}, {{harvnb|Kean|2010}}</ref> and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as [[pathological science]].<ref name="nytdoe">"

into this:

"By late 1989, many scientists considered cold fusion research [[pathological science]].<ref name="Browne_1989" /><ref name="most scientists">{{harvnb|Taubes|1993|pp=262, 265–266, 269–270, 273, 285, 289, 293, 313, 326, 340–344, 364, 366, 404–406}}, {{harvnb|Goodstein|1994}}, {{harvnb|Van Noorden|2007}}, {{harvnb|Kean|2010}}</ref><ref name="nytdoe">"

I wouldn't know why but if those should really be 2 separate statements the pathology should come before death. Maybe it is a bad idea to describe a controversial topic with a controversial term without attribution? May 3, 1989 Dr. Douglas R. O. Morrison said it was an example of pathological science[14]. The "subsequently" chronology doesn't work. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 14:36, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

No, after late 1989 cold fusion was considered dead, what happened after that until today was perceived as "dragging on" pathological science. I like the original way better. POVbrigand (talk)

Implying that CF was only considered pathological science by late 1989, against the sources in the paragraph (which are more recent than 1989). And implying by extension that it no longer is considered pathological. Also weakening the sentence by changing "most" to "many", against what sources say.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to explain what pathological refers to in this context. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 19:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Believe me, it's no use. Pathological science as a label was already discredited. It's a useless label. BUT, it is attached to cold fusion and that's a fact. So we report it here in the article. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:26, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Jones faxed the paper to Nature

[15] I inserted: "In 1980, Dr. Steven E. Jones used a similar device, he did not claim excess energy was produced. But more neutrons were detected than could be expected from normal sources."

"Realizing their work was very similar, Jones and P&F agreed to release their papers to Nature on the same day, March 24, 1989. However, P&F announced their results at a press event the day before. Jones faxed his paper to Nature." - Ludwik Kowalski (3/5/04)Department of Mathematical Sciences Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ, 07043[16]

Removing that bit was clearly vandalism Enric. :) 84.106.26.81 (talk) 15:09, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The "truth" is somewhere in the middle and we should be careful with the wording POVbrigand (talk)

under Cold_fusion#Repulsion_forces you can see an explanation of why Muon-catalyzed fusion is not relevant. This makes it look as if F&P's experiment was replicated by Jones. Jones' experiment is accepted by mainstream science as a correctly performed experiment with results that can be explained by current theory, as is accepted as replicated successfully. The NYT calls them similar, but more reliable sources that give more in-depth explanations. And, yes, as POVbringand says, there are a lot of caveats there. -unsigned by enric

It's a poor argument:

• Muon-catalyzed fusion is a LENR.

• This article is about LENR.

• This article is not about Pons and Fleishmann, they have their own articles.

84.106.26.81 (talk) 10:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

uninteresting

[17] here I change: "and Stanley Pons in 1989 that they had produced anomalous heat ("excess heat") of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium."

into: "and Stanley Pons in 1989 that they had produced anomalous heat ("excess heat") that would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes and that they measured small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium."

I thought that was an improvement.

In the original paper Fleischman says: "...the bulk of the energy released is due to an hitherto unknown nuclear process or processes"[18]

It is a matter of taste, I liked my own version better. I don't think it really makes enough difference to justify a debate. If you see something wrong with it I don't really want to hear about it. Just revert it. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 14:36, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I like the original version better. We should keep it POVbrigand (talk)

F&P said that it could only be explained by nuclear processes. Other said that it could be explained by flawed measurements, contamination, overlooked chemical reactions, unaccounted inputs, etc. Other cell exploded in other lab[19], and a investigation concluded that it was a chemical reaction (I think this appears in Huizenga). I think our article doesn't say it, but F&P thought that it could only be nuclear because of the explosion of a cell during one night. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry - but I like the original version better too. It makes it crystal clear that Pons claims that this result can only be the result of nuclear processes - where the second version can easily be read as if it is an established fact that the result that Pons obtained can only be nuclear in nature. Since that is absolutely not the case, we need to keep that clarification from the first version. SteveBaker (talk) 04:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

interesting

MARTIN FLEISCHMANN can still remember the morning he entered his lab and saw the terrific hole in the workbench. It was about the size of a dinner plate. Beneath, nestled in a shallow crater in the concrete floor, were the remains of a chemistry experiment that had been fizzing idly for several months without incident. "It had obliterated itself!" he recalls.

It happened overnight, so no one witnessed the meltdown that took place in a basement lab at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, in 1985. But for Fleischmann and his longtime colleague Stanley Pons, there could be only one cause: room-temperature or "cold" fusion. If they were right, the chemists had made a reaction that nuclear physicists had thought next to impossible, one that potentially held the key to almost limitless clean energy. Yet four years later, and just weeks after they had announced their discovery at a now infamous press conference on 23 March 1989, their work was dismissed from mainstream science. Cold fusion became a pariah field, and Fleischmann and Pons fell under the shadow of disrepute. Danarothrock (talk) 00:28, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

presenting a public demonstration as scientific work

"In May 2008 Japanese researcher Yoshiaki Arata (Osaka University) demonstrated a device which produced heat when deuterium gas was introduced into a cell containing a mixture of palladium and zirconium oxide."

• "Physicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion", Physorg.com, 2008-05-27

This was a public demonstration in a press conference convoked by Arata himself. Quote: "[Arata] claims to have made the first successful demonstration of cold fusion."

It doesn't qualify as not "ongoing scientific work": it was not presented in a scientific conference, no paper was published, no details were provided for replication by other scientists, no examination or testing of device was allowed.

If you have sources explaining Arata's scientific work, then use them to add that to the article. But let's not try to pass a public demonstration as scientific work. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

That appears to be a demonstration of the device described in this peer reviewed primary source:

@article{Arat2008,
author    = {Y. Arata and Y. Zhang},
title     = {The establishment of solid nuclear fusion reactor},
note      = {In Japanese, Engl. abstr.},
journal   = {J. High Temp. Soc.},
volume    = {34},
year      = {2008},
pages     = {85--96},
keywords  = {Experimental, Pd, gas phase, res+},
published = {02/2008},
annote    = {This time they used a material containing 20\% Pd nano-particles
(10 nm) in a matrix consisting of ZrO2, previously (P.Yama2002) found to
absorb large amounts of hydrogen, and applied highly pure D2 gas. There is a
temperature spike upon onset of the D2 stream, and the abstract says that
there is evidence of a nuclear reaction in the comparatively slow temperature
decline upon full loading. The nuclear reactor thus produced can act both as
a generator of 4He (the fusion product) and heat.}}

I can't find that paper's original English abstract, but there are diagrams and output data in [20]. Selery (talk) 01:40, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

[21] This is probably eonugh to add ongoing work by Arata, + using palladium sheets instead of rods. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:29, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, I can follow that reasoning. The demonstration by Arata is just the most visible results of his work. What I do not agree with is to put the scientific devices (which are not commercial devices) together with the commercial "ready for the market" stuff. I think it is important to keep them apart, because many of the readers might not be able to distiguish between the wild claims and the scientific work.

The Arata experiment was replicated, we must be able to find RS for that.

Great book btw. --POVbrigand (talk) 10:22, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

"LENR"

LENR redirects here, but this article only defines that abbreviation as "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" the U.S. Navy uses the same abbreviation for "Lattice Enabled Nuclear Reactions"[22] -- should that also be mentioned? Selery (talk) 00:58, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you... this is rich material you present and I value the fact that if I can squeeze it into this little brain of mine I may be richer for the experiance. The editors who contributed to Cold Fusion have done a good job in that they are correct "Cold Fusion" does not take place.... theoretically... or in nature. The science, theory, experimental phenomenon, and observation of LENR belongs in another article... It's a different puppy. To do this 1) Wiki needs view it(where it is of course)as good science when performed following strict scientific method. 2) Recognize papers submitted from secondary sources (separate institutions) duplicating another scientists experiment and observational data, presented in scientific journals and at conferences by scientists in the disipline of LENR. If Wiki cannot arrive at that minimum acknowledgement of the current state of affairs... That here are scientists in the field of LENR, doing good science presented in peer review journals allowing secondary sources to experiment, verify or not, and publish. Is this a policy problem? If so who do I talk to.... I certainly am not spinning my wheels here... traction is often in the timing, and the time seems right. We have an amazing opportunity here. The "cold fusion" article should stick to cold fusion. I feel this gets to the heart of the matter of this contentious article. The fact is cold fusion does not work. Anyone care to add to this or give me some insight?--Gregory Goble --Gregory Goble (talk) 00:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Source questions

Thank each of you for your advice and the review of my Wiki work, criticisms and concerns. I love it that anyone that publishes anything anywhere is most likely being peer reviewed. I have been studying Wikipedia, as per your suggestions. You are right, it takes time. I also am researching encyclopedia information on these intertwined subjects, I am almost finished with my compilation of deans of physics departments in the U.S. and coordinating a similiar inquiry of deans in Asia and Europe. Next week we begin correspondence.

• LENR is not Cold Fusion
• CANR is not Cold Fusion
• LANR is not Cold Fusion
• CMNS is not Cold Fusion

The bold implications that these disciplines are asserting, through robust research and intense peer review, is that nuclear reactions, that are neither fission nor fusion, are taking place. The published Widom Larson Theory supports this. Hopefully soon, we will be able to source a paper submitted by a reputable laboratory, from any journal, if it is not original research, i.e. an experiment duplicated by a separate institution publishing results that verify or refute the published results of the original research.

These are the bold assertions being made on Wikipedia-Cold Fusion-Ongoing scientific work.

[[23]]"Often they prefer to name their field 'Low Energy Nuclear Reaction' (LENR) or 'Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reaction' (),[76] also 'Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reaction' (LANR) and 'Condensed Matter Nuclear Science' (CMNS), one of the reasons being to avoid the negative connotations associated with 'cold fusion'. [75][77] The new names avoid making bold implications, like implying that fusion is happening on them."--Gregory Goble (talk) 01:35, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Gregory, I understand what you are saying, but I have a different feeling about how we should present that in Wikipedia. This WP-article is about "cold fusion", previous articles about "LENR" were regarded as so called POV forking, ie most editors do not think that "cold fusion" is something else than "LENR". I believe that currently there is no opportunity to get the WP community to accept a differentiation between "cold fusion" and "LENR". The way it is currently presented in the article, is IMHO the best we can do. --POVbrigand (talk) 10:45, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

You may be right about that. Perhaps recent developments needs looking into. The device that NASA has filed a patent for (which I thank you for posting) says it's about LENR and sources the (published) Widom Larson Theory (LENR) as the theoretical science behind the device (no mention of cold fusion) and the fact that the Widom Larson Theory is not in any way a theory about fusion or fission are two reasons for separating the two. Editors thoughts or opinions are fluid when presented with new data. Cold fusion is impossible yet low energy nuclear reactions are not. Hence the NASA device and the Widom Larson Theory. Both of which I believe meet Wiki source requirements. Separate the two ('cold' and 'low energy') and the contentions lose grounding in logic.--Gregory Goble (talk) 21:25, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Is this book considered secondary and reputable? I will post this to the noticeboard. Has any one read it or care to read it? I'll pick one up after the new year and see what I can glean from it.--Gregory Goble (talk) 05:16, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

 author    = {J.-P Biberian},
 title     = {Low energy nuclear reactions in gas phase:
              a comprehensive review},
 booktitle = {Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook},
 year      = {2010},
 editor    = {J. Marwan and S. Krivit},
 publisher = {Oxford University Press},
 address   = {Washington, USA},
 volume    = {2},
 pages     = {9--34},
 ISBN      = {9780841224544},
 annote    = {"Low energy nuclear reactions have been demonstrated
experimentally mainly through electrochemical experiments. However, a great
deal of work has been performed in gas phase. The existence of anomalous
excess heat, production of neutrons, tritium, helium-4 and helium-3 as well
as the existence of transmutation of elements has been shown by many
experimentalists. This chapter reviews all the work that has been done during
the past 20 years in low energy nuclear reactions in gas phase." (Abstract
reproduced from the book)}

That looks secondary and peer reviewed, and therefore reliable. Selery (talk) 08:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Is the Widom Larson Theory considered primary and not allowed?Widom Larson Ultra Low Momentum Neutron Catalyzed Nuclear Reaction--Gregory Goble (talk) 06:08, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's been cited in a couple dozen sources according to Google Scholar, about half of which look peer reviewed, and some of which are clearly secondary, tertiary, or primary literature review sections. Those are better to use, but you should keep it short and to the point (e.g., "Widom and Larson proposed a theory in 2005 which can explain LENR production of helium, heat, x-rays, and transmutations without the problems involved with traditional understanding of fusion.") because there are still half a dozen competing theories, a couple of which might be technically superior when measured by their ability to explain and predict observations. (Check the NASA slides for a list of them all.) Selery (talk) 08:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for sending me into the theoretical realm. You have helped me gain a deeper understanding. I withdraw the suggestion that LENR needs to be separated from Cold Fusion while maintaining that references to both being considered "bad science" be moved to a historic footnotes section. I now hold that LENR (for many and varied reasons) is one name scientists in this field may prefer while the valid popular name Cold Fusion is appropriate; when described as occuring at temperatures that are much colder the sun. I am forming the following as parts of my logical progression. This helps me in forming my questions for the deans of physics departments; see developments to be posted under "pathological science references,,,".

• Sound working theory predicts measurable observable replicable phenomenon.
• Successful experiments are ones that have been replicated by many (more than two) separate institurions. (the more the more successful)
• One of the signs of good science is an increase in the sophistification of instrumentation used to observe phenomenon in a replicated experiment; which decreases the variable of error and provides an increase in hard data for theorists to work with.
• Only the original experiment is considered original research. If an experiment is able to be duplicated and its' observational data confirmed and predicted by theory it becomes working science; which, when applicable, leads to working devices.
• Peer review takes place when a published experiments measurable and observable results undergo critique when looked into (for science this means is attempted) by ones' peers.
• Articles are published in journals where their works are most tikely to be scrutinized by the best of their peers. Hence the tendancy for scientists to publish in the journals of their science.

Which brings me to this question: Is this source and these referances dissallowed on Wiki becauses the writer sources in his bibliography scientists works that are published in journals of LENR/Cold Fusion science? Are the journals he sources places where intense scientific peer review is begun and finished; i.e. duplicated experiments that critique the original, are being done by separate institutions and published for scrutiny by others?

• http://vixra.org/pdf/1112.0043v2.pdf
• Theoretical Feasibility of Cold Fusion According to the BSM - Supergravitation Unified Theory
• Stoyan Sarg Sargoytchev
• York University, Toronto, Canada *
• E-mail: stoyans@yorku.ca
• '8"1. Introduction
• "The scientific research on cold fusion was pioneered by High Flyn (1913-1997), an emeritus professor at the University of Rochester. Being an expert in ultrasonic waves, he advocated a method of cold fusion based on cavitation in liquid metals with injected hydrogen or deuterium and obtained a patent in 1982 [1]. At this time however, little attention was paid since cold fusion was thought to be theoretically impossible.
• "The lack of a theoretical explanation and difficulty in repeatability led to an official denial, but interest in this option for solving the energy crisis never disappeared. Due to opposition from mainly the hot fusion advocates, the field is more often referred to as Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR).”
• “The reported successful experiments from many laboratories around the world (now over 60), however, attracted attention.”
• “In cold fusion research by electrolysis of Pd in heavy water, the experiments of Russian scientist Prof. Kanarev [25] and Japanese researcher Dr. T. Mizuno [14] provided measurable proof of fusion and fission products. In Italy, the cold fusion research pioneered by Francesco Piantelli in 1989 [8] has been extended and supported by the local inter-university centers in Bologna (Focardi, Campari) and Sienna (Piantelli, Gabbani, Montalbano, Veronesi). A detailed report about this research was published by the Italian National Agency for New Technology, Energy and Environment in 2008 [9]. Piantelli filed two patents WO9520816 (1997) and WO2010058288 (2010), describing different methods, and published an article ITSI920002 [8] about cold fusion of nickel with deuterium or hydrogen.”
• “Advances in the field of cold fusion and the recent success of the nickel and hydrogen exothermal reaction, in which the energy release cannot be explained by a chemical process, need a deeper understanding of the nuclear reactions and, more particularly, the possibility for modification of the Coulomb barrier. The current theoretical understanding based on high temperature fusion does not offer an explanation for the cold fusion or LENR. The treatise “Basic Structures of Matter – Supergravitation Unified Theory”, based on an alternative concept of the physical vacuum, provides an explanation from a new point of view by using derived three-dimensional structures of the atomic nuclei. For explanation of the nuclear energy, a hypothesis of a field micro-curvature around the superdense nucleus is suggested. Analysis of some successful cold fusion experiments resulted in practical considerations for modification of the Coulomb barrier. The analysis also predicts the possibility of another cold fusion reaction based on some similarity between the nuclear structures of Ni and Cr.”
• “2.1 Brief introduction
• "The feasibility of cold fusion was theoretically envisioned by Dr. Stoyan Sarg after he developed the BSM-Supergravitation unified theory (BSM-SG). After the first copyright protection in CIPO Canada in 2001 [15], the BSM-SG theory and related articles were posted in physical archives [16,17,18,19] and reported at a number of international scientific conferences. Scientific papers were published in Physics Essays [20], Journal of Theoretics [21] and conference proceedings [22,23]. The complete theory was published as a book in 2004 [24]. The BSM-SG theory is based on an alternative concept of the physical vacuum that has not been investigated before. The models developed as a result of the suggested concept are in excellent agreement with experimental results and observations in different fields of physics. The initial framework is based on two indestructible fundamental particles, FP, with parameters associated with the Planck scale and a fundamental Law of Supergravitation (SG). This law is distinguished from Newton’s law of gravity in that the SG forces, FSG, in pure empty space are inversely proportional to the cube of distance (while the gravitational forces in Newton’s law are inversely proportional to the square of distance).”--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:51, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

That looks like a terrible source to me because I've never seen anyone try to involve gravitation, only the electroweak force. Do you know where it was originally published? I would recommend avoiding it unless it's been peer reviewed by a reputable journal or editorial board -- that's part of the Wikipedia reliable source rules. Sonofusion (the lineage of that 1982 patent) has been even more of a fiasco than LENR. Selery (talk) 13:11, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggest a Rewrite of the following from the introduction

At present it reads:

Many scientists tried to replicate the experiment with the few details available, some to prove it wrong, and some because they wanted to be part of this new exciting discovery. Hopes fell with the big number of negative replications, the withdrawal of many positive replications, the discovery of flaws and sources of experimental error in the original experiment, and finally the discovery that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts.[5]

Would read better as: Many scientists tried to replicate the experiment with the few details available. Hopes fell with a large number of negative results and the withdrawal of many positive replications, the discovery of experimental flaws and sources of experimental error in the original experiment. Finally it was concluded that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts.[5] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zedshort (talk • contribs) 15:03, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

It may come as a surprise but the article is not about Pons or Fleischman.84.106.26.81 (talk) 15:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

It may come as a surprise but the article is about the work of Pons and Fleischman. From the top of the article: This article is about the Fleischmann–Pons claims of nuclear fusion at room temperature. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:16, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

The second version has "many positive replications", a sheer fabrication. Not acceptable. Binksternet (talk) 00:34, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying that you think there weren't many positive replications to begin with, or that there weren't many positive replications subsequently withdrawn by their authors? My understanding is that there were at least six of the latter, and dozens of the former to present, counting only peer reviewed sources. (This confusion, perhaps concerning "many," is one of the reasons I have been asking people to {{quantify}} instead of being WP:VAGUE.) Selery (talk) 05:55, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Sources please. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 09:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

@Binsternet, you are misreading, you are pulling it out of context. The first (current) version also reads "many positive replications". What is meant is that of the positive replications many were later retracted. Not all, mind you. --POVbrigand (talk) 16:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The key word is "positive". What do you mean by a positive replication? Let's see sources regarding the replications. Binksternet (talk) 17:48, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

See Table 1 on page 8569 of [24] for a list of ten separate laboratories reporting positive results which were not retracted. Is that what you were asking for? Selery (talk) 18:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Binksternet, "positive" as per Browne 1989, Close 1992, Huizenga 1993, Taubes 1993. Read the sources and you'll find that suddenly you know what you are talking about. Or ask Enric. --POVbrigand (talk) 18:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

After looking at the Hubler source (look here) I only come up with four sources that might satisfy WP:RS (ref numbers are from table 1 in Hubler)...

[1] Fleischmann, M.; Pons, S.; Anderson, M. W.; Li, L. J.; Hawkins, M. (1990). "Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system". Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry and Interfacial Electrochemistry. 287 (2): 293. doi:10.1016/0022-0728(90)80009-U. full-text

[4] Arata, Yoshiaki; Zhang, Yue-Chang (1994). "A New Energy caused by "Spillover-Deuterium"". Proceedings of the Japan Academy Ser. B. 70 (7): 106–111.

[8] Mengoli, G.; Bernardini, M.; Manduchi, C.; Zannoni, G. (1998). "Calorimetry close to the boiling temperature of the D2O/Pd electrolytic system". Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. 444 (2): 155. doi:10.1016/S0022-0728(97)00634-7. full-text

[9] Oriani, R.A.; Nelson, J.C.; Lee, S.K.; Broadhurst, J.H. (1990). "Calorimetric measurements of excess power output during the cathodic charging of deuterium into palladium". Fusion Technology. 18 (4): 652–658. full-text

Even ignoring that they are all primary sources (including Hubler); They don't support "many positive replications". —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 09:23, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Why do you think Hubler is a primary source? It's a secondary review. Note that there is no requirement that primary sources cited by a peer reviewed secondary source need to be themselves peer reviewed in order for the secondary source to be considered reliable. It does indeed support the fact that there are many successful replications which have not been retracted. Selery (talk) 14:32, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

we are not talking about "many positive replications", we are talking about "many of the positive replication were retracted" --POVbrigand (talk) 09:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

ArtifexMayhem clearly wants the peer reviewed sources which haven't been retracted. All of those are necessarily going to be primary. (Hubler 2007 is a secondary review source.) The Britz bibliography is best for those. I'm not sure what Binksternet wants but given that there are "many" which have persisted for 20 years, I don't think anyone should care about the early retractions given that Hubler explains why they happen. Since there are more than 1,000 sources in the Britz bibliography I suppose the best way would be to go backwards by year and look for retrospectives. There are probably better bibliographies for this on Krivit's or Rothwell's site. I'll look. Selery (talk) 11:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

How about this Biberian 2007 peer reviewed secondary update? It's easily accessible at just 12 pages and 16 references, with this conclusion: "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." Selery (talk) 14:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

A secondary source would be much more helpful. Hubler and Biberian are really weak as "review" articles. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 14:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Neither of them report original results. They both summarize other primary sources. If you say what it is that you see as their weaknesses, I may be able to find something more suitable. Selery (talk) 16:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Neither of them do much of anything except cite a bunch of non-published/self-published/non-peer reviewed and conclude the "...occasionally experienced significant events..." add up to "proof". In nine pages (with a rather large font) Biberian concludes "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." Really? Neither are cited and Hubler is published in Surface and Coatings Technology "[T]he principal forum for the interchange of information on the science, technology and applications of thin films, coatings and surface treatments." Er....WP:REDFLAG. Calling it a "review" does not make it so. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 17:46, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The Biberian paper is an update, briefly summarizing 15 years of work in as many countries by hundreds of researchers, as it says. The Hubler review is limited, as it states, to investigating replication success criteria. Neither are a complete review of the field's peer reviewed literature which exceeds 1,000 primary sources at present. However, both of them meet the WP:SECONDARY criteria because they summarize other research instead of reporting original work. Are there any such criteria you believe they do not meet? Furthermore, you contradict yourself because above you indicated you believe at least four of the ten sources in Hubler's Table 1 meet the reliable source criteria for primary sources on their own. What do you mean by "neither are cited"? Are you familiar with thin film physics, to which much if not most surface science applies? Selery (talk) 19:59, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

They barely meet WP:RS and even then they are only good for "in-universe" claims. Neither of the papers have been cited more than once or twice by other researchers in relevant fields. As for Hubler's table I said might as in "depending on what we use them for". Regardless, WP:SECONDARY is not a binary that gets flipped "because they summarize other research" (or claim to). Also...the "field's peer reviewed literature" has an extremely limited place on Wikipedia. Extremely limited. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 21:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Why do you say they haven't been cited more than twice? You should probably check with Google Scholar before you make up citation counts. You're off by at least 100% or 400% in one case and at least 120% or 500% in the other. Selery (talk) 22:11, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Because they haven't been and go easy on the making stuff up accusations.

Gs gives Biberian 5 of which one is a dup and two are not germane or micheal.

• Boson induced nuclear fusion in crystalline solids
• Loss-mechanism and favourable deuteron concentrations of boson induced nuclear fusion
• PHY 320: Modern Physics Fall 2008
• Towards a Critical Philosophy of Science: Continental Beginnings and Bugbears, Whigs, and Waterbears

—ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:56, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

giving deuterium loading as a definitive proved reason for non-replicability

Proponents claim that high-loading of deuteurium is the reason that the cells didn't work back in 1989. However, reliable replicability is still unachieved, and there is still no accepted theory that can explain how the high-loading affects the experiment. Our article should give high-loading as the proposed explanation, not as the explanation. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:41, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Are there any alternative explanations? I have no problem calling it proposed, as long as we include alternative explanations if there are any. All viable theories must require high loading -- and all of the contending theories do -- because no anomalous effects are seen at low loading and all anomalous effects are observed at high loading. Selery (talk) 20:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

What sources are you using for "All viable theories..." and "contending theories"? ArtifexMayhem (talk) 20:24, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

By "all viable theories" I mean any theory which purports to fit the published observations. For "contending theories" I am relying on multiple sources, meaning all that I have read about thus far, but for an informal overview one of the NASA slide decks had the most complete set I have yet seen; in particular, page 14 of this one and from page 10 on these. I understand that those do not meet the reliable source criteria, but I am not proposing to add my reply to Enric to the article. Selery (talk) 20:38, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Our article should not give an explanation, because there is no mainstream accepted explanation. Our article should mention that scientists offer the high loading issue as one of the reasons why so many experiments failed to produce the effect. An other issue that is offered, would be the cathode material which only sometimes produces the effect. Scientists offer explanations that it is a surface effect and lattice defects play a role and that yet unknown "conditioning" can influence (make or break) the experiment. It appears that ENEA is able to produce "good working" cathode material, which still doesn't mean the effect happens each and every time, even when the loading is over 95%. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Our article should not mention claims based entirely on primary sources. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 16:34, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Wrong: read WP:Primary. And if you would read my comment carefully you would see that I am agreeing with Enric. So what are you complaining about ? --POVbrigand (talk) 17:14, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

1)Ok, read it. Your point? 2)Nothing you would agree with so I won't bother. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 18:37, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy: Do not base articles and material entirely on primary sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Enric. What is your problem ? --POVbrigand (talk) 19:08, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no issue, I am merely highlighting something which is important for future contributions to the article. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

SPAWAR video

Is this video any good for an external link? Selery (talk) 01:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• I think so. As skeptical as I have been—or perhaps still am—that presentation is very interesting and is presented by scientists from the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which I would call a most‑reliable primary source. It is certainly *interesting* and I think would properly serve the interests of our readership. If I wanted to know if there was any merit to CF, I would appreciate that Wikipedia provided this link. The speaker here, who presents well, addresses the history of the original Fleischmann‑Pons experiments and their non‑reproducibility. Greg L (talk) 02:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Is it edited in yet ? --POVbrigand (talk) 21:57, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Just now. Selery (talk) 00:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Move all pathological references to historical footnotes

The Cold Fusion article links create a reverse relevance problem. The links progression should go forward in time from Cold Fusion to the present state of affairs for this subject. LENR and the Widom Larson Theory, and works known as Condensed Matter Nuclear reflect a deeper contemporary understanding of these phenomenon. The NASA patent for a device based on LENR Science provides a clear pointer that Wiki links should progress forward on this subject. Cold Fusion was a historical birth of this initially misunderstood science. The links should progress forward into the Science of LENR. For this to be allowed by Wiki the Wiki Forum needs to: 1)Recognize it as a Science. 2)Recognize quality Peer Review Journals used by department heads of universities and researchers in this field. My hope is to improve the article Cold Fusion. Therefore over the next few weeks I will solicit views of the directors of physics departments of universities. LENR - Low Energy Nuclear Reaction and Widom Larson Theory, Condensed Matter Nuclear 1) Is this science or pathological science? 2) Do you offer a class in this discipline? If so, please provide information. 3) Are you developing a curriculum of this science? If so, when will you offer it? 4) What peer review journals do you source in this field? P>S> Any suggestions before I move forward with this? Is this direction of query able to yield opinions the Wiki Forum may value?--Gregory Goble (talk) 14:52, 25 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory Goble (talk •--Gregory Goble (talk) 15:09, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

NASA has filed a patent on a LENR system.[25]. --POVbrigand (talk) 01:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)"CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS Thanks POVbrigand for this example of the science of LENR. "Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. .sctn.119, the benefit of priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/317,379, with a tiling date of Mar. 25, 2010, is claimed for this non-provisional application, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0003] 1. Field of the Invention

[0004] This invention relates to the production of heavy electrons. More specifically, the invention is a method of making a device, the device itself device, and a system using the device to produce heavy electrons via the sustained propagation of surface plasmon polaritons at a selected frequency.

[0005] 2. Description of the Related Art

[0006] Heavy electrons exhibit properties such as unconventional superconductivity, weak antiferromagnetism, and pseudo metamagnetism. More recently, the energy associated with "low energy nuclear reactions" (LENR) has been linked to the production of heavy electrons. Briefly, this theory put forth by Widom and Larsen states that the initiation of LENR activity is due to the coupling of "surface plasmon polaritons" (SPPs) to a proton or deuteron resonance in the lattice of a metal hydride. The theory goes on to describe the production of heavy electron that undergo electron capture by a proton. This activity produces a neutron that is subsequently captured by a nearby atom transmuting it into a new element and releasing positive net energy in the process. See A. Windom et al. "Ultra Low Momentum Neutron Catalyzed Nuclear Reactions on Metallic Hydride Surface," European Physical Journal C-Particles and Fields, 46, pp. 107-112, 2006, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,893,414 issued to Larsen et al. Unfortunately, such heavy electron production has only occurred in small random regions or patches of sample materials/devices. In terms of energy generation or gamma ray shielding, this limits the predictability and effectiveness of the device. Further, random-patch heavy electron production limits the amount of positive net energy that is produced to limit the efficiency of the device in an energy generation application.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0007] Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method of making a device that produces heavy electrons. A method of producing heavy electrons is also disclosed. The steps may include selecting a material system that includes an electrically-conductive material. The material system may have a resonant frequency associated therewith for a given operational environment. The step may further include forming a structure having a surface. The structure may comprise a non-electrically-conductive material and the material system. The structure may incorporate the electrically-conductive material at least at the surface of the structure. Geometry of the structure supports propagation of surface plasmon polaritons at a selected frequency that is approximately equal to the resonant frequency of the material system. The step may further include producing heavy electrons at the electrically-conductive material as the surface plasmon polaritons propagate along the structure. The steps may also include applying energy to a portion of the structure to induce propagation of the surface plasmon polaritons at the portion. The material system may comprise a metal hydride. The electrically-conductive material may be in a form selected from the group consisting of particles and whiskers. The structure may include a solid matrix material with the electrically-conductive material mixed therein. The structure may exist in a state selected from the group consisting of a gas, a liquid, and a plasma. The electrically-conductive material may be mixed in the structure. The structure may comprise a two-dimensional structure or a three-dimensional structure. The geometry may also comprise a fractal geometry. The step of applying further may further comprise the step of impinging the structure with a form of energy selected from the group consisting of electric energy, thermal energy, photonic energy, energy associated with an ion beam, and energy associated with a flow of gas. The step of applying may further comprise the step of altering the geometry of the structure at the portion thereof."--Gregory Goble (talk) 02:58, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Clarification:Pathological science or not? Pseudo-science or science? It seems to me that one must show, in a scholarly manner, that hundreds of researchers take off their scientists 'hat' and don another; reckless abandon departing from all scientific methods... I just do not buy it! Pathological science opinions deserve to be (perhaps temporarily or perhaps permanently) placed as a footnote. Wiki is otherwise purporting that everyone of these scientists are QUACKS! AS requested (and not addressed) is publishable evidence of pathological science. Since science is a present state of affairs quoting past (20 year old) DOE reports and disallowing present DIA reports is ludicrous. This is a controversy site subject. It should not have the flavor of a 'pre-judgment' site or a 'we decide what gets shown' (censorship) site. The DIA report is worthy of Wiki readership. Moving the 'pathological science or not' debate forward will simpify and clarify this article, I predict a 50% improvement in the readability level of the article.--Gregory Goble (talk) 15:34, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Collapsing off-topic proposal of off-wiki polling and original research per WP:NOR.

As stated, I will collect the opinions of department heads of physics departments of every major university. I invite everyone to join me in 1) The phrasing of the question. 2) The grunt work. In this effort we will be subjecting this question to Peer Review Peer_review procedures found in Wiki: "Procedure: In the case of proposed publications, an editor sends advance copies of an author's work or ideas to researchers or scholars who are experts in the field (known as "referees" or "reviewers"), nowadays normally by e-mail or through a web-based manuscript processing system. Usually, there are two or three referees for a given article." I hope to pose the question to hundreds of physics department heads. Does anyone care to comment on this?--Gregory Goble (talk) 15:34, 23 December 2011 (UTC) Collecting the opinions of mainstream scientists on cold fusion would be interesting and I hope you are able to do that and publish it in a reputable journal. However, until then this article should continue to cite published, verifiable sources rather than original research [26]. Olorinish (talk) 15:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC) No I will not publish it in a reputable journal... I will copy their correspondance for review with the proper contact info for verification.--Gregory Goble (talk) 16:19, 23 December 2011 (UTC) Clarification: Doublebind... there are no Wiki recognized "mainstream scientists of cold fusion". I wasn't clear if you understood. I am seeking the opinion of physics department heads. As a secondary question I am considering, "Do you offer or are you developing a curriculum on this subject?"--Gregory Goble (talk) 16:14, 23 December 2011 (UTC) Simply put... JOURNAL OF CONDENSED MATTER NUCLEAR SCIENCE Experiments and Methods in Cold Fusion http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol1.pdf The study of phenomenon being described as cold fusion, low energy nuclear reaction, or condensed matter nuclear reaction is an interdiscipinary science. Keep the thread of thought open on this since the reference to it as pathological or pseudo science is controversial given the number of scientists, universities, and governmental agencies applying scientific methods in this area of research. Oh, by the way it seems we may have something here. Please study it and tell me where it should be placed in this article. U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Report on LENR Science http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BarnhartBtechnology.pdf Clearly they state it is a Science. Please include it in this article. Science or pathological pseudo science? Over the next month I will be contacting the heads of Physics Departments asking that question and posting their response (positive or negative). This thread is to improve the artical by moving the nine references of it being a pathological science to the historic footnotes with an explanation that as our understanding grew this developed into a recognized Interdiscipinary Science. --Gregory Goble (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2011 (UTC) I don't think you are going to be successful in your goal. Mainstream science pooh-poohs cold fusion, and this article is not going to Right The Great Wrong you perceive. Rather, this article is going to reflect the best scholarship on the topic. Binksternet (talk) 21:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC) Care to join me in asking the heads of physics departments if they pooh pooh cold fusion - low energy nuclear -condensed matter reaction science?--Gregory Goble (talk) 15:41, 23 December 2011 (UTC) U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Classifies LENR "Related research also suffered from the negative publicity of cold fusion for the past 20 years, but many scientists believed something important was occurring and continued their research with little or no visibility. For years, scientists were intrigued by the possibility of producing large amounts of clean energy through LENR, and now this research has begun to be accepted in the scientific community as reproducible and legitimate." Is Wiki a place for negative publicity for an established science?--Gregory Goble (talk) 01:08, 23 December 2011 (UTC) No, the scientific community in general does not accept cold fusion as "reproducible and legitimate." That's malarkey. If they did, we would all be heating our houses with gallon jars filled with tiny spheres of layered metals sunk in salt water. Binksternet (talk) 01:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC) "No, the scientific community in general does not accept cold fusion as "reproducible and legitimate." " Excuse me... Is this your opinion or fact? I propose we make an inquiry to the scientific community by asking the directors of physics departments of major universities in the U.S. if the research into LENR, historicaly misnamed "Cold Fusion", is pathological science or SCIENCE; yielding experiments that are "reproducible and legitimate". Care to join me? Please answer the questions. This articles links have a time relevance problem due to claims of quackery and pathological science that have no basis in the "Present State of Affairs": Cold Fusion scientific research is the historical birthplace of LENR, Widom Larson Theory, and the science behind the patent issued to NASA. The major work done in this field of physics has always been done by scientists strictly adhering to scientific method (my opinion). Now I will ask the "scientific community".--Gregory Goble (talk) 19:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC) Care to join me in asking the heads of physics departments if they pooh pooh cold fusion - low energy nuclear -condensed matter reaction science?--Gregory Goble (talk) 15:42, 23 December 2011 (UTC) I agree with you both. First, I agree with Binksternet: this article is best fixed in small baby steps. Since ArbCom had to weigh in earlier here to restore order, WP:BOLD would be likely to met with 40 man-hours of editor time at ANIs—the Wikipedia-equivalent of Turkish butt-stabbings in the prison yard. Besides, as skeptical as I was that there was any substance to CF, the latest work by scientists at the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (see above thread and the YouTube video) is making me rethink my initial position. Perhaps there is a Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution-effect underlying the observations and the phenomenon is there in small quantities at only 300 kelvin. Having said that, what we certainly can do is ensure that outlandish claims, such as how 5 MW CF power plants are commercially available for $2 per watt, are not mentioned in a way that runs afoul with WP:UNDO and WP:RS and WP:COMMONSENSE. Because of the initial sloppy work of Fleischmann and Pons, and because of some of the faithful who followed in their steps, there is indeed an element of pathological science enter-twined with the whole CF world; after all, a notable MD who was stripped of his license for quackery ran off to make his fortune in CF. Then they toot their horn on a 60 Minutes segment and the reporters give the talking heads minute upon minute to tell the world that investors should shovel them money to solve the energy crisis. But, as with the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, there are good people working to understand CF and see if it is a real phenomenon. As Binksternet wrote, this article should reflect the best scholarship on the topic. We should try to slowly strip out the more outlandish claims so the article is increasingly buttressed by the higher-quality sources. Greg L (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2011 (UTC) Science or not? Patents are not granted for "Pathological" or "Pseudo" scientific claims. The major research into these phenomenon has been done by scientists, strictly following scientific method in this controversial field since day one. The slant that this is and always has been quackery is ludicrous when viewed by a newcomer, such as me. The present slant on the Wiki cold fusion article is toxic to truth, hence the low low low readability level. I Am inquiring to directors of physics departments as to the question "Science or Quackery". Will their opinions be given any weight here, or not? I would like an answer from some WIKI official as I proceed.--Gregory Goble (talk) 19:16, 26 December 2011 (UTC) Update: With a few suggestions I have made changes to the intended correspondence and am about to begin my query. I have contacted each commentator found in the recent discussion on Cold Fusion asking for input. Of most concern to me is a lack of response to my quetion, "Is this direction of query able to yield opinions the Wiki Forum may value?" By asking directors of physics departments I hope to get the opinion of "mainstream science". Does maistream science view this as a "pathological science" ? Opinion> Historically it might have been initially declared that by a few folks with vested interest in discrediting anomolous heat production seen in early experiments. <opinion (Gregory Goble) Research Dr. Gene Mallove of MIT to form your own. "Is this direction of query able to yield opinions the Wiki Forum may value?" Someone please give an official answer to this question... Query to the scientific community: To the Directors of Physics Departments, LENR - Low Energy Nuclear Reaction and Widom Larson Theory, aka Condensed Matter Nuclear or Lattice Enabled Nuclear, aka historically misnamed "Cold Fusion" 1) Is this science or pathological science? 2) Do you offer a class in this discipline? If so, please provide information. 3) Are you developing a curriculum of this science? If so, when will you offer it? 4) What peer review journals do you utilize or source in this field? EDITORS A) Any suggestions before I move forward with this? B) Is this direction of query able to yield opinions the Wikipedia forum on Cold Fusion may value? Thank you for your time, Gregory Goble --Gregory Goble (talk) 22:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC) While surveying department heads is an interesting exercise, since Wikipedia discourages original research [27], it is very possible that the results will not be very useful for improving the article, unless you publish the results somewhere, preferably in a reputable publication. Good luck! Olorinish (talk) 23:16, 26 December 2011 (UTC) Asking for an "opinion" is not research. Looking for classes offered or curriculum being developed is not original research; it's called investigative reporting. Compiling correspondence for posting is allowed, I hope. I imagine the Directors of Departments of Physics of Universities have done their research and have informed opinions on this subject. I will post their correspondence, positive or negative. I am sure I will be better informed on this subject after this query, quote "interesting exersise". Do you consider it "interesting" enough to see copies of my correspondence? With further effort you could verify each to see if I've been honest? >>> "Wikipedia discourages original research [28], it is very possible that the results will not be very useful for improving the article."<<< I'll keep this in mind though. Thanks! --Gregory Goble (talk) 01:53, 27 December 2011 (UTC) With the helpful input from a few editors I'm almost ready to move forward with this endeavor. <suggestion thread> As to your “B” question, above, yes; I should think your poll would be valuable… if you received a response. I should think that you would also need to validate the authenticity of your response by having it vetted by one of our ‘crats. Some will argue that the results of your poll are Original Research but I don’t think that would be a genuine shortcoming. By definition, O.R. is …facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. The deans of science and engineering departments are reliable; the only trick is in establishing that their conclusions are somehow published, and it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to accomplish that. The whole point of OR is to ensure that the point is being made by a reliable expert and is not the work product of a mere wikipedian. <end of suggestion thread> I hope for a high percentage of responses and am basing that on an assumption that most directors of physics departments are following this closely. The published Widom Larson Theory has elevated the theoretical science of LENR such that it should be on their radar.--Gregory Goble (talk) 04:56, 27 December 2011 (UTC) <suggestion thread> As to your “A” question, I would suggest calling the secretaries for the department heads to solicit who exactly you should direct your emails to. Also, I suggest the following tweaks to the wording of your poll: Is the discipline of cold fusion, in your opinion, generally regarded as having a “pathological science” nature to it? Does your university offer cold fusion as a for-credit class? Are you developing a curriculum focused on cold fusion? If so, when will you offer it? What respected, peer review journals do you source in this field?<end of suggestion thread> Thank you for your suggestions. After consideration I'll edit accordingly... 1) Is the discipline of LENR - Low Energy Nuclear Reaction and Widom Larson Theory, aka Condensed Matter Nuclear or Lattice Enabled Nuclear, aka historically misnamed "Cold Fusion", in your opinion: A) Good science. or B) Pathological science. A or B If A continue... 2) Does your university offer instruction in this field as a for-credit class? As a not for credit class? If so. please provide class information. 3) Are you developing a curriculum focused on this discipline? If so, when will you offer it? 4) What peer review journals do you utilize or source in this field (for publication or review) and what books do you recommend for information? I steer away from "cold fusion". This subject and article has a Wiki links reverse relevance problem. Cold fusion should link forward to LENR and the Widom Larson Theory which represents the "Current State of Affairs" for this subject. I steer away from eliciting responses that are second person speculative such as " in your opinion, generally regarded" or " What respected, peer review journals do you source ". I want know if the respondee thinks it's good science or not. I want to know what journals they utilize (for publication or review) and what books have pertinent information. I assume that their opinion (respondee) is the only one they are qualified to give. I also assume that they respect the publication if they list it as part of their "reading material" on LENR. Both assumptions seem sound to me. --Gregory Goble (talk) 14:15, 27 December 2011 (UTC) Thanks yous... with your help, critiques, and suggestions improvements have been made. This is the letter I will be using. I begin my correspondence today. MY CORRESPONDENCE TO DIRECTORS OF PHYSICS DEPARTMENTS: COLD FUSION - GOOD SCIENCE OR PATHOLOGICAL SCIENCE? Honorable Chair Honorable Dean Director of Physics Department, I write to get your view on cold fusion; research otherwise known as Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR), or Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions (CANR), also Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions (LANR), Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (CMNS) and Lattice Enabled Nuclear Reactions. 1) Do you view the majority of works done in these areas to be: A) Good science? B) Pathological science? A or B? If A continue... 2) Does your university offer instruction in this field as a for-credit class or as a not-for-credit class? If you do, please provide class information. 3) Are you developing a curriculum focused on this discipline? If you are, when will you offer it? 4) Do you have any of these experiments performed as instruction or for research? If you do, please provide a brief description. 5) What peer review journals do you utilize or source in this field (for publication or review), ‘cold fusion’ conferences do you follow, or books do you use for information about this science? I am determining if it is worthwhile to study in this or not. Thank you for your time. Be well, Gregory Byron Goble --Gregory Goble (talk) 17:39, 2 January 2012 (UTC) You are either on some sort of crusade ("investigative reporting"?) or you are seeking enrolment information from educational institutions, but please understand that a WP talk page is not relevant for either of those activities. It was made clear to you that WP articles must be based on reliable secondary sources, so I'm hoping that it is obvious to you that any correspondence you receive from "DIRECTORS OF PHYSICS DEPARTMENTS" will not be usable in this (or any other) WP article? At best, your point 5 might get a list of reference material to add to this talk page (or to the article), but couldn't you just share that information if/when you get replies? Lastly, I do hope you are not planning to reproduce here any replies you receive (with identifying details of the sender)? If you do, I think I can promise you that the replies will be quickly expunged, and you will be blocked from editing at WP. Please be careful. GFHandel ♬  19:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Thank you for your warnings and opinions. I will seek advice before proceeding, Is information (and are are you curious) about 'presently offered classes' pertinent to my quest for knowledge? Of further concern of mine, is this information (with links) considered "reliable secondary sources"? I hope to improve this article...( is this pathological science or good science?)... and I would truly like to know. Hence my correspondence. Clarification... "Improve this article by having references of 'pathological science; and 'not recognized science' moved to historical footnotes."--Gregory Goble (talk) 05:01, 3 January 2012 (UTC). <redacted personal information> Despite my many warnings not to post any real-world identifiers, you have just posted the email addresses of a number of people. I now consider you to be nothing more than a trouble-maker and a time-waster of other editors at WP, and will seek admin assistance with a recommendation that you be indefinitely blocked. GFHandel ♬  05:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC) The personal information to which GFHandel refers has been removed by an administrator and then oversighted by ArbCom member Risker, so it is no longer accessible in the history even to admins. This seems like an appropriate moment to remind all that posting others' personal information is absolutely unacceptable. EdChem (talk) 06:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC) I have not recieved "many warnings not to post any real-world identifiers" from you. Care to discusss this? Truth be told I simply was told that commonly found information is not considered private real world identifiers... the dean of physics email address is not to a person but rather to an institution and is public knowledge as such. Where it was not easily found publicaly... I did not intrude... nor did I disclose private information. All I posted was e-mail addressess of deans I contacted and a letter I sent. "<redacted personal information>" here is actually better described as '<redacted public information>'. Are you riding this to censor it? --Gregory Goble (talk) 06:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Defense Intelligence Report

It seems fair to link the Defense Intelligence Report to the article. They do good scholarship. Who disagrees? Agrees?--Gregory Goble (talk) 02:56, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I make direct statement and not one of you gives a direct response. The Defense Intelligence Agency does good scholarly work. Who disagrees? Who agrees? Any examples of schlock or poor analysis or poor reporting. If not, This document is worth posting as a good source of current information. Speculation as to it's fraudulency, intent of authors, or it being leaked or not, seems to obfsucate my posting and certainly are not a response to my statement or simple questions.--Gregory Goble (talk) 06:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

• Gregory Goble: I took the liberty of moving your 02:56 post, above, to its current position. Where you curiously placed it, and with its indenting, made it appear as if Binksternet’s and my posts were after yours and that Binksternet was replying “no” to your suggestion. As to your question, I think it is entirely fair to link to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report. They are a most-reliable, RS. In fact, I would hope we can start improving this article by deleting one item cited to a least-reliable RS for each good one we add. By the time we’re done, there should only be high quality sourcing in this article. Greg L (talk) 03:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

  P.S. But first, I just now noted that the “UNCLASSIFIED” “report” by U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (titled “Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance”) is hosted by LENR-CANR.org. I suggest that it would be wise to validate the document as really the product of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I just googled “DIA-08-0911-003” and didn’t immediately see the original at a dot-mil site. Does anyone know how to validate that “DIA-08-0911-003” is a real document? I hope we don’t find ourselves in a situation where the people at LENR‑CANR point out that their document is an “unclassified” extract of something classified and the original is hush-hush and all that. Greg L (talk) 03:25, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

  P.P.S. Something is smelling a little fishy; maybe my Skept‑O‑Meter®™© is set a bit high, but I see this YouTube video setting “DIA-08-0911-003” off to some hip music with slick promo-style graphics. Moreover, when I read through the document, many of its citations are sloppy and incomplete and don’t adhere to standard scientific conventions, which seems exceedingly unusual for such a document and its purported source. The totality of the whole document and all those oversized, boldface “UNCLASSIFIED”s on both the headers and footers (we could tell you, but then we’d have to kill you) just doesn’t seem right. Someone please show me an original hosted at a dot‑mil or dot‑gov site. It will be interesting to see how this one proves out. If the document is a forgery, it would seem to impeach the website at which it is being hosted. Greg L (talk) 03:36, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

  P.P.P.S. I might add that I just chased down a “citation” in that purported “Defense Intelligence Agency” report and the citation went full-circle back to LENR-CANR.org, where they included a little footer in the document attempting to explain that away. Greg L (talk) 03:45, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

UPDATE: LENR-CANR.org is a website where the registrant and admin is Jed Rothwell of Atlanta, GA. He appears to like to self-publish documents on a diverse range of subjects, such as “Cold Fusion and the Future”, in which he touches upon “Robot Chickens and Other Prodigies”. [Excuse me; my Skept‑O‑Meter is squealing and I’ve got to adjust the range knob upwards one decade to 100 rads per hour.] I also note that the contributions history of Gregory Goble shows him to be a single-purpose editor. I might add that I can’t *prove* that the “Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance” by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency is a clumsy, amateurish forgery; not any more than I can *prove* aliens from other star systems aren’t buzzing earth. But that’s my take. I look forward to someone locating an original “unclassified” report on a dot‑mil or dot‑gov site and proving that my healthy skepticism was misplaced. Greg L (talk) 04:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Greg L, just FYI... here is a search that shows just some of the debates that have gone on about the blacklisting and unblacklisting of lenr-canr.org. Abd (now indefinitely blocked) alone posted about 2000 gigabytes (just a guess, likely an underestimate) of "debate" on this subject. Suffice it to say there are those who doubt that the site is a good place for sourcing anything. Jed Rothwell is also not a new name in relation to this article. I sense that some admin action under the existing ArbCom cases is in the nearish future. Perhaps you can understand how I (and others) became disillusioned about getting this article into a high-quality state. EdChem (talk) 05:03, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

What’s the major malfunction over getting anything done here without judicial intervention by ArbCom???. If I really thought there was any chance of being embroiled in ArbCom anything, I’d butt-out now ‘cause ArbCom in the past has shown that in their effort to seem even-handed, they like to cut out the tongues of parties on both sides of disputes (I think they think it makes them look fatherly, or something like that). All it should take is a consensus here on this article that LENR-CANR.org is not an RS; we just don’t let anyone put us in the position of proving their stuff is forged bunk and instead require proof that the above-mentioned document is real (and I seriously doubt anyone can do that). Did I just write something that makes you laugh at my galactic naïveté? Greg L (talk) 05:24, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Greg L, my apologies, I was unclear. I don't mean that ArbCom themselves will intervene, nor that you have done anything wrong. I suspect that newly-appeared editors will get warned under the existing cases that they may face discretionary sanctions, because I fear that what is happening is the begining of the upslope of another campaign over The Truth^TM. Previous campaigns have involved some exceptionally talented manouvering to ensure that any "adverse" local consensus formation is frustrated and any that may slip through is challenged at as many boards as possible. I'm not suggesting that you are naive, just that you may be unaware of some of the past rounds. Wiki-policy is not well set up to deal with topics like this for reasons including:

• unless I am mistaken, there is no independent reliable review which leaves us having to deal only with summaries written by CF researchers and published in non-mainstream journals
• debates on the reliability of sources like the JCMNS can be made endless
• the fact that many explanations suggested for CF phenomena contradict established science is hard to cover because it is usually dismissed as original research, yet few scientists bother to write papers saying "suggestion X published somewhere obscure contradicts well-established science without good evidence" so we have no sources to use to note what is obvious to scientists (for example, a while back there was an edit war over including in the potassium dichromate article its alleged homeopathic "therapeutic" use despite the compound being a well-known carcinogen... but saying that it isn't safe for medical use is claimed to be synthesis unless we find a source saying that ingesting this carcinogen is unsafe but fortunately the homeopathic solution is so dilute that there isn't any dichromate in it anyway... but I digress)
• when claims like "MIT teaches CF" are deconstructed we end up with arguments about original research and what is "fact" and what is "opinion" / "interpretation"
• the civility policy is a potent weapon if editors can be frustrated into saying something plausibly claimably uncivil
• arguments are recycled and keep re-appearing, like the upcoming one about how relaible lenr-canr.org is
• truly scientifically literate admins are not common... scientifically literate admins willing to put up with the games that go on about articles like this are rarer, and if they do take any action they can look forward to claims of involvement to chase them away - if you want a perspective on this point, just ask WMC

Looking back at these comments, I recognise I am still disillusioned. Please don't just take my word, have a look at the talk page archives, or ask around. I truly would like to see this article improved and I applaud efforts towards this end. Form your own views on suggestions made, keep to your principles, and I wish you well. Regards, EdChem (talk) 06:06, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI, that DIA document has been discussed on this page before: [29] Olorinish (talk) 07:01, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

(not the first time it was discussed, mind you. The striken comments are from someone who pushed any bad-quality source, as soon as it was useful to promote his personal views on CF, global warning and hybrid cars.)

It was never officially published. It was apparently written by some individual researchers inside DIA who decided to write a paper on CF, then followed some internal channel to make it an internal report. We have no idea if it was ever reviewed for accuracy, quality, etc. Never mind that technology forecasts are just speculations about future developments, and authors can get away with very wild speculations. We think that the authors sent it to people outside DIA (thus leaking it). Copies started being circulated. Someone posted the leaked report in their website, causing a lot of buzz. Then some people jumped to the unwarranted conclusion that DIA officially supports CF. Then they complained that wikipedia didn't reflect DIA's official position.

Rinse and repeat for a few more reports, and suddenly half the research institutions in the US give official support to CF. It is left unexplained why none of the institutions has granted a single cent for CF research in the last few years. Or started any sort of official research program.

CF would gain a lot of reputation as science if a) one federal institution started an official federally-funded research program, or b) one center like MIT launched an official course teaching CF as an established science. That's why you have these bitter fights over Langley's supposed official program, and MIT's supposed official course. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:43, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Quoting Enric: It was never officially published. It was apparently written by some individual researchers inside DIA who decided to write a paper on CF, then followed some internal channel to make it an internal report. Why do you say it was “apparently written” by anyone in the DIA? I suspect you have zero evidence for this. BTW, I downloaded that PDF to my hard drive in case it disappears from LENR-CANR.org. Further quoting you: suddenly half the research institutions in the US give official support to CF. Why do you say that? That is an extraordinary claim. Do you have any extraordinary evidence for this? Greg L (talk) 18:33, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

The DIA document was not fake. I posted some comments below.

Sorry, I meant that proponents in the talk page make that claim. In reality, no institution has given official support to CF. They have allowed their scientists to continue the research on their own time and budget, like SPAWAR, or they have allocated place in their conferences, like the ACS and the APS. But none has an official CF program. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:33, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

No institution ? Strange that the president from ENEA in the foreword of their 2009 book on the history of cold fusion research in Italy writes that "the phenomenon is proven". He also writes "Such evidence, all headed towards the nuclear phenomenon, created conditions for the development of two research programs – one Italian, and one U.S. – by means of government funds." --POVbrigand (talk) 02:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

---

I think the proper title for this thread would be DIA not lenr- canr.org for obvious reasons. Please change it for me. Call DIA office of information and verify as I did--Gregory Goble (talk) 17:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Easy to check. The report was accessed through a freedom of information suit. Follow the lead. Do not discredit without proper investigation... To falsify a DIA Report is a felony. To suggest it as such without clear evidence is obsfuscation and extremely offensive... please back up your ponderings or disappear it (delete).--Gregory Goble (talk) 14:25, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

In it for the long run... Quote "consensus was never truly a matter of pure logic or pure facts"... Time tells! Controversy by definition is never a "closed" subject. [[30]]There are many philosophical and historical theories as to how scientific consensus changes over time. Because the history of scientific change is extremely complicated, and because there is a tendency to project "winners" and "losers" onto the past in relation to our current scientific consensus, it is very difficult to come up with accurate and rigorous models for scientific change. This is made exceedingly difficult also in part because each of the various branches of science functions in somewhat different ways with different forms of evidence and experimental approaches. Most models of scientific change rely on new data produced by scientific experiment. The philosopher Karl Popper proposed that since no amount of experiments could ever prove a scientific theory, but a single experiment could disprove one, all scientific progress should be based on a process of falsification, where experiments are designed with the hope of finding empirical data that the current theory could not account for, indicating its falseness and the requirement for a new theory.

Among the most influential challengers of this approach was the historian Thomas Kuhn, who argued instead that experimental data always provide some data which cannot fit completely into a theory, and that falsification alone did not result in scientific change or an undermining of scientific consensus. He proposed that scientific consensus worked in the form of "paradigms", which were interconnected theories and underlying assumptions about the nature of the theory itself which connected various researchers in a given field. Kuhn argued that only after the accumulation of many "significant" anomalies would scientific consensus enter a period of "crisis". At this point, new theories would be sought out, and eventually one paradigm would triumph over the old one — a cycle of paradigm shifts rather than a linear progression towards truth. Kuhn's model also emphasized more clearly the social and personal aspects of theory change, demonstrating through historical examples that scientific consensus was never truly a matter of pure logic or pure facts. However, these periods of 'normal' and 'crisis' science are not mutually exclusive. Research shows that these are different modes of practice, more than different historical periods.

---

To Gregory Goble: Please learn how to post on these talk pages. You persist at inserting mis-indented, out-of-place posts in the middle of threads where they break up others’ posts, change the apparent meaning of others’ responses when they write about disagreeing with you (what are they disagreeing about now?) and make a total mess of things. I just now fixed a post that you inserted right in the middle of one of my posts. I took the liberty of moving your posts to the proper place in the sequence and set them off with horizontal rules since you don’t even properly sign your posts. Posts are signed by adding four tildes (~~~~) at the end of what you write. Please abide by this expectation and courtesy. P.S. Please don’t try to strengthen your position by professing great offense to my suggesting that a ham‑fist forgery is what it appears to be. I guess your point about forging a government document would constitute a felony might be true; perhaps it might must be a gross misdemeanor—I don’t know. But just in case, I’ve saved that apparent forgery to my hard drive, BTW, in case it disappears from that quack site. If it walks, waddles, and quacks like a duck… Greg L (talk) 17:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

As I detailed above, the totality and details of this “document” as well as the exceedingly poorly written “citations” it contains, at least some of which just resolve full-circle back to LENR-CANR.org, make it appear to be a clumsy, amateurish forgery. Furthermore, the individual behind that website writes about odd things like robot chickens. Thus, there is nothing about LENR-CANR.org that looks to be an RS and there is reasonable evidence suggesting the whole thing is forgery site by a lone individual with odd ideas. Until proven otherwise, LENR-CANR.org must be presumed to not be an RS.

To spare future waste of time, I motion that a hat box (division) be placed at the top of this discussion page memorializing a number of consensus decisions to guide editors. Among the top ten findings should be that LENR-CANR.org is in no way an RS and appears to be a quack site salted with ham‑fisted forgeries.

To EdChem, do you think it wise to post a divbox at the top of this talk page enumerating consensus findings of fact regarding such things as what sites are not RSs and others rules of the road to guide editors here? Greg L (talk) 17:45, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

:Sorry to jump in, but I will point out that FAQs on other article have been remarkably helpful: Talk:Homeopathy or Talk:Creationism. 128.59.171.184 (talk) 18:13, 23 December 2011 (UTC) SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 19:09, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

"Sorry”?? I’m not. Thanks; now EdChem and I have a paradigm upon which to model this talk page’s FAQ. EdChem: Do you want to take the lead in creating a FAQ? You seem to have far more experience in this God-forsaken article than I do. Greg L (talk) 18:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Quoting Gregory Goble in his 14:25, 23 December post, in reference to “UNCLASSIFIED” “report” by U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency: The report was accessed through a freedom of information suit. Well, perhaps Jed Rothwell (the fellow behind that pro-CF site hosting that “document”) might think he covered his tracks with mysterious government secrecy that can’t be disproven. But if there was any truth to Jed’s FOF suit, then it would be a discoverable case listed and detailed in a federal registry. I’m guessing he doesn’t have one (except perhaps a document hosted on his own website). The reason for this skepticism is the profoundly clumsy citations, which look nothing whatsoever like real scientific citations, as well as the totality of the document, which looks like a ham-fisted attempt at POV-pushing in the guise of faux astonishment over tantalizing, potentially profound discoveries and observations (strongly) hinting that CF experiments have previously lead to energetic runaway nuclear reactions that made apparatus literally explode. Jed’s soap-boxing on his website about robo‑chickens do nothing to mollify such skepticism.

This all means that until proven otherwise with clear and convincing evidence, WP:COMMONSENSE requires that the document be assumed non-genuine and that the website hosting it (LENR‑CANR.org) assumed to not be an RS. That forging a government document might be a crime of some sort—as you pointed out in your 14:25, 23 December post—is a problem for whomever might have created it… if proven true in a court of law. Until then, the burden of proof is not on those who rightfully evince skepticism over its authenticity; which is to say: one can’t properly hide behind the apron strings of ‘taking great offense’ to the notion that the document is a forgery and by then claiming that it *must be presumed genuine* (notwithstanding it clearly looks like a forgery) because to think otherwise is tantamount to accusing someone of a crime. Criminal consequences and ramifications are their problem. Period. Please think twice before pushing this tact; further attempts to enter-twine legal complexities to suspecting a phony-balloney forgery is what it clearly appears to be could be construed as legal threat if taken too far. All we as mere wikipedians can do is limit ourselves to whether it walks, waddles, and quacks like an RS and therefore may be used as a source for citations in this article. And this one doesn’t; not by a mile. Greg L (talk) 19:00, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Greg, drop it. We do know that the document is not a fake. I sent an email to DIA's public affairs just so I could end the endless discussions about it. The DIA reply is near the end of Talk:Cold_fusion/Archive_35#Emails_and_a_suggested_edit.

We are also pretty much sure that it got out of DIA when someone (probably the authors) mailed copies to people outside DIA (probably fellow researchers). Nobody has ever mentioned any "freedom of information suit", I have no idea of what Gregory Goble is talking about. (By the way, I just realized that newenergytimes.com quoted my email in the their page about the report[31]. If they had obtained the info via a freedom of information request, then they would have simply published the request.) --Enric Naval (talk) 01:33, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I make direct statement and not one of you gives a direct response. The Defense Intelligence Agency does good scholarly work. Who disagrees? Who agrees? Any examples of schlock or poor analysis or poor reporting. If not, This document is worth posting as a good source of current information. Speculation as to it's fraudulency, intent of authors, or it being leaked or not, seems to obfsuscate my posting and certainly are not a response to my statement or simple questions.--Gregory Goble (talk) 06:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Time for arbitration or can we figure this one out ourselves?--Gregory Goble (talk) 06:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

PPS This document was obtained through an information request... not suit... I erroneously thought the Defense Inteligence Agency only gave out info if you sued them. My bad... They are actually fairly open to inquiries. Try it... you'll see for yourself! --Gregory Goble (talk) 06:37, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

newenergytimes

This source is not reliable and so should not be treated as one. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Where is it used now ? I can't find it, let's discuss --POVbrigand (talk) 13:49, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I have found your delete: "They have continued to publish numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals."

As I stated when I edited this in. The existence of each of those papers is easily verifiable. The list happens to be compiled at newenergytimes. Including this is fully in line with WP:V. --POVbrigand (talk) 16:51, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

You can probably replace that source with [32] which is already in the external links. Selery (talk) 00:12, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm suprised you have no issue with the weasel word "numerous papers" which is not mentioned in any reliable source. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

It is original research to look at a list of papers and claim that there is numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Why not specify the actual count? Selery (talk) 12:46, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

In the 2009 - University of Missouri LENR Seminar presentation "Twenty year history in LENR research using Pd/D Co-deposition", SPAWAR scientists talk about 23 publications. --POVbrigand (talk) 13:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I mean the count from [33], i.e., over a thousand peer reviewed papers. Selery (talk) 14:01, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

dieterbritz.dk is a personal website and a seminar presentation is not reliable either. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:31, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

that publication is Self-published source. "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves," They say about themselves that they have published 23 peer reviewed papers. It is perfectly verifiable. --POVbrigand (talk) 16:30, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Counting the number of peer reviewed papers in a bibliography which has been in the external links for years is the kind of simple math inference allowed by WP:CALC. Selery (talk) 16:36, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

So, you want to say "23" instead of "numerous". But, what is the significance of this? Why are we mentioning it? What is the secondary source saying that this is relevant? --Enric Naval (talk) 23:32, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

It's more specific and not an unencyclopedic WP:VAGUE weasel word. I don't know whether the bibliography counts as a primary or a secondary source for the number of publications from a source, but I guess it's secondary. Selery (talk) 23:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Because it is adding valuable information to the lead which is saying that "... cold fusion articles are rarely published in refereed scientific journals" And it also tells us something about the level of work at SPAWAR. --POVbrigand (talk) 12:47, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

But we can't conclude anything about the level of work at SPAWAR. 23 papers over 20 years seems very low. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:40, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

it seems, it seems, it seems. Everything always seems. 23 papers in 20 years is more than 1 paper per year, it seems quite a lot to me. --POVbrigand (talk) 22:41, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Can somebody provide a link to the list of the 23 papers?...please. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 09:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/reports/SSC-SD-Refereed-Journal-Articles.shtml http://www.dieterbritz.dk/fusweb/papers . IRWolfie- (talk) 11:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

23 papers would be the output of roughly one person over 20 years. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:01, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, there are recent secondary sources analysing the publications in the field:

• "the terminal date is less clear, as papers are still being published on the subject (...), though in gradually decreasing numbers. (...) [cold fusion and polywater] journal literatures exhibit episodes of epidemic growth and decline. (...) There was no overall increase in journal publication multi-authorship in either the Polywater or Cold Nuclear Fusion journal literatures (...) " Ackermann 2006
• "All fields with conceptual or experimental frameworks grow and densify (i.e., show ˛> 1), whereas fields in search of breakthroughs do not (˛∼1), such as cold fusion (meaning that the networks of collaboration in CF research have not grown, the authors still work as isolated as when they started working in the field) (...) It is noteworthy that research areas that do not possess a high degree of shared concepts or practices tend to densify more slowly, if at all. (...) Finally, nuclear cold fusion is a field that never found a solid experimental or conceptual proof of principle, and as such has never become a field of collaboration and exchange. It shows α =1, manifesting the fact that it is mostly the product of small, disparate, and often incommensurate efforts." Bettencourt 2009.

Both point out the lack of collaboration of authors in the field, a characteristic of fields that don't grow or grow very slowly at most. None of them seems to consider the SPAWAR publication level a notable event.

Additionally:

• "But not cold fusion. Research has continued at a moderate level of activity right up to the present day. A good deal of the work has been published in nonmainstream journals (some created for the purpose) or electronically; but occasionally papers have appeared in prestigious prestigious locations, such as the 1993 paper by Pons and Fleischmanns on calorimetry, which was accepted by Physics Letters A.[37] This publication merits notice on further grounds: it reports what appears to be the last joint experimental work by Fleischmann and Pons on cold fusion. Perhaps more importantly, it is one of the last reports to be formally challenged on technical grounds by a cold fusion skeptic.[38] Subsequent claims have been almost completely ignored by the scientific mainstream, and the popular media has generally followed suit, with a few exceptions. (...) Bart Simon, who proposes a new model for understanding how and why research persists beyond the point where the vast majority of the community considers the field finished: he calls it “Undead Science”" Simon 2005.

--Enric Naval (talk) 12:39, 30 December 2011 (UTC) (Enric's sig moved down by ArtifexMayhem (talk) 18:08, 1 January 2012 (UTC))

Good sources Enric. The "23" papers are all WP:PRIMARY and don't tell us anything about "level of work at SPAWAR".

"Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation."

—ArtifexMayhem (talk) 18:08, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Counting the number of primary sources is not prohibited, it is not an "interpretation". see Wikipedia:SYNTHNOT#SYNTH_is_not_just_any_synthesis. If you still find that difficult to understand than maybe Wikipedia:SYNTHNOT#SYNTH_is_not_a_secondary-school_question will help you. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:19, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Take your thinly veiled personal attacks elsewhere. The point is "None of them seems to consider the SPAWAR publication level a notable event." ArtifexMayhem (talk) 16:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

"a notable event" -> WP:NNC. Adding the number of publications that SPAWAR self publicizes in their recent presentation is completely in line with WP-policy. Please read the policies and then comment. Thank you so much --POVbrigand (talk) 17:19, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Why is it due any weight in the article? It is not discussed in reliable secondary sources. (side: Where does SPAWAR self publicise?) IRWolfie- (talk) 11:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The problem with just pasting in the number of primary sources is that it is a contextless number. Is it a lot? Is it a little? More important, will the lay reader interpret it as being a lot, or a little, or more or less significant than it ought to be? A few weeks ago, we had a similar problem at thiomersal; a fringe conspiracy theorist felt that it was important to add the number of atoms of mercury in a vaccine dose to the article, the idea being to encourage the perception of danger by displaying a contextless large number. At first blush, 23 might sound like a fair number of publications. It would make a pretty thick stack if you printed them all out. But is it really?

A typical sciences graduate student at a good university is expected to turn out two or three publishable units of work in the course of a four-to-six-year Ph.D. program; 23 publications in 20 years is therefore the full scientific output of...two graduate students. Active university researchers publishing mostly low-impact papers probably need to be producing two or more papers per year as senior author if they want to have a prayer of hanging on to their jobs or continuing to secure funding; again, 23 publications in 20 years is the work product of half of one full-time principle investigator.

If we were to infer anything from this number, it would be that SPAWAR has had a few guys fiddling with this stuff as a hobby and doesn't have any full-time researchers in this area—or that their work has been remarkably unproductive. Regardless, hanging the bare number out there without context isn't a good idea. Unless there has been reliable secondary commentary on the interpretation of this (or other similar) figures, we shouldn't be throwing it our readers. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:36, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

That is the first reasonable argument why not to include "23". I can go with that. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:10, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It's the same argument that Enric Naval made above at 23:32, 28 December 2011, and that IRWolfie made at 15:40, 29 December 2011. Enric noted (implicitly) that the number was contextless, and that we needed secondary sources to comment on its significance (or lack thereof); IRWolfie – who seems to have a grasp of normal publication output – correctly observed that it was actually a pretty tiny dribble of publications. Enric further found a source that did comment on the significance of the level of publication in the field. ArtifexMayhem reiterated these points. You just didn't understand or didn't accept their arguments because you didn't like their conclusion, so you kept arguing long after everyone else realized that the point was settled. There may be certain parallels to cold fusion research. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I was actually ready to WP:CONCEDE. But you are right, instead of writing "first reasonable argument" I should have written "first well explained argument". But as you highligted that so much, I would like to take the opportunity to explain something too.

1) IRWolfie started the thread for his deletion of the line "They have continued to publish numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals" including a link to a list of papers by SPAWAR. His reason was that the list is hosted on newenergytimes and therefore not reliable. -> The list of papers is verifiable by looking them up one by one on google scholar. The list of papers is not unreliable just because it is hosted on newenergytimes. The entries on the list are all, one by one, verifiable from RS, see google.scholar.com.

2) IRWolfie then stated that "It is original research to look at a list of papers and claim that there is numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals." That is a different approach, a new argument to back up his deletion. So after WP:RS he brings in WP:OR. (later he also brings in WP:DUE) -> Maybe "numerous" is indeed a wrong quantifier for 23 papers, but not necessarily: In a field where the scientists are struggeling to get funded or have to perform the experiments in the off hours, 23 may be "numerous".

The discussion then changes to specifying the actual count, ie "23" instead of numerous.

3) IRWolfie then writes that: "dieterbritz.dk is a personal website and a seminar presentation is not reliable either". Now I think he is really pushing his point with that. a) dieterbritz.dk is a personal website, but the Dieter Britz collection is known within the field as a reliable list of cold fusion publications. And again, each of the entries in that list is by itself easily verifiable. b) a seminar presentation presented by the scientists themselves is WP:SPS and that is a valid source for claims of the scientists about themselves. In this case they state: "We have published 23 papers in peer reviewed journals"

You see that the 3 comments from IRWolfie are not acceptable for me.

The comments from Enric are the ones I normally listen to very carefully, because they are generally well thought. Enric writes: "So, you want to say "23" instead of "numerous". But, what is the significance of this? Why are we mentioning it? What is the secondary source saying that this is relevant?" -> That was not what I was originally arguing. I wanted to add to the SPAWAR section in the article, the fact that SPAWAR has published more than just 1 peer reviewed paper. The involved scientists at SPAWAR themselves mention in a presentation that they have published 23 papers. It seems reasonable to me to include that

Please excuse me, but after IRWolfie's reasoning in point 1), 2) and 3) I didn't think that his statement: "But we can't conclude anything about the level of work at SPAWAR. 23 papers over 20 years seems very low." had any merit.

Enric brings 3 sources and states that "None of them seems to consider the SPAWAR publication level a notable event.". I don't know if that is a valid point to make based on three tiny pieces of text.

Artifex writes: "Good sources Enric. The "23" papers are all WP:PRIMARY and don't tell us anything about "level of work at SPAWAR". "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." -> I really couldn't make anything out of this comment.: Counting the number of papers has nothing to do with WP:PRIMARY. "level of work" was only a part of one of my comments on the talk page. And his last BOLDed piece of policy misses the point.

Artifex continues about a notable event -> WP:NCC is all I can say to that

IRWolfie brings in WP:UNDUE -> after bringing in WP:RS and WP:OR that seems a bit policy shopping to me.

So again, I will WP:CONCEDE, but don't start rubbing in that I don't listen. I do my best to listen to what you are saying, but sifting through many not very carefully picked (IHMO "shot from the hip") arguments is not always easy.

And to conclude your comment with "There may be certain parallels to cold fusion research" is a veiled personal attack. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:56, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it's a reasonably explicit attack on the judgement of the very loud, but very small, group of people – both in the lab, and following them on the internet – who insist on giving this pathological research more attention and more credit than it merits. That said, given that you've created a sockpuppet with a provocative name to edit these articles so that your stubborn POV-pushing and I-didn't-hear-that attitude wouldn't rub off on the reputation of your primary Wikipedia account, I'm pretty sure that you grasp that the approach you're using isn't exactly in line with Wikipedia's best practices. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

If we were following best practices, the secondary sources from both points of view would be fairly represented in the article. At present, that is not the case. What makes your judgement superior to that of the scores of editorial boards and peer reviewers who have included LENR articles in dozens of unquestionably reputable journals? Or superior to that of the the NASA, Navy, and Army scientists who put their careers on the line to work on a controversial subject they say will have a larger impact than any other energy technology? Do you have some special expertise pertaining to electroweak interactions which allows you to absolutely rule out the hundreds of reports of anomalous effects? Or any evidence that the proponents are lying? Or deluded?

Why are so many people on this issue unable to deal with the uncertainly inherent in the controversy? We have some people trying to deny the controversy even exists while at the same time referring to its two sides, and now these heavy duty personal attacks. What is it about this subject that makes so many editors absolutist, exclusionist, and advocates of bias instead of NPOV adherents? Selery (talk) 18:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:NPA. Stop that ! --POVbrigand (talk) 18:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I bring different arguments to different points, it would be a case of Wikipedia:Don't stuff beans up your nose if I attempted to antipate every point which is raised. I raised the points in response to arguments put forward as in any normal discussion. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Scientific American "Ask the Experts" October 1999

This column is neither peer reviewed nor secondary, and is therefore not a reliable source. It is merely a collection of the brief personal opinions from a variety of researchers, none of whom have any apparent familiarity with the subject. Unreviewed personal opinions are less reliable than news stories. But this source ("Schaffer 1999", "Schaffer and Morrison 1999" etc.) is used no less than twenty times in the article to support absolutist statements contradicted by reliable sources, such as, "there are no theoretical explanations for how such elemental transmutations could occur, and the provided evidence is not strong enough to overthrow standard nuclear physics." Are there any reasons that this source and the statements attributed to it should not be removed from the article? Selery (talk) 18:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Selery, the article was published by Scientific American. It can be used. I think Michael J. Schaffer's comments are very good also to present the "other side", ie he talks about Tadahiko Mizuno and George Miley. I don't know where "there are no theoretical explanations for how such elemental transmutations could occur, and the provided evidence is not strong enough to overthrow standard nuclear physics." comes from, maybe the source is this: "Production of such heavy nuclei is so unexpected from our present understanding of low-energy nuclear reactions, that extraordinary experimental proof will be needed to convince the scientific community.", maybe it is this: "Even so, given the extraordinary nature of the claimed cold fusion results, it will take extraordinarily high quality, conclusive data to convince most scientists, unless a compelling theoretical explanation is found first." But both are a completely different wording.

I have no problem with the source per se. Maybe the attribution can be improved. --POVbrigand (talk) 21:47, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Publication in SciAm does not constitute the article being a wp:RS, though it is certainly wp:V. No source published that long ago should be used to support "There is no..." statements. At most they could support "As of 1999, there was no..." However, this discussion seems to have been of questionable value even at the time. I certainly was not a review of peer-reviewed literature. If some of the assertions made solely on the strength of that source are in doubt, I'd suggest tagging them with {{dubious}} to focus discussion on those specific assertions.LeadSongDog come howl! 22:06, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, I'll go through them all and tag the dubious uses. Selery (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Dubious

Only eight of the twenty uses of that Sci Am Schaffer et al 1999 source could be considered to bias the article or be otherwise controversial. I tagged those eight with {{dubious}} per the suggestion above, but that tag wants a "Dubious" section here on talk, hence this subsection. If anyone has any objections to the removal of the eight disputed statements, please find a better source for them in a week or so, because I intend to remove them unless they are sourced to reliable secondary peer reviewed publications. Selery (talk) 14:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It may take more than a week to sort that out, but there's wp:NODEADLINE. I'm also troubled by the statements which are referenced to refs 7, 47, 135, 137, etc. These references each cite multiple sources, making it unnecessarily obscure which source is being cited to support of the statement. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:16, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough; I'll move the text here on the talk page in a few days so those who wish can scrutinize the details. Selery (talk) 02:25, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow - Now that I look a bit deeper, I see the issues with this article. I certainly agree with most of the tags (I haven't checked them all). Example: "there are no theoretical explanations for how such elemental transmutations could occur, and the provided evidence is not strong enough to overthrow standard nuclear physics." This statement is not made in the article as far as I see. Not about the metals at least. And, there are plenty of theories on how the exotics occur (even then). The word "theoretical" is being misused, intentionally or not, in this article to covertly mean "not possible". That is not what it means and should not be used that way. I think people need to be a bit more careful. That entire reference is dubious unless very carefully handled. First off, the article is over a decade old and may not represent current understanding. Second, it's a biased article - and that's fine. It's not really a scientific article, but the personal (invited expert) opinion of a few scientists - made over a decade ago. Third, there are minor factual errors in the document (likely due to it's age). Lastly, it is a good article - I like it. However, citing the opinion in it as fact is dubious. Especially so when what is cited, is not actually stated in the article but simply implied - and the article itself is so old. I am too new here to feel comfortable making changes, but if it were me I would either re-phase those statements to stick with the article and make it clear it is expert opinion (preferred), or delete them wholesale. I am sure whoever made the statements was doing so in good faith. This is a common mistake to make and one I have made (and occasionally make and must correct) - but a mistake none-the-less.Prospero66 (talk) 18:15, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, WP:CITEKILL and failed verifications are serious issues for this article. I noted that too when I started editing this article last year. The problem with this controversial article is that every line needs a verification to protect it from getting deleted. An example: this was deleted and I had to add an extra verification as "protection" for the claim. [34]. When it comes to FRINGE articles, any claim that doesn't have a verification provided, will get deleted. Because every claim explaining (misunderstood as "advancing") the FRINGE view will be contested. What is sad is that the mainstream view is explained with numerous failed verifications. I found references from 1989 to support comments on events from 2010.

Thanks for noticing and if you want to do the WP-readership a big favor, then work with us to get these issues sorted out. --POVbrigand (talk) 11:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Here are the tagged statements moved from the article:

1. The scientific community continues to maintain a skeptical consensus regarding the subject due to the lack of experimental reproducibility and its theoretical implausibility.
2. New experimental claims are routinely dismissed or ignored by mainstream scientists and journals.
3. In other experiments, however, no excess heat was discovered, and, in fact, even the heat from successful experiments was unreliable and could not be replicated independently.
4. there are no theoretical explanations for how such elemental transmutations could occur, and the provided evidence is not strong enough to overthrow standard nuclear physics.
5. The lack of detection of gamma radiation seen in the fusion of hydrogen or deuterium to ⁴He was seen as an explanation that the helium detections are due to experimental error.
6. Proponents have proposed that the 24 MeV excess energy is transferred in the form of heat into the host metal lattice prior to the intermediary's decay.
7. However, theoretical calculations show that these effects are too small to increase the rate of fusion by any detectable amount.
8. Attempts at theoretical justification have either been explicitly rejected by mainstream physicists or lack independent review.

Selery (talk) 11:47, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Commercial competition

I haven't been keeping current about the E-Cat and Defkalion, but their product competition has recently been covered in Wired and the E-Cat demonstrations are being covered closely by Forbes. Should the fact that two competing commercial concerns have emerged be mentioned? Or is it too soon? Selery (talk) 12:35, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

McKubre talk at SRI

On October 11, long time LENR researcher Mike McKubre of SRI International gave a lengthy overview talk. I'm not sure if it's any good as an EL, but I'd recommend it for editors here, primarily for the information about Department of Energy internal interactions, which seems to explain quite a bit. Selery (talk) 12:35, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Mention all the theories considered by NASA?

Currently the section on "Theoretical proposals" only has Widom-Larson theory which, as I understand the situation, can't explain transmutations to lighter elements which have been observed. There are several other fairly small modifications of the traditional electroweak interactions which have been published in peer reviewed sources and received subsequent attention. I think NASA's list on page 14 here and from page 10 here is fairly complete. Should these be included? Are there any sources comparing how well their predictions match experimental results? Selery (talk) 12:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The paper from Krivit, S. and J. Marwan, A new look at low-energy nuclear reaction research. J. Environ. Monit., 2009. 11: p. 1731-1746. has a nice overview of proposed theories. But I do not think that a list of proposed theories will be helpful for the reader. AFAIK the Widom-Larsen theory is the one which is currently given the most credit by US institutions, so it deserves a mentioning. Whether or not a theory can explain something is a tricky subject, because according to mainstream physics NO theory can explain anything and thus the measurements / conclusions are thought to be false. IMHO, we should only write that many theory proposals exists, but I think something along that line is already in somewhere. --POVbrigand (talk) 15:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

NASA

I removed the following text here because of a failed verification:

NASA Langley Research Center has implemented an experimental

project consisting of researchers from inside and outside NASA preparing for feasibility tests to begin by summer

2011.Lunch and Learn Brown Bag "LENR @ Langley" (PDF), 28 March 2011

The reference is pointing to an announcement of a lunch talk for the AIAA (http://www.aiaa.org/) which struck me as odd when I was looking into this. Wouldn't the appropriate link be to NASA-Langley?

So I looked into this more carefully. The claim is that Robert W. Moses is being funded through a Creativity and Innovation Grant through Langley. And, indeed, he is being so-funded as can be seen [http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/rn_innovationmetric.html here].

However, he is not being funded to study cold fusion. He is being funded to study through the Atmospheric Flight & Entry Systems Branch, Sys. Engineering Directorate, "How Fast to Mars is Fast Enough?" If he is using his funds to conduct "LENR" experiments, he is probably in violation of his grant terms.

I have put in inquiries to the project director, Marty Waszak, to see if he can shed some light on the matter. In the meantime, I think it highly irresponsible for us to claim that NASA funded a cold fusion experiment until we can find a statement from NASA that such is the case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.169.48 (talk) 21:54, 20 December 2011 (UTC) SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 19:06, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Good call - and thanks for the excellent detective work! Fact-checking is an oft-overlooked function of good Wikipedia editors. SteveBaker (talk) 23:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd bet the Langley guy is using the "we'll have LENR-powered spaceships in X years" excuse, like someone at the Glenn Research Center [35]. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:27, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

• It’s rare that I have an opportunity to thank an I.P. editor for thorough and rigorous research and homework. Well done. Why don’t you register? Greg L (talk) 04:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Above here is OR. The IP might well be a banned user, that's why he won't register. NASA has performed and is performing LENR research, and they have spoken to Rossi. But no mention of NASA is in the Cold Fusion article. Congratulations for your joint censorship. Keep it up. You will surely find reasons to delete ENEA and SPAWAR from the article too if you all join hands.

Read this: [36] Tests conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center in 1989 and elsewhere consistently show evidence of anomalous heat during gaseous loading and unloading of deuterium into and out of bulk palladium. At one time called “cold fusion,” now called “low-energy nuclear reactions” (LENR), such effects are now published in peer-reviewed journals and are gaining attention and mainstream respectability. The instrumentation expertise of NASA GRC is applied to improve the diagnostics for investigating the anomalous heat in LENR. Presentation attached.

You all are just pushing YOUR ANTI CF POINT OF VIEW.

--POVbrigand (talk) 10:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

And that is an opinion from an individual researcher, not an statement from an official research body, not a review of the field from a mainstream source with good reputation. And available evidence was considered insufficient by DOE in 1989 and 2004, which would include the 1989 GRC results. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:05, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

It is your wishful thinking that it's only an opinion from an idividual researchers. It is on the website of an official research body. the DOE has nothing to do with it. "which would include" please provide evidence instead of pushing POV. --POVbrigand (talk) 11:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

It's text summarized from a presentation on a workshop. The presentation claims a 2009 "NASA IPP-sponsored effort" (IPP = Innovative Partnerships Program). I can't find a list of 2009 IPP partnerships to confirm this. How can we verify that this is not the same situation as the Langley guy above? (Being funded for something else, and then performing LENR research using part of those funds).

And IPP are partnerships started by some company that has requested research in order to get a patent. It's not a full-blown NASA program. NASA has decided to start on its own to start a program because of seeing merit in cold fusion.

These are low-quality sources, with no confirmation on other sources, being used by some supporters to make misrepresentations, with no review sources making interpretation of its significance for the field, written by people inside the field and with a conflict of interest, going against conclusions in better quality secondary sources, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not a summary of the presentation, that is your SYNTH. The text was there a long time before the presentation was added recently. You are analyzing the content of the presentation and comparing that with the limited resources you have access to to make your own SYNTH and to support your predefined biased conclusions.

The content of WP-articles is governed by content policies and not by your made up "low-quality" wishful thinking. --POVbrigand (talk) 12:24, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Let's check archive.org. The last entry is for July 2010, but it's currently down(we'll have to re-check later) [37]. The before-last entry is October 2009, where neither the text or the presentation are present[38]. It's been for 2 years at most.

From other sources I see that it's been only since the workshop was made in September 2011.. ecat-news.com says that the text was caused by the workshop [39], in Vortex-l they were expecting for the presentation to be uploaded right below the text[40]. That text is an introduction to that presentation, its only reason for existing is to introduce that presentation. It's not an independent summary prompted by the state of the research changing. The placement of the text makes it very clear. In 30th October the text had a warning saying

"Relevant Presentation:

+ Download presentation given at a LENR Workshop at NASA GRC in 2011 [available soon]."[41]

Try to find proof of that text existing before September 2001. Or proof of the text being other than an introduction to that specific presentation. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

That links fails to prove NASA is behind LENR. It is too weak and unverifiable. Binksternet (talk) 16:53, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Unverifiable ? Where did you get that from ? Please explain how this: "Tests conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center in 1989 and elsewhere consistently show evidence of anomalous heat during gaseous loading and unloading of deuterium into and out of bulk palladium. At one time called “cold fusion,” now called “low-energy nuclear reactions” (LENR), such effects are now published in peer-reviewed journals and are gaining attention and mainstream respectability. The instrumentation expertise of NASA GRC is applied to improve the diagnostics for investigating the anomalous heat in LENR." is "unverifiable". It IS on their website you know ? That bloody well satisfies verifiability, Stop filibustering. --POVbrigand (talk) 17:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Unverifiable in the sense that no proof is demonstrated that NASA is endorsing LENR. Tests were conducted "at" NASA GRC, not by NASA GRC. The only interest NASA has in the project is in the improvement of its instrumentation, and such instrumentation is needed by the LENR guys. The NASA webpage GRC Sensors and Electronics Physical Sensors Instrumentation Research points us to the terribly unscientific powerpoint-y promotional presentation linked here: "Development of techniques to investigate sonoluminescence as a source of energy harvesting". LOL, "A Galaxy of 'Nano-Stars' in a Jar". That's rich. The PDF concludes by telling us that "NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) is developing instrumentation technologies for the support of the mission to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research." That's the whole of their interest. The next sentence is expressed in promotional corporate-ese: "GRC is leveraging expertise in optical and physical instrumentation research to determine if the potential exists for energy harvesting from sonoluminescence." By "leveraging", the researchers intend to tie GRC to their results. The closest connection is, however, that NASA will suddenly be interested if the researchers actually get something worthwhile from one of their many experiments. Binksternet (talk) 18:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And there is no mention of the NASA Glenn tests in any of the comprehensive reviews by Huizenga, Close, Simon, Seife, Mallove, Beaudette and Storms. I can only find a passing mention of NASA experiments in Biberian's "An update on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science", and it's for the Lewis center, not the Glenn center. Apparently only a technical memorandum was ever published:

• G. C. Fralick, A. J. Decker, and J. W. Blue, Results of an attempt to measure increased rates of the reaction D-2 + D-2 yields He-3 + n in a nonelectrochemical cold fusion experiment NASA Technical Memorandum 102430, 1989.

Were Glenn's tests ever published anywhere? Are there sources saying that they are significant?

(And this text is still clearly an introduction written for a workshop presentation, not an official endorsement from SPAWAR.). --Enric Naval (talk) 18:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

@Enric, already forgot this [42] ? They have LENR on their freaking roadmap. --POVbrigand (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

NASA has filed a patent on a LENR system. [43]. --POVbrigand (talk) 01:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

September 22 GRC conference

Can someone authenticate [44], [45], and [46]? If they're authentic they show that LENR work is taking place at multiple NASA Centers, and Langley's Chief Scientist has made some pretty extreme claims ("No other single technology even comes close to the potential impacts of LENR upon Agency Missions.") Selery (talk) 01:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah-HA! Directly from NASA's web site: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/docs/LENR_at_GRC_2011.pdf -- incontrovertible proof that NASA has not only been working on it at least since 2009, but they've been getting positive results. As reliable a source as they come. Quoting from page 19:

Benefits for NASA:

• Replace 238Pu as power source in deep space missions
-- Currently in short supply
-- Now depend upon foreign sources
-- Perhaps 5 years to supply our own
-- No money in new budget to restart domestic production

• Replace fission reactors as power source for human habitation missions
-- No radioactive waste
-- No radioactive material accident hazard on launch

Selery (talk) 00:29, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Reliable source that NASA performs LENR research

evidence of reliability:

"RBC is one of Russia's largest and dynamic media companies. It operates in the Internet, television and print media segments. RBC occupies a leading position on the business information market in Russia and the CIS, and is expanding its presence in the area of general interest Internet."

"RBC’s Internet-based line of business goes back to 1995, when the business news portal www.rbc.ru was established. Currently, the portal is the leader among other Russian business Internet resources. As of the end of 2010, the Rbc.ru audience topped 15 million users. Apart from the main portal, such web resources as Rbcdaily.ru (a business daily), Cnews.ru (a hi-tech news website), Autonews.ru (an automotive news website), Quote.ru (a financial information portal), and Realty.rbc.ru (a real estate website) also enjoy a high degree of demand and popularity among the business audience."

The sources:

CNEWS.ru - "NASA promises an era of low-energy fusion" [47]

That article was relayed in Gazeta.ru - "NASA once again promises a breakthrough in cold fusion" [48]

The fact that NASA actively performs LENR research should be in the article. Stop defending the deletion by banned VanishedUser314159.

--POVbrigand (talk) 14:23, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

::Sorry, but in no sense does a Russian news website serve as a reliable source for what NASA is funding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.171.184 (talk) 17:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC) SOCK of banned user VanishedUser314159 --POVbrigand (talk) 19:05, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Not as reliable as [49] perhaps, but it does count as a secondary news source, which is more important for Wikipedia's purposes. Selery (talk) 00:15, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I have edited it all in. --POVbrigand (talk) 23:09, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Another reliable source that NASA performs LENR research

A peer reviewed "review" (ie. NOT primary, but secondary source) paper discussing the NASA results. "Progress in Condensed Matter Nuclear Science " from X.Z. Li - Journal of Fusion Energy - Volume 25, Numbers 3-4, 175-180, DOI: 10.1007/s10894-006-9023-8 [50] --POVbrigand (talk) 01:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Enric, what is your problem. You completely disregard these RS. --POVbrigand (talk) 02:23, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

"LENR at GRC" is not WP:RS for the claims made

Currently our article contains...

Some institutions continue to fund cold fusion research, such as the Italian ENEA, the U.S. Navy SPAWAR, and NASA.^[15][16][17]
...and...
In a recent presentation researchers from NASA Glenn Research Center expressed a great potential for LENR.^[87][88][17]

Ref [17] is a presentation given at a LENR Workshop at NASA GRC (LENR at GRC) sourced from the Research sub-page of Physical Sensor Instrumentation Research at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC)...

From the Contacts page...

...snip...

Researchers

• Gus Fralick (216) XXX-XXXX xxxx@nasa.gov
• John Wrbanek (216) XXX-XXXX xxxx@nasa.gov

...snip...

link

From the Research page (in the footer)...

...snip...

NASA Official: John D. Wrbanek
Curator: John D. Wrbanek
Last Updated: December 16, 2011

link

From the presentation...

Authors

• Gustave C. Fralick • John D. Wrbanek • Susan Y. Wrbanek • Janis Niedra (ASRC)
  

References

• Fralick, G., Decker, A., Blue, J., “Results of an Attempt to Measure Increased Rates of the Reaction 2D + 2D ? 3He + n in a Non-electrochemical Cold Fusion Experiment,” NASA TM-102430 (1989).
• Niedra, J., Myers, I., Fralick, G., Baldwin, R. “Replication of the Apparent Excess Heat Effect in a Light Water-Potassium Carbonate-Nickel Electrolytic Cell”, NASA TM-107167 (1996)
• Li, Xing Z.; Liu, Bin; Tian, Jian; Wei, Qing M.; Zhou, Rui and Yu, Zhi W.: “Correlation between abnormal deuterium flux and heat flow in a D/PD system,” J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 36 3095-3097 (2003).
• Miley, G.H., N. Luo, and A. Lipson, "Proton Transport Through Atomic Layer Coated Thin-films", March Meeting 2003 of the APS, vol. 2, pp.1124, March 3-7, (2003).
• Liu, Bin; Li, Xing Z.; Wei, Qing M.; Mueller, N.; Schoch, P. and Orhre, H. “„Excess Heat? Induced by Deuterium Flux in Palladium Film.” The 12th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, Yokohama, Japan, Nov. 27 – Dec. 2, 2005
• Widom, A., Larsen, L., “Ultra Low Momentum Neutron Catalyzed Nuclear Reactions on Metallic Hydride Surfaces," Eur. Phys. J. C (2006)
• Wrbanek, J., Fralick, G., Wrbanek, S., “Development of Techniques to Investigate Sonoluminescence as a Source of Energy Harvesting”, NASA TM-2007-214982 (2007)
• Biberian, J.P. and Armanet, N.: “Excess Heat Production During Diffusion of Deuterium Through Palladium Tubes” 8th International Workshop on Anomalies in Hydrogen/Deuterium Loaded Metals, Sicily, Italy, 2007.
• Kim, Y. E., “Theory of Bose-Einstein Condensation for Deuteron-Induced Nuclear reactions in Micro/Nano-Scale Metal Grains and Particles”, Naturwissenschaften 96, 803(2009).
• Wrbanek, J., Fralick, G., Wrbanek, S., Hall, N. “Investigating Sonoluminescence as a Means of Energy Harvesting,” Chapter 19, Frontiers of Propulsion Science, Millis & Davis (eds.), AIAA, pp. 605-637, 2009.
• Fralick, G., Wrbanek, J., Wrbanek, S., Niedra, J., Millis, M., “Investigation of Anomalous Heat Observed in Bulk Palladium”, IPP Final Report (2009)

• From WP:PRIMARY (hilites mine)...

• Primary sources are very close to an event, often accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. An account of a traffic accident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the accident; similarly, a scientific paper documenting a new experiment is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment.(refs ommitted)

Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base articles and material entirely on primary sources. Do not add unsourced material from your personal experience, because that would make Wikipedia a primary source of that material. Use extra caution when handling primary sources about living people; see WP:BLPPRIMARY, which is policy.

1. The claim that NASA continues to "fund cold fusion research" is not supported by the source.
2. Stating in Wikipedia's voice that "...researchers from NASA Glenn Research Center expressed a great potential for LENR." is a red-herring used to infer NASA support for cold fusion.

The presentation is not a WP:RS for the two sentences and should be removed. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 00:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Primary sources are allowed for statements that a person or an organization said. Your detail above doesn't suggest anything which would make those statements less authoritative. You should probably ask about this on WP:RSN -- you might find you're straining credulity with this line of argument. If an organization is publishing internal Technical Notes on a topic, they're funding research on it at least at some level. 67.6.132.34 (talk) 07:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Hosting a lunch and learn presentation doesn't constitute institutional endorsement or review of the content, even if it was in forthright English prose, which this is not. If the authors did manage to convince the attendees of something, there should be little difficulty getting that published in a real wp:RS. Meanwhile there is wp:NODEADLINE. We can wait. LeadSongDog come howl! 08:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

@Artifex:

1) "The claim that NASA continues to "fund cold fusion research" is not supported by the source." The text in the article does not claim that NASA continues to fund anything -> "In April 2011 Dennis M. Bushnell, Chief scientist at NASA Langley Research Center, stated that LENR is a very "interesting and promising" new technology that is likely to advance "fairly rapidly." [86] In a recent presentation researchers from NASA Glenn Research Center expressed a great potential for LENR.[87][88][17]" Straw man ?

2) Stating in Wikipedia's voice that "...researchers from NASA Glenn Research Center expressed a great potential for LENR." -> WP:YESPOV "...Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil."..." The line is correctly attributed to the particular source, thus not stated in Wikipedia's voice.

@LeadSongDog:

The "lunch and learn" talk "LENR @ Langley" [51] is currently not used in the article. What are you complaining about ? The currently used presentation is titled "LENR at GRC" and is hosted at a NASA server.

--POVbrigand (talk) 13:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

NASA work is covered in detail in [52], a secondary source co-authored by a NASA researcher. 67.6.132.34 (talk) 14:01, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Is there a free convenience link to that book chapter? Selery (talk) 04:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

NASA LENR video presentation

hosted on a NASA server: Method for Enhancement of Surface Plasmon Polaritons to Initiate & Sustain LENR

"... researchers at NASA Langley Research Center are working on another way on producing energy efficient nuclear power ..."

--POVbrigand (talk) 12:41, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Hopefully they will publish something soon. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 13:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

NASA mention in intro

This deletion of NASA from the intro has the edit summary, "NASA funding not supported by source." I propose to restore the deleted text, with references from this secondary book chapter: [53], these primary NASA Technical Memoranda: [54] and [55], these primary NASA website sources: [56], [57], and [58], these primary slide presentation sources: [59], [60], [61], and [62], this patent application: [63], and these secondary news sources: [64] and [65]. Selery (talk) 21:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Enric came up with the "funding" wording [66]. But Enric is not to "blame", because NASA was added in later, possibly by me by Selery [67]. Now Artifex deletes the mentioning of NASA because "funding not supported by source". Artifex may be right about the "funding" wording, but research has been going on at NASA. So we just have to work on a wording that is in line with the sources and then we put NASA back in. --POVbrigand (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

"Performing"? Selery (talk) 22:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

According to NASA's LENR video "working on" is how they describe it themselves, see http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html --POVbrigand (talk) 13:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Similarly with the Navy

Diff deleting Navy SPAWAR from the intro. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the subject understands that the Navy has been working on LENR continuously since 1989, publishing in peer reviewed journals, never wavering in their claims of positive research results, and never the subject of any substantial controversy -- indeed garnering praise from detractors of other LENR work as explained e.g. in the first two minutes of [68]. Is there any reason to hide these facts other than blatant POV pushing? Selery (talk) 07:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: "At (some/several/a few) institutions (some) research is taking place, such as the Italian ENEA, the U.S. Navy SPAWAR, and NASA." --POVbrigand (talk) 07:36, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

How about "LENR research has been performed at the US Navy SPAWAR from 1989 to the present, at ENEA in Italy from ____ to the present, at NASA in 1989, 1996, and 2009 to the present, and at the US Army from 2009 to the present" ? Selery (talk) 14:24, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I tried to separate the closed research programs from the affiliated scientists. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:25, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit [69]. I think that it is not completely correct, in Japan and ENEA research is still ongoing. The japanese "New Hydrogen Energy" project was stopped, but other research efforts continues. For ENEA I cannot find RS that research is discontinued, afaik De Ninno and her coleagues are still at it. It is also clear that at NASA some research is being done, see the two russian RS that I have provided. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:36, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Here are additional sources: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/docs/LENR_at_GRC_2011.pdf , http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/research.htmProspero66 (talk) 20:27, 7 January 2012 (UTC)