Talk:Cold fusion

IMPORTANT: This is not the place to discuss your personal opinions of the merits of cold fusion research. This page is for discussing improvements to the article, which is about cold fusion and the associated scientific controversy surrounding it. See Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. If you wish to discuss or debate the status of cold fusion please do so at the VORTEX-L mailing list..

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

Neutrality issues due to omission of facts

There are quite a few very biased proponents and naysayers about Cold Fusion. However one of the most convincing ways to lie is to tell the truth but omit key facts.

The results of Muonic fusion are qualitative in nature yet we believe them yet the data from Aqueous Cold Fusion is too quantitative for the indicated reaction conditions. (The bias of one Nuclear physicist to Cold Fusion might in part be because his Lab blew up, no doubt because he was a careful experimenter trying to get into the second wave of papers.)

The theory behind Muonic fusion takes the Muon (as 507 times heavier than an electron) and replaces the electron in the quantum equation of the Hydrogen molecule. The resulting equation has the two nuclei in much closer proximity than a normal Hydrogen molecule, with neutron(or proton or deuteron) tunneling amplitude being significant in the other nucleus. The tunneling amplitude is high enough that it seems to be quantitative for the thousand or so reactions before the Muon decays.

The theory behind Aqueous Cold Fusion was that Molecular Hydrogen becomes Atomic Hydrogen after absorption by Palladium exists interstitially as protons within the metallic orbitals of Palladium. As the Palladium saturates with Hydrogen, two Hydrogen nuclei will occupy these interstitial sites becoming similar in proximity to the Hydrogen Nuclei in the Muonic Atom. Defects and Impurities (or lack of) in the Palladium metal will help crowd these Hydrogen nuclei.

Most Chemical Suppliers (and jewelers) sourced bulk Palladium as 99% with x impurities. Palladium absorbs Hydrogen readily, but at ratios above H:Pd of ~1 or higher the Palladium undergoes a phase change reaction that can be violent. Palladium used in Hydrogen gas purifier membranes is 5% Silver to avoid this reaction. (Palladium is also alloyed because it is very soft like Gold.) A 20 gram disk of Palladium will purify (pass through)enough Hydrogen from a chemical Hydrogen generator to fill a ~25 liter Weather Balloon in a few minutes. There is no mention of the 104 Kcal per mole generated by the recombination of atomic hydrogen to molecular hydrogen. Another fact that this article omits is that all "successful" experiments used concentrated Lithium Hydroxide (Deuteroxide) at an alkalinity that would cause considerable overvoltage of Hydrogen resulting in injection of Lithium atoms into the Palladium matrix (a common side effect in ElectroPlating. The "fusion" is said not to occur if Sodium Hydroxide or Protonic Water. If, accounting for cathode size and shape variation, a Palladium membrane can pass that much Hydrogen then one shouldn't need to preload hydrogen for a week. Electromigration of defects, impurities, metals (Lithium?) could conceivably take that long. Although Hydrogen flows freely through Palladium, Helium does not. Very few Palladium cathodes were sacrificed (dissolved) to determine trapped gasses and other fusion products.

Shjacks45 (talk) 21:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Dude, your post above is so laced with errors that I don't have the time to address them all. What change exactly are you proposing for the article? Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:36, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I will collapse this topic if no reliable source is provided for this info. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

There is one glaring error that I feel obliged to point out, regarding that first post: The mass of a muon is actually more like 207 times that of the electron, not 507. I'd also like to know more about that claimed "phase change reaction that can be violent", when the H:Pd ratio gets high enough. This is the first I've heard of such a thing --and if true, that alone might explain the energy observations of just about all the CF researchers. Note that I'm expecting this to be different from something long known, that the permeation of hydrogen into palladium is normally somewhat (not violently) exothermic. V (talk) 15:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Mea culpa, I didn't know the Muon weight (times electron is relative and not accurate anyway), it is from another wiki that apparently has accurate sources like this one. (Or Kcal vs KCal, point was there is enough heat from Hydrogen recombination to melt Steel.) By "violent" I meant enough energy to break a glass beaker, used in many attempts to repro CF. Part of the cathode is out of the solution so I presume that pressure (due to voltage) of Hydrogen entering the electrode would create more than 2Pd:H ratio typical of adsorption. Need a lot of pressure to get to 1:1.5 ratio. The Pd gas purification membranes on a Gas Chromatograph I used was made for a regulator, 300 PSI max recommended. Industrial Hydrogen cylinder is 7000 PSI. Steady state there is no heat in the Pd membrane except from pressure differential. Note the CF requirement to preload the electrode with Hydrogen for a few days. Yet Hydrogen travels through Pd separation membranes rapidly.

I wasn't questioning "violent"; I was questioning "phase change reaction". Such a change would be more physical (like an atomic-lattice rearrangement) than chemical, and of course have nothing to do with nuclear fusion (even though the old old term "heat of fusion" --associated with a melting point-- might well apply, heh!). Like I wrote, before, this is the first I've heard of such a thing as a phase change reaction when lots of hydrogen gets into palladium. Finally, regarding something else you wrote, the reason the CF researchers doing electrolysis experiments need to run those experiments for many days is because hydrogen comes out of the electrode almost as easily as it goes in, when running at ordinary atmospheric pressure. That makes it obvious that considerable time can be needed to accumulate deuterium/hydrogen inside the electrode, to the level needed for unusual stuff to begin to be observed/reported. V (talk) 04:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I would assume someone moderating the cold fusion page would be familiar with the references on the Wiki already. The concept of tunneling is discussed in several key papers on low temperature fusion quoted in this Wiki, I had perhaps wrongly assumed that "neutral" moderator had read these papers himself? I would think that anyone in charge of this page knew that the Solution of Schrödinger equation for Hydrogen was a Wikipedia article under "Hydrogen Atom". I received my Chemistry degree over 30 years ago and the Sources I regularly quoted for my daily work, including legal depositions, were usually copyrighted. References like the Chemical Rubber Handbook, ASTM Test Methods, ASME Procedures, Merck manuals. In college and as a UW alumna I've used references to Journals such as Journal of the American Chemical Society and Tetrahedron Letters, publicly available at the University of Washington Libraries but inaccessible (but often referenced in Wikipedia)on the Internet without payment. There are public papers on www.lenr-canr.org but I thought you should be familiar with those. The point remains that your providing detail for the Anti Cold Fusion arguments and refusing to provide details about Cold Fusion (making it appear empty) makes the writing in this Wiki BIASED against Cold Fusion. If you think the writing is neutral then you could explain to me why you think so.

By the way, this is a discussion page. Other posts, anti cold fusion posts, don't seem to be required to put references in their posts. I don't remember a Wikipedia policy for requiring references in Discussions. Definitely seems to underscore your bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shjacks45 (talk • contribs) 00:57, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

That's nice, but could you propose a specific change, and give a specific reference for that change? Otherwise, we are not going to get much work done here.

(for example, taking one of the statements in your opening post, you could propose to add "all "successful" experiments used concentrated Lithium Hydroxide (Deuteroxide) at a certain alkalinity", and then giving a source for that statement.) --Enric Naval (talk) 02:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I have a question. Suppose we added a line to the article somewhere about the fact that hydrogen in general has a very easy time passing into/through palladium. While there is plenty of WP:RS that that is true, is there any RS anywhere about why it is true? So far as I know, nobody actually knows exactly why. But I did see a post somewhere on the Internet where the well-known thing called "The Table Of Electronegativities" ( http://0.tqn.com/d/chemistry/1/0/w/v/PeriodicTableElectronegativity.jpg ) maybe offered a clue to part of the mystery. It is obvious for anyone to see that Palladium and Hydrogen have the same electronegativity --so, The Question:-- would we need some RS that actually says, "palladium and hydrogen have the same electronegativity"???. It means that there is "no conflict" for electrons, in terms of chemical reactivity, between the two elements. Also, the SPAWAR codeposition experiment relies totally on that fact; the electroplating of palladium out of solution, while simultaneously electrolyzing heavy water, yields a 1:1 ratio of the two elements ("100% loading" of palladium with hydrogen, the CFer's say) exactly because they have the same electronegativity. And because SPARWAR gets high loading from the get-go, they don't need to wait a long time before being able to make claims of observing excess heat. NITPICK: it is possible to find Electronegativity tables in which the value of hydrogen is 2.1 and palladium is 2.2 --not identical-- so I don't really know what the real values actually are. Does anyone? Anyway, the SPAWAR experiment certainly indicates they are very close to being the same. V (talk) 15:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Any conjecture regarding electronegativities of metals being relevant to cold fusion experiments is original research. To wit, iridium has an electronegativity similar to that of hydrogen and palladium but does not have the hydrogen absorptivity that is known for palladium and platinum. There are external references that say the peculiar properties of palladium and platinum are what get cold fusioners so hot and bothered, but that's as far as we can go. Speculating on why these metals are good at absorbing hydrogen is well-beyond the scope of what this article can handle. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Uh, yeah, seconding that - original research. The point of the page is not to argue that cold fusion is possible, based on X, Y and Z and the "casual comment" that hydrogen can pass through a palladium lattice is just as inappropriate as a "casual comment" that suggests a reason why cold fusion is impossible. These aren't "casual comments", these are original research soapboxing that attempts to push the idea that cold fusion has been unjustly rejected. The scientific consensus is that cold fusion was an example of pathological science, and this hasn't changed yet. Please stop trying to prove that cold fusion actually exists - wikipedia is about verfiability, not truth, and when it is verifiable that the scientific community accepts cold fusion exists, we can document this. Until then, per WP:UNDUE we summarize the skeptical scientific consensus. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you guys having fun blowing stuff out of proportion? I quote from my post above, "I did see a post somewhere on the Internet where the well-known thing called "The Table Of Electronegativities" ... maybe offered a clue to part of the mystery." Do you not understand that that was the WP:OR --not anything I posted above? Nor was I talking about trying to prove cold fusion is real; I was talking such documented consequences (in WP:RS, too!) as the SPARWAR codeposition experiments --all I was doing was explaining why "codeposition" is a logical and possible and, during electrolysis, an experimentally achievable result of two elements having similar electronegativites. I quote: "...because SPARWAR gets high loading from the get-go, they don't need to wait a long time before being able to make claims of observing excess heat" --that is not at all about "proving" cold fusion; that is merely a report of claims made. Just because I chose to focus on the extra energy they've almost casually said they saw, and not mention the neutron-track data they thought was more important.... To ScienceApologist, that is a good point about Iridium, and obviously it means that even if the electronegativites thing is a factor, it is not the only factor as to why palladium likes absorbing hydrogen. Hmmm...we could find plenty of RS saying that palladium is a good catalyst while iridium isn't ... but of course then we would also need some RS indicating that that could be be the extra factor... and I already said that I didn't know if anyone knows the answer to the mystery.

Meanwhile, I see neither one of you bothered to answer the Question I asked about. If anyone can see the obvious for themselves, from an Electronegativites Table, that the values of hydrogen and palladium are the same, do we need RS where somebody actually wrote that the values are the same??????? V (talk) 20:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't consider this fun, I consider it annoying and unnecessary. Cold fusion = rejected, so there's no reason to play "let's pretend" with electronegativities. This isn't a scientific article, since cold fusion isn't science, so there's no need to pull in irrelevant sources. If you're not suggesting an actual change to the main page, don't bother posting. If you're suggesting a change that hints, nudges or alludes to "excess heat" - don't bohter unless you have a source, it is reliable, and is explicit about supporting cold fusion. This is not a chat room. "Extra factors" and speculation are irrelevant - cold fusion is considered nonsense; unless a source is explicit and reliable about the point you are trying to make, it's a pointless waste of time. Why should we bother including information about electronegativity when, again, cold fusion is considered nonsense? The answer is, we shouldn't. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:17, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

To be clear: the electronegativities of elements are irrelevant to this page unless a reliable source has commented on them as being relevant to cold fusion. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:04, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, if I wasn't absolutely, crystal, 100% clear on that before, allow me to voice my agreement now. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:21, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The two of you are obviously deliberately avoiding paying attention. There is indeed a valid reason to talk about electronegativies in the article, and that is simply to explain to the reader what a "codeposition" experiment entails, and why such an experiment is possible to do. The SPAWAR experiments have reached WP:RS publication (at least two "Springerlink" journal papers), and while the anti-CFers desperately tried to declare Springerlink to have become non-RS simply because they dared to publish a CF paper or two, the anti-CFers failed in that endeavor, which means this article is free to discuss the SPAWAR experiments in appropriate detail. Per the "Omission of Facts" title of this Talk Section, I see the article currently mentions the SPAWAR experiment but not in best way, in the "Publications and Conferences" section: "(SPAWAR) reported detection of energetic neutrons in a standard cold fusion cell design" --that faultily implies they were not doing codepositon! --which certainly can use a relatively standard-design electrolytic cell, but at least one of the chemicals being electrolyzed (a palladium compound) is very far from standard! Do note that such a detailed description, about stuff any decent mainstream electro-chemist would have no trouble with or objection to, has nothing to do with trying to prove that CF is real. The only thing we might need is a bit more in the way of third-party RS, about the SPAWAR experiments. I have no reason to think such will not appear in due course if we don't have enough already, and so it doesn't hurt to get prepared, by getting all the worthless objections out of the way now, instead of later. So, what are your next worthless objections? V (talk) 05:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Calling someone's objections "worthless" is a borderline personal attack. The supposed "non-standard" use of palladium in an electrolytic cell needs to be discussed in a reliable source: not just "prepared for". There is no sense in us having discussions about things which may or may not happen in the future. Wait until the sources you think are bound to show up actually appear. Then we'll discuss it. Until then, this is in violation of WP:TALK. I suggest archiving this discussion and all other discussions of this nature which are not suggesting immediately actionable edits to the article. ScienceApologist (talk) 08:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 10:26, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

What makes a comment worthless is the ignoring of relevant information before putting one's fingers to the keyboard (not to mention the deliberate focusing on minutia as if it was more important than the relevant information). Here are some links that may be relevant:

[1] (paper presented at American Physical Society meeting; the first thing it says is that codeposition experiments have been replicated), [2] (Note the authors mostly work at different labs) [3] (this page lists several publications of SPAWAR codeposition experiments)

[4] This one may be the most interesting --looks almost like a University Course on Cold Fusion! Does that count as Secondary RS?? (and some of the links there refer to the SPAWAR codeposition experiments)

Those links were basically found by a simple Google search for [ spawar codeposition ] --more than 1500 results. If the word "excess" is added to the search, the number of results drops to about 250, but it offers a chance to focus on excess heat and not CR-39 tracks. Here's an organization I never heard of before:

[5] --perhaps they don't care what the source of energy is, as long as an experiment yields excess energy? (Reminds me of companies making high-temperature superconductors without caring why they work.) Of course I'm fully aware that there is controversy regarding the claims of production of excess energy. Just for fun, here's a link describing CF kits-for-sale, for anyone to find out if excess energy can be produced: [6]  :) V (talk) 14:23, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The only pages that use the words "cold fusion" are a page by a high school teacher (the "university course"), and a mail archive, neither of which are reliable secondary sources. And here is a three year old source from Wired saying we shouldn't believe in cold fusion based on SPAWAR. Anything new, and explicit? The consistent point made is you are asserting "X is cold fusion" and insisting we take your word for it. Again, it's going to take a solid, high-quality source (more likely set of sources) claiming cold fusion is a real deal to change the page. Simple google searches don't help - reliable sources do. The fact that you would present this is a reliable source is indicative of the problem. This is a personal web page by an author that doesn't appear to have any real publications - just a bunch of personal observations and presentations at conferences. Presentations are not reliable sources, particularly not for surprising fringe claims, and particularly when it's well noted that cold fusion conferences, sparsely attended by true believers, still occur. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:26, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think these links belong in WP without some context. SPAWAR is already mentioned and discussed in what I deem to be enough detail for this article. The personal webpage of the math instructor at Montclair State is neither timely nor particularly accurate. That there are companies selling cold fusion kits is an amusing anecdote, but one that probably only bares one sentence mentioning. If you'd like to workshop a suggestion for how to write such a sentence for this article, I'd be amenable. Start a new section, though. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:32, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I admit I didn't look too closely at that teacher's site; do note, though, that I said "looks almost like" --I didn't say it actually was a university course. Next, I object to you, WLU, spouting the outright lie that I was "asserting "X is cold fusion" ". I have been describing experiments in the cf field; I have not been claiming that any of them prove cold fusion has been happening. And how can you possibly think the SPAWAR researchers are not investigating the subject of cold fusion when their papers so often talk about neutron-detection results? Not to mention, I see you have distorted your description of that Wired article, which says, exactly, "Should people believe in cold fusion based on the SPAWAR experiments (alone)? Probably not." Replication matters!!! --which is where that new paper comes in, with multiple authors from multiple labs (linked in my prior post). I fully understand the mainstream view that it is at the very least jumping-to-a-conclusion to insist that nuclear fusion is happening in those experiments; all I care about here is whether or not any of those experiments can generate excess energy, AND whether or not it can be replicated. I am getting the impression from you, that just because the mainstream thinks cold fusion is impossible, so also is impossible any excess energy in these experiments --even though it is the excess energy that the experimenters had to observe before jumping to the conclusion that fusion was responsible-- but you have never said why there cannot possibly be some other event going on instead of fusion, to cause some excess energy. I am reminded of the equally-derided "hydrino" hypothesis, and that recent remark about a "phase change reaction", mentioned earlier in this Talk Section. Are you going to say that We Know It ALL, and that is why there cannot possibly be ever-in-a-trillion-years anything unusual going on in those experiments????

Perhaps the answer relates to an inherent dilemma, caused by the anti-CFers here! If something other that fusion is going on, that would mean we need to write a different article than this one! So, hmmmm, maybe we should start writing such an article. How about "Anomalous Energy Experiments" ? V (talk) 20:13, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

It's time for you to get over your battleground perceptions, stop guessing about what the future will hold and suggest we start writing articles about it before breakthroughs happen, and stop trying to use Wikipedia to right great wrongs you perceive to have been done in the context of cold fusion arguments. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:46, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Again you misinterpret or misunderstand. I am not predicting any such thing as a breakthrough. I am talking about a great many existing experiments in the CF field where the experimenters report seeing excess energy --and in recent years they have carefully avoided using the phrase "cold fusion" in their papers, to increase the chance of publication. The approximate replication of Arata's pressurized-gas experiment is one such, getting deuterium into palladium in a different way than by using an electrolysis cell. Since they didn't use the magic words "cold fusion" in their paper, though, the feeble excuse has been raised time and time again that the experiment does not deserve mention in this article. But it most certainly could deserve mention in an article about Anomalous Energy Experiments! V (talk) 06:48, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

A wall of text, no sources, a lot of assertions and no reason to change the page. Objectivist, please let it go, there's nothing here to support a change - either policy or source basis. Again, this talk page is not a soapbox, please stop using it as one. I'm now in WP:DNFTT territory for this section, if there's a source I need to comment on, I will but otherwise I'm not wasting more time. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:53, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I have been following this discussion with much less certainty that "cold fusion = rejected", because I don't see how that view could possibly be construed as supported by recent reliable published sources, and have posted such a source at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive_72#Hagelstein's cold fusion review in Naturwissenschaften for comment. Ura Ursa (talk) 04:08, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is an interesting link: http://www.reference.com/browse/pd.d. --in which is specifically stated, regarding Pons and Fleischmann, "Lacking an explanation for the source of such heat, they proposed the hypothesis that the heat came from nuclear fusion of deuterium (D)." I know we have lots of RS slanted toward them insisting that fusion was happening, but that does not seem a reasonable thing for highly regarded researchers to do, so I kept looking.... --V (talk) 19:36, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a mirror of wikipedia. The copyright date is 2001-2006, so it's probably a 2006 version of our article. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Old claims and new data

Violation of WP:TALK
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The present article talks about claims made in the 1920s and 1932 regarding palladium loaded with hydrogen. The first reference is similar to Arata's (and others') modern experiments (except now they use deuterium and not plain hydrogen). The second, of course, was the inspiration for Pons and Fleischmann. I'd specifically like to ask about the relation between the 1920s experiments and approximate replication of Arata's experiment that was published in Physics Letters A ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2009.06.061 ). The current article doesn't say anything about the detection of energy in the 1920s experiments; the PLA article strongly focuses on the detection of energy. I see that the article currently references other references, regarding the 1920s experiments, and so it could be nice to find the orginial publication data. I found this link: http://books.google.com/books?id=eq7TfxZOzSEC&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=%22Friedrich+Paneth%22+%22Kurt+Peters%22+hydrogen+palladium&source=bl&ots=Se6FAOoRY0&sig=Q5vtl96k9g8rJbqN-m7NO5fYOrM&hl=en&ei=JABbTMCqFoaWsgO_p-CyDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Friedrich%20Paneth%22%20%22Kurt%20Peters%22%20hydrogen%20palladium&f=false that pretty much says the same thing as the current article (and could perhaps replace the current reference-to-a-reference) --although near the top of that page is a statement to the effect that when four ordinary hydrogens fuse to make helium, considerable energy is released. It seems unrealistic to think that the 1920s experimenters were not looking for energy as well as for helium, coming as their research did hot on the heels of Eddington's proposal for why the Sun shines. I also understand, however, that they could well have not found any energy (especially since they didn't use deuterium), and therefore didn't report it. It would be an interesting question, though: "Where did they think the energy went?" --when they were very willing to claim to have detected helium! (Isn't speculation fun?) V (talk) 19:36, 5 August 2010 (UTC) Hey, I did at least offer a link that should be an improvement, for the article, in terms of replacing an existing link. V (talk) 04:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC) How was WP:TALK supposedly violated by the collapsed text? Ura Ursa (talk) 09:56, 7 August 2010 (UTC) The last sentence was certainly inappropriate. But because anti-CFers are desperate to prevent people from seeing relevant data, that's why the whole block was collapsed. The rationale is equivalent to that used regarding files at the lenr-canr.org site --that is, if a file has a little bit of stuff added to it, then the anti-CFers claim that the entire file is corrupted and worthless, and if one such file exists at that web site, then the whole site should be blacklisted. STUPID rationalizing, that is.... V (talk) 04:46, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Gentlemen, next time you want to have a general discussion about the merits or demerits of CF, you should go to the VORTEX-L mailing list. That list is intended to host that type of discussions; wikipedia isn't. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Please be more specific. Where in the above collapsed text is there something about the merits or demerits of CF? V (talk) 17:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe this text has been collapsed improperly and should be restored. Ura Ursa (talk) 16:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Ura Ursa, all editors here, except for those who are COI, have equal rights. If you are subject to conflict of interest rules, then you should declare so and be especially careful how you conduct yourself. I'm COI, myself, clearly, and Dr. Shanahan should, my opinion, likewise be considered so. If you are not COI, and you believe that the discussion above should not have been collapsed, then you may remove the collapse. But don't revert war! Once is enough for an action, twice is often too much. (After that, we'd seek consensus, or address the problem in a different way.) If you need help, I'm, shall we say, quite experienced in this area, and may be able to advise you, particularly off-wiki. However, my opinion is that Enric Naval was correct in what he did, if not in how he justified it, and collapse is mild compared to what he could have done, which would be to simply remove it. What's clear about the above discussion is that it was not about proposed changes to the article, it was about background, or questions about CF. Quite simply, this is not the place to ask such questions. I'd suggest many other possible places, such as my user Talk page, Dr. Shanahan's talk page, the Vortex list as suggested by Enric Naval, or, maybe even better, Wikiversity:Talk:Cold fusion, to start, because original research is allowed on Wikiversity. (Dr. Shanahan: you would be most welcome there, just be nice, okay?). You will actually get answers from those who know the field, I can probably guarantee that. And maybe, then, if the answers can be rooted in reliable source, it can eventually come back to the article. Discussion here should be limited to proposed changes to the article, particularly those clearly based in peer-reviewed or academically published secondary sources, or, in some cases -- like this -- about our own discussion process. --Abd (talk) 22:32, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

New Paper(s) Out (as promised)

My lengthy paper, ‘Comments on "A new look at low-energy nuclear reaction research"’, has now been published on-line. (Comments on “A new look at low-energy nuclear reaction research”, Kirk L. Shanahan, J. Environ. Monit., 2010, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C001299H, Letter ) Paper publication to follow. Along with it is a response authored by almost every ‘name’ in the field of cold fusion today. “A new look at low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research: a response to Shanahan”, J. Marwan, M. C. H. McKubre, F. L. Tanzella, P. L. Hagelstein, M. H. Miles, M. R. Swartz, Edmund Storms, Y. Iwamura, P. A. Mosier-Boss and L. P. G. Forsley J. Environ. Monit., 2010, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00267D, Letter.

The journal does not allow me to download from the Web page, and my library does not have an active subscription, so I have ordered the papers. Of course I know what my paper says. I will let you know what the response is when I read it. The authors didn’t bother to send me a courtesy copy. The J. Environ. Monit. disallowed a Reply to the Response, so no immediate response is possible by me.

For input to the Wiki CF article, my paper states the following while roughly following the original Krivit and Marwan (K&M) papers layout (theory and history not considered) (comments below are highly condensed):

- K&M do not cover conventional explanations

- Cold Fusioneers do not recognize and consider the CCS (with no explanation given as to why)

- Heat-after-death experiments are extreme examples of a possible CCS error

- He detection experiments do not adequately address contamination issues

- Heavy metal trasnsmutation results are most likely contamination caused

- Pits in CR-39 plates outside the electrolyte have been noted as coming from contamination, and such is not eliminated adequately in CFer papers

- Pits in CR-39 plates in the electrolyte can be conventionally caused by shockwaves (amongst other things)

- CR-39 ‘triplets’ are accidental overlaps of individual pits

- Temporal correlations of, i.e., heat and helium levels, are useful only if it can be certified that the ‘heat’ and ‘He' signals are real, i.e. come from a LENR (the point of the whole paper is to show that cannot be assured)

- The use of 5.2 ppm He as the ‘acid test’ of He production is not correct.

- Overall, many important details that would address these issues are never published.

The conclusions drawn are:

- CFers do not consider conventional explanations, which limits the validity of their conclusions

- The CFers are working in the noise, and thus are meeting one of Langmuir pathological science criteria, and in fact CF is pathological science

- The primary problem is irreproducibility.

- No serious analysis of results is attempted, thus all claims to have observed CF are accepted.

- There is a large body of evidence, but it is loaded with bad results which should have been rejected, rather than included in that body.

- The cold fusion field observer is fully justified in rejecting unsubstantiated claims of novel nuclear reactions

- A working CF-powered device would silence all criticisms

What we here now have is a journal article, i.e. RS, that clearly states nearly everything I have been trying to say is wrong with the CF field for the last several years. By the fact that it is published, it supports the mainstream view that CF is pathological science. I propose we reinsert the additions I made to the CF article in Sept. 2008 in order to provide balance to the article, which currently over-emphasizes the supposed positives of CF research, and fails to address current objections. (I also reiterate that the section on how CF doesn’t fit theory is only partially relevant from a historical point of view only, and should be drastically reduced or relegated to a side article.) However, since I have been continuously accused of “COI”, I will not edit the article myself unless consensus to do so is developed here first. It will likely require some major surgery as the article is substantially different from back then.

Also, I will take WLU’s advice and ignore all comments by V.

Once I get the Response by Marwan, et al, I will post a summary if desired. Alternatively, I can leave it to the CF advoctes here to do as I have done above. We all can anticipate they will say everything I wrote is wrong. That is a given, they are ‘True Believers’ after all. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Not everything you say is wrong. And I see you actually left out something. I distinctly recall you talking about hydrogen-oxygen recombination as a source of energy to explain experiments in which an electrode became melted in spots. And you have never explained why, when two identical-as-possible experiments are running, if one has that happen and the other doesn't, but both produces some excess heat, then CCS must be the explanation for the one where the electrode didn't melt, while of course the heat measurements in the one where it did melt must be correct (we all know that real detectable energy had to be involved for that to happen!). V (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

What you are discussing incorrectly and incompletely is the mechanism I proposed that could produce the observed CCS. The new article did not even discuss that point, which is why it is not in the list above. The rest of your comment is ignored. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course you must ignore the irrationality in your argument that I exposed. You claim that a CCS phenomenon, a miscalibrated instrument, could explain some observed energy as an artifact of the miscalibration, while also describing a source of real and possible-to-measure energy. You can't have it both ways!!! V (talk) 19:48, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"Also, I will take WLU’s advice and ignore all comments by V." lol.Kmarinas86 ^(6sin8karma) 20:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I suppose if you're ignoring the logic already, it doesn't really make a difference anyways. Kevin Baas^talk 20:30, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

It is amusing to see the pro-CFers come out of the woodwork whenever I post. They seem to think that my prior post was a violation of some kind. I would like to note that V did bring up one point regarding my new paper which I felt needed a brief response, especially since I have spent so much time trying (and failing) to educate the pro-CF crowd here about the proposed mechanism for the CCS. I posted that and ignored V's other trolls, which I will continue to do. I also note that so far there has been no substantial comment on my proposed edits. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It is amusing to see a scientist use logical fallacies such as ad hominem and false dilemma so reliably. Kevin Baas^talk 16:24, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Please document these assertions. Failure to do so indicates that your comment is, in fact, an ad hominem attack. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:48, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

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Hi Wikis, just thought I’d pop my head in here for a moment. Harp Minhas, editor of J. Environmental Monitoring, sent me a copy of Shanahan’s paper – he said it had already gone through peer-review. It appeared to me identical to the one he posted on the publicly available federal Web site. Minhas gave me an opportunity to argue with Shanahan. This link will get you access to the Shanahan pre-print and my informal response.

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/35/3518responsetoshanahan.shtml

Since Shanahan, an original author, has apparently been permitted to participate here for many months with his assistance to the Wiki editors, I can’t imagine that it would be a violation of etiquette if I offered some of the same as well. Rather than fill these pages with my own deep commentary, I instead offer the July 30, New Energy Times Special Report “Cold Fusion is Neither” for your information.

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/35/SR35900outline.shtml

I’m not proposing any edits to Wiki, of course, just trying to be helpful to those of you who would like some deeper insight. I’m not likely to engage in discussion here, though I’ll consider for response any emails sent to me directly.

Shanahan mentions “True Believers.” Some of you may find it interesting that I have written a detailed article on this; it’s part of the Special Report.

Also, if any of you would like to reference my two peer-reviewed Elsevier encyclopedia articles, let me know and I can send you free copies.

Best regards,

Steven “no longer pro-cold fusion” Krivit

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StevenBKrivit (talk) 22:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I invite all Wiki editors to read Krivit's response as referenced. I also add that you need to read it carefully with two things in mind in particular. (1) Krivit admits he tried to get this published as an official Reply to Comment in J. of Environ. Monit., but failed to meet publication requirements. He calls this Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)What he describes is 'negotiating' with the journal editor. One doesn't 'negotiate' with editors, one conforms to the standard rules of scientific debate. Krivit was unable to do that, but that's not his fault, he's not a scientist, and didn't have help on this one. (2) Make sure you look for technical comments in the response. There really aren't any, which is why it couldn't pass muster at the journal. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

My mistake! The article referenced by Krivit as his response is a new one. The one I was referring to is the old one (http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/35/35pdf/3566shanahan-jem-response.pdf). (Actually the primary difference seems to be that Krivit deleted the first couple of paragraphs in his new response.) He refers to my paper as a 15 pager there when his in JEM was 16 pages. In fact, my article is 8-1/2 pages long in the proofs, with 1-1/2 pages being references. (His paper also had about 1-1/2 pages of refs.) Wiki editors should also note that in both he attempts to use my Wiki activities against me somehow. Also, don't be fooled by the "no longer pro-cold fusion" sig Krivit used. He is just following on with his crusade to get cold fusion renamed LENR. As I've said before, they are one and the same. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:58, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

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Kirk Shanahan, your comments "Krivit admits he tried to get this published as an official Reply to Comment in J. of Environ. Monit., but failed to meet publication requirements" and "it couldn't pass muster at the journal" are false and are misrepresentations.

JEM never received any draft from me. As I wrote, "After Harpal Minhas, the editor of Journal of Environmental Monitoring, and I made several attempts to agree on the parameters for my response to Shanahan’s comment, I gave up and decided to publish a version independently." "Negotiating" was your word, not mine, however, you could characterize my discussion with Minhas as such. However, the "negotiating" centered only around rules of engagement. As I mentioned, I never sent Minhas a draft of my response for him to consider, let alone pass muster or judgement. It was Minhas' rules of engagement which *I* declined to accept, as is my prerogative.

Your comment "he's not a scientist, and didn't have help on this one" is also misleading. I am not a scientist; I am a journalist, editor and writer, and I am quite pleased that I have been able to learn the subject matter and communicate it to the degree which I have. However, I had very little help from Marwan on the original paper. Similarly, I had no direct help from any scientist on my two peer-reviewed chapters for the Elsevier encyclopedia. Or on my review paper for Current Science.

Readers who would like the facts about me and my perspectives can very easily obtain them directly through the New Energy Times Web site and my published work. They can form their opinions of my perspectives on LENR independently of any middleman. That's it for now. Bye bye.

StevenBKrivit (talk) 18:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

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Mea culpa. Please note the strikethrough and modification to the text regarding 'negotiating'. However, the point still stands. You don't negotiate with editors over how to write a Response. It's a standard process, well known to all who routinely participate in the scientific process via the literature. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Kirk, thank you for publishing your arguments. How do you respond to the SPAWAR charged particle detection results? Do you have a list of the people who have claimed to reproduce that work? How do you think the government should resolve the difference between ONR and DOE on these issues? Ura Ursa (talk) 18:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

In my paper I make the points that the SPAWAR results have two potential conventional explanations: shockwave-induced mechanical damage and O2 bubble-induced oxidative damage. Until those conventional mechanisms are excluded, there is no certain proof of any charged particle or neutron production. (I further disagee they have shown the so-called triplets are anything other than 3 overlapping pits.) I don't keep a list, but the only people who have done this to my knowledge is those involved in the 'Galileo Project', which also did not address conventional causes. (I generally make the technical mistake of lumping all those who use the SPAWAR protocol under the term 'SPAWAR group'. This is a technical mistake because some laymen fail to understand it is the protocol that fails not just the group.) ONR is not at issue with DOE. A few SPAWAR researchers and one or two NRL people believe CF is real. There are a few DOE people who do too, although they are not working or publishing. To try to tie these ideas/beliefs to organizations is not correct. It is people who are making the claims, not organizations. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

How can shockwave-induced mechanical damage or O2 bubble-induced oxidative damage produce beta radiation? The difference is that ONR approves research on the subject, and DOE does not. Ura Ursa (talk) 16:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

You have RS on that ONR-DOE statement right? The official stated position of DOE, arising from both the 1989 and 2004 DOE Reviews, is that well thought out proposals should be funded. To my knowledge, DOE has no position saying that CF research is banned. There definitely is a bias against, I agree, and I have been subject to that too. Yet I still publish and follow the field. I think you have become a victim of the CFers victim mentality. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:48, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

According to NRL researchers K.S. Grabowski, D.L. Knies, D.A. Kidwell, D.D. Dominguez, C.A. Carosella, V.K. Nguyen, A.E. Rogers, and G.K. Hubler in their presentation to ARL's LENR workshop in Adelphi, MD on June 29, 2010, NRL has had eight full-time LENR researchers working for the past 18 months. That is in addition to SPAWAR personnel and contractors at Nova Research in Alexandria, and it's certainly more than "one or two." I would still like to know how mechanical or O2 damage can produce any kind of radiation capable of being altered by an external magnetic or electrostatic field. Ura Ursa (talk) 15:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Your question assumes a fact not supported by the evidence- that beta radiation is produced. The experimental results were pits appearing on CR-39; beta radiation was a hypothesis put forward to explain that result by some of those who used the SPAWAR protocol. I haven't read Kirk's new paper, but I do know that others in the 'Galileo Project' who also used the SPAWAR protocol were not convinced of this hypothesis. Rather than a nuclear explanation, chemical or mechanical effects could explain the pits that are formed. Also as an experimental result, they found that the pits made in CR-39 using the SPAWAR protocol have an appearance unlike those made using ionizing particles. Kirk, I think you may be painting those who participated in the 'Galileo Project' with a bit too broad a brush. I've been meaning to check out this book but haven't managed to do so yet - the "Null Tests of “Free-Energy” Claims" chapter may be a reliable source concerning these results.--Noren (talk) 03:57, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention, the pits are claimed to be evidence for neutrons, which are mostly not ionizing particles. If a neutron strikes CR-39, my understanding is that what happens is, the neutron physically knocks some atom out of position in the physical structure of the plastic, weakening it at that spot. An etching process is used to reveal those weak spots as pits. There is thus an implication that other sources can damage that plastic. I don't know, though, that any of those sources can exactly imitate the type of damage that a neutron can cause. A shock wave, for example, tends to affect things on a wide front, affecting many atoms simultaneously, while a neutron is more like a bullet among atoms. V (talk) 05:03, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

To Noren: I'm not sure which 'brush' you are referring to. In my paper I cite the unpublished results of Little showing various kinds of physial/chemical damages cause pits, and I cite his conclusion to that effect. (I also cite Oriani and Fisher's publication of the same fact.) That's all I cite from Galileo, but I mention the SPAWAR group has published some results from it, and also that they claim nuclear particles of course. However, both Little and Oriani and Fisher cite difficulties in telling the pits apart from 'legitimate' ones. For the record I also don't know 'that any of those sources can exactly imitate the type of damage that a neutron can cause' (to use V's words), which is exactly my point. Until we do know, we can't assume the pits are due to radiation only. My whole thesis, since the beginning, has essentially been that the CFers have jumped to a conclusion without adequate justification. (That means, with adequate proof, they could prove 'CF' is real tomorrow.) By the way V, SPAWAR articles claim 'charged particles', not just neutrons (which are uncharged, but are ionizing radiation.) Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:48, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Kirk, it depends on what the neutron hits. Other ionizing particles can rip electrons from atomic orbits because they are electrically charged and can attract or repel those electrons as the ionizing particles pass by. Some (like energetic photons) can do it by more-direct interaction with an electron, giving it energy by, basically, striking it. A neutron mostly ignores electrons, though. I can imagine it ionizing a typical hydrogen atom because its nucleus has about the same mass as the neutron, and so a hard-enough "knock" can make the proton leave its electron behind. But this is seldom going to happen when a neutron hits a carbon nucleus that has almost 12 times its mass, or an oxygen nucleus that has almost 16 times its mass, and so on. Note in my post above I stated "mostly not ionizing". However, since plastics like CR-39 have a lot of hydrogen in their chemical structure, it does follow that neutrons can do some ionizing in there. V (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:11, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that article basically says what I wrote above. It adds the fact that the proton, once knocked hard by a neutron, can do quite a bit of ionizing on its own. It spells out that neutrons are indirect ionizing particles; I was talking about direct ionization. Even neutron-absorption leads to indirect ionization. And note the article does not say what I wrote (but what I wrote is quite true) that when a fast neutron hits a nucleus like carbon or oxygen and bounces off, the event is unlikely to make that nucleus lose its electrons. (A really fast neutron might do something to a nucleus called "spallation", causing it to lose a proton or alpha particle that then does some ionizing, but such neutrons are extremely rare.) V (talk) 22:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Noren, the AIAA book you refer to is about (potential) breakthroughs in propulsion systems, and Scott Little works for Hal Puthoff who is trying to find proof for the ZPE paradigm. Hal has published several papers on using a putative ZPE device to propel rockets, etc. The book has an article in it by Scott Little, which I attempted to use in my extended debate with Pcarbonn to show he was a 'qualified' source for quotes, etc., in the Wiki CF article. Of course, P didn't agree and we moved on to argue about other things. Scott's article is short and discusses what he has done in the whole excess energy field. He has a section on cold fusion, 7 parageraphs long, which mostly cites some history and describes his MOAC calorimeter performance. One paragraph explains that he has looked at several cold fusion cells, and he says "None of these cold fusion experiments have shown any convincing evidence of excess heat in our calorimeters." This article should be RS in my opinion, but it is a Proceedings article. It certainly substantiates the mainline view than CF is not proven. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Add section on x-rays

I was trying to ask Kirk about the beta electrons, protons, and alpha particles measured by varying an electrostatic or magnetic field around the SPAWAR/Galileo experiment and detecting different patterns of such radiation at the same location. I would also like to know if Kirk has a response to the x- and gamma-ray findings which are summarized in that link. Ura Ursa (talk) 14:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't respond to that part of your comment, as I agree with Noren. There is no certain proof of any kind of radiation as long as the conventional mechanism(s) remain unassessed experimentally. (Note: It has been shown and published that mechanical damage causes pits, that is not the issue.) This will be particularly difficult to do for the shockwave idea, possibly impossible. However, if a conventional mechanism can be shown to apply to the excess heat claims, then the idea the pits arise conventionally becomes very realistic. The supposed damage due to X-rays and gamma rays also is unproven. Radiation (ionizing) of all types damages plastics, so that is not a question. The question is whether the damage seen in CF CR-39 plates is due to radiation or something else. I don't feel the answer to that will be forthcoming very soon. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Did Noren say the conventional mechanism(s) must be assessed before any kind of radiation can be measured? Why would anyone think that? There are dozens of ways to measure x-rays at a distance, and people have been reporting them consistently with all kinds of detectors. Hagelstein just published a review of more than a thousand such measurements. How do you explain the x-rays? Ura Ursa (talk) 06:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I said that, for the last 10 years, in print, 'RS' print at that. Only the first sentence of my reply above referred to what Noren said. Why would anyone think that??? If you are on a jury in a murder trial, and the prosecutor provides evidence that John Doe killed Mary, but the defense successfully impunes the quality of the evidence _and_ brings out other evidence that seriously suggests James Doe did it, would you send John to the gas chamber? On what basis?? It is a trivial concept that when you have two equally likely explanations for something, choosing one over the other is not a scientific choice, but an expression of personal choice (or bigotry). The scientific thing to do is go get more data to resolve the situation. There are dozens of dozens of ways to mis-measure x-rays too. Which Hagelstein review? I haven't seen it. How to explain x-rays: By which method? It makes a difference. I brought up years ago solid reasons why xray film can't be trusted. Devices can malfunction, etc. Be more specific. However, I am not an expert in radiation detection devices and how the malfunction. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I hope science is done with the preponderance of evidence rather than the beyond reasonable doubt standard. Hagelstein, P.L. (2010) "Constraints on energetic particles in the Fleischmann–Pons experiment" Naturwissenschaften 97(4):345-52. Here are some excerpts: "Pt K-alpha x-rays have been observed in Fleischmann–Pons experiments.... Bush and Eagleton reported the observation of Ka x-rays from Pd, Rh, Ag, and Pt from a PdAg alloy correlated with the excess power. In this experiment, the excess power was given as 5.2 W over 64.4 h. About 1,800 Pt Ka x-rays was seen with a detector efficiency of 0.0033, resulting in an estimate of about 1 x-ray/J. In experiments reported in Iwamura et al. (1995), excess heat was observed uncorrelated with x-ray emission; a dominant Pt Ka was seen in the x-ray spectrum." Ura Ursa (talk) 20:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually science is never done simply on a preponderance of evidence. Collecting data is just one part of science. What has to go along with that is some kind of interpretation. This is not the false supposed requirement of having a full explanation of whatever its going on, but instead is a serious discussion of what the data is, how it is collected, whether it is of adequate quality, and how one goes about reproducing the data. In the case of bodies of evidence purported to only be posssible if a new low energy nuclear reaction is ongoing, in fact there are conventional explanations of equal or better explanatory power that have not been eliminated. When one has two interpretations of one set of evidence that are equally likely (speaking very broadly here, as the idea of a LENR is a really big stretch vs any conventional mechanism) the only conclusion one can make is that the issue remains undecided. Everyone has to go back to the lab at that point and get more dta that will decide between the two or more altenatives. This is where the CFers fall down. Instead of doing that, they wave their hands at what they don't like and act as if that disproved it, then they proceed on as if no criticism (alternative) had ever been made. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:13, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

You can't be suggesting that CFers have spent less time going back to the lab to get more data over the past 15-18 years than their detractors, are you? Ura Ursa (talk) 16:36, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I am explicitly stating that most of their work (if not all) does not incorporate criticisms. Thus it will never resolve any issues, and thus is pointless. Repeating the past mistakes never helps. Most of their work is of this type. For example, they have know since 2002 (actually 2000 in all likelihood) about the CCS problem. They choose to ignore it or claim it is unimportant, but every publciation they put out on calorimetry shows it could be the dominating factor. This is why they should get no funding. They won't take the steps necessary to advance the state of the art, preferring to burn lots of bucks get more of the same confused data. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

What steps do want them to take to address the CCS problem? Ura Ursa (talk) 23:12, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

First off, it's not what I want, it's what produces the impression that they have actually considered the problem analytically, and then used those considerations in drawing conclusions. So far the situation is this. Up until my publication of 2002, no one realized it was a problem. Post-2002 there was one generic derrogatory comment made on it by Fleischmann, Miles, Mosier-Boss and Szpak (in 2004), and a detailed one by Storms (2006), which only dealt with the proposed mechanism that might produce a CCS, not the CCS itself. I rebutted both of these comments with lots of facts and figures (not unsubstantiated claims as they have stated in the response to my recent comment), so it certainily can't be concluded that their pubs rule the day. However, that is what they conclude, and they therefore ignore the CCS problem completely. When forced to consider it, by my recent comment in JEM for example, they grossly misstate the problem in a fashion that makes their version clearly incorrect and then claim that "obviously" the CSS is not an issue (this is known as using a strwaman argument, not an acceptable practice). There are probably a variety of ways it could be reasonably addressed. What I would do is what I did in my reply to Fleischmann, et al, and do some numerical estimation of how big a shift would be needed to cause the observed signals to be classified as 'noise'. If that change ends up as outrageous, they might have the beginnings of an argument that the CCS is not important to that work. So far though, they don't even think about it. If they would conclude the effect might be a reasonable explanation for their observations, then they would have to do some subsequent work to prove it isn't before they can claim they have evidence for a LENR. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:53, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

How can CCS be measured experimentally? Ura Ursa (talk) 20:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed that this article says nothing about x-rays, other than in a title of a reference. Would anyone object if I added a section about x-rays after the section on heat, citing the existing x-ray source, Hagelstein's 2010 review which hasn't been added to the article yet, saying that the "Pd/D system emits X- rays with a broad energy distribution" as stated in Boss et al. (2009) [7]? Ura Ursa (talk) 06:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

The abstract you point to says nothing about xrays. I don't have the paper, it seems the book isn't out yet, at least via Amazon, even though it says the release date was (to be) July 23. Until it is actually out, it isn't published, so it's not RS. If you are citing RS you should be able to say what you want. Prior eveidence of xrays is very shaky, based on others comments in the literature, but I am not an expert in how spurious signals can be obtained with nuclear counting equipment. I have mentioned hypering and heat sensitivity of X-ray films as a likely explanation for fogging, and I do so again in my recent paper. I don't believe any of it, but that shouldn't stop anyone from using proper RS properly. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I've asked for a copy of that chapter -- someone might let us read it. The same information is in Szpak et al. (1996) "On the Behavior of the Cathodically Polarized Pd/D System: Search for Emanating Radiation," Phys. Lett. A. 210:382-90 when they were plating on to nickel. The url is www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSonthebehavb.pdf but apparently lenr-canr.org is on the Wikipedia blacklist (?!?) Ura Ursa (talk) 20:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Here it is! Are there any objections to using these three sources (Szpak et al 1996, Boss et al "2009", and Hagelstein 2010) for a new section on x-rays? Ura Ursa (talk) 08:45, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

There are still no accepted explanation for CF, and we shouldn't start listing every attempted explanation (there are dozens of explanations, we would be picking one explanation over others when none is accepted, we would be giving prominence to explanations by insiders in a fringe field before they are accepted outside of the fringe field, etc.).

And about listing experiment results. Cold_fusion#Reported_phenomenon only lists phenomena that got prominence outside the field (and I just deleted from "nuclear transmutations" a paragraph that cited only primary sources from researches in the field). There are also dozens of different experiments claiming to have found a huge variety of stuff. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:47, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree promoting one theory over the others is a mistake on a fringe subject until the secondary reliable sources have something to say about whether, for instance, Widom-Larsen is better or worse than BEC or other theories.

But is there any reason to omit the single empirical finding which the skeptics have the most difficulty dismissing? Doing so introduces deliberate bias, does it not? Empirical observation is not theory, so the reliable secondary sources standard is appropriate for x-rays. There are so few secondary sources (and do any of them even talk about theory? I think some of them mention transmutations, though) that there's no danger of the article ballooning in size if we summarize the emperical observations they include. Ura Ursa (talk) 09:05, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"the single empirical finding which the skeptics have the most dificulty dismissing" <-- if this is the reason for inclusion, you should find a secondary source stating so. (actually, mentions in any secondary sources outside of the field could do the trick. For example, I checked Goodstein 2010 but it doesn't seem to mention much beyond Scaramuzzi). --Enric Naval (talk) 10:41, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't proposing saying that detractors have the most difficulty dismissing x-ray evidence, I was only proposing including the empirical x-ray evidence because it is thoroughly documented in the reliable secondary literature. However, when we talk about what should and should not be included in order to present an unbiased article, isn't it true that the x-ray evidence, for which there has been no viable explanation other than nuclear processes, ought to be included? Ura Ursa (talk) 18:46, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that x-rays are not "thoroughly documented in the reliable secondary literature". They are documented in Hagelstein's review, who is a supporter of CF. They lack an outside review that frames how importance mainstream gives to the claims that x-ray have been measured and correlated to excess heat. That why I looked at Goodstein, who is an outsider. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

There are 136 mentions of x-rays in Britz's bibliography. Before I go through looking for detractors who found x-rays (which I think may be a fools errand, because I doubt anyone finding x-rays sticks with the non-nuclear hypotheses for very long) please explain why we need outsider claims for empirical observations instead of the usual WP:RS standard. Doesn't the fact that we are supposed to summarize the most substantial controversies first mean that we need to use the peer reviewed secondary sources for fringe empirical observations, even if there is a stricter standard for theory? Ura Ursa (talk) 23:12, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

From WP:PARITY: "The prominence of fringe views needs to be put in perspective relative to the views of the entire encompassing field (in this case, physics, nuclear physycis, or maybe chemistry); limiting that relative perspective to a restricted subset of specialists or only amongst the proponents of that view is, necessarily, biased and unrepresentative.". --Enric Naval (talk) 03:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

That section talks entirely about fringe "theories," not peer reviewed reports of empirical observations reported in the secondary literature. Those aren't "theories" or "views." In any case, at least two of the current NRL researchers were documented detractors before they were assigned to the field, but there might be better examples in Britz's bibliography. I'll look. Ura Ursa (talk) 14:46, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

i would also add that a single piece of evidence is never conclusive. It has to replicated (in detail, so that it is reproducible). The Wiki article should focus on the supposed large bodies of evidence, and not get drawn off into trivialities. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the x-rays are trivial or have not been reproduced sufficiently? Ura Ursa (talk) 18:46, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Other way 'round dude. You are proposing to add a section on x-rays, when all of your predecessors found it not worthwhile. Do you have secondary RS as Enric suggested to show us that people besides the fanatics think it might be real or important? If not, then drop the issue and save us some time. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

As one of those "predecessors", I'd like to interject the comment that this Talk Section is the first I've heard about X-rays being reported in any of the literature. I don't know how many other "predecessors" also lacked that information, but it would be a very simple reason why no X-ray section has been proposed before (WAS it proposed before, and archived away, before I started posting here?). V (talk) 04:38, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

There are about 25 mentions of x-rays in the archives, the first being from Jed Rothwell, which explains the redundant autoradiographs that most of the experimenters looking for x-rays used. Ura Ursa (talk) 07:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you want a report of x-rays in a review from someone who is previously on record as disbelieving that any nuclear processes are occurring, or someone who had never before produced surprising results in the field? Why would that be better than the reports above from peer reviewed literature review? Isn't external mention the standard for fringe theories, whereas reports of empirical observations at the fringes should follow NPOV because we're supposed to order the controversies by how substantial they are? Ura Ursa (talk) 19:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

What I think we all want is a) a proposed edit to look at, and b) the RS justifying adding it, esp. in light of what Enric wrote above about avoiding undue weight to fringe theories. What I would call acceptable RS would be something like where one of the DOE review panels considered x-rays, etc. or some other summary of the field like Goodstein's article where they discuss the people or process that produced collected radiation data. In other words, anything where significant consideration is given to radiation data that does NOT originate from a known cold fusion researcher. Unfortunately for you, to my knowledge, no such RS exists, which is probably why your predecessors didn't try to put it in. Most of the RS available revolves around the DOE reviews and the state of affairs back in 1994, primarily because most mainline scientists quit the field about ten. Exceptions are my papers on calorimetry and Clarke's papers on He detection. So just put up a proposed edit in a new section here, with supporting refs (i.e. RS) and we'll comment. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I propose: "X-Rays / X-rays have been observed in Fleischmann–Pons experiments. (Hagelstein 2010) The cathodically polarized Pd/D system emits X-rays with a broad energy distribution. (Szpak et al 1996)" Would one of the previously neutral experimenters confirming Arata and Zhang's gas phase x-ray observations be satisfactory as a third outside source? Ura Ursa (talk) 07:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I was hoping someone else would chip in here, but I guess not. So, as I said above, I don't believe the Hagelstein reference is published (yet?), so until then, it doesn't count. The third ref you give is unspecified at this point, so all you have is the one Szpak ref, and we are back at the point of injecting fringe theory favoring material into the article. So, I'd vote 'no', no section on x-rays. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:35, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

The Hagelstein review says "Published online: 05 February 2010". Does that change your opinion or do you still want someone to propose a specific reference from one of the several previously neutral experimenters in Britz's bibliography who confirmed x-rays from Arata and Zhang's gas phase experiment to go along with it? Ura Ursa (talk) 15:55, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I thought you said (at the NoticeBoard) that this article had been published in the RS journal Naturwissenschaften. If it hasn't actually been published yet (unless ACCEPTED pre-prints count, which perhaps is what you linked), then I might have to agree with Shanahan, that we can't use it until it is "officially published". 208.103.154.83 (talk) 15:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it was officially published in April 2010, in Volume 97, Number 4 of Naturwissenschaften. There have been five issues published since, so this line of argument is pointless. Ura Ursa (talk) 17:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

So we will just use the same argument now re: Hagelstein as we did re: Szpak. Too much support from fringe theory sources, none from mainline. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Please be more specific. All Naturwissenschaften articles qualify as mainline, so this new Hagelstein article is mainline, too. Are you talking about the "thousand papers" that were examined in the process of this article getting written? Were ALL of those thousand articles published in fringe journals? Or, more relevant to the current discussion/section here, were only the articles that mention detecting X-rays published in fringe journals? I could agree you might have a point if that were true. On the other hand, since the Naturwissenschaften article now exists for the mainstream to get started thinking about looking for X-rays in CF experiments.... V (talk) 00:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Widom-Larsen theory, heavy fermions, and heavy electron/proton interactions

Moved to User talk:StevenBKrivit. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not happy about these collapses and moves. The first link removed, Two Decades of “Cold Fusion”, is clearly vital to understanding the history of the topic, and simplification of Widom-Larsen theory is useful if you can get past the low-contrast backgrounds. The fact that heavy fermions, an accepted non-controversial field of research, also deals with heavy electrons in metal alloys is also appropriate here. Ura Ursa (talk) 02:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is the problem, Ura Ursa. This isn't a page for exploring the background of this topic, nor for debating the various theories extant. We might start to look at how the article is impoverished in its presentation of the various theories that have been presented over the years, as they are covered in reliable secondary sources. I'll merely add a link to what was moved,[8] and point out that this was not the place to ask Mr. Krivit a question, and his personal answers would carry no authority. However, if he points to a reliable secondary source, that would be quite useful, I'm sure, and he is even the author of some such sources, made reliable by how they were published. --Abd (talk) 22:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The CFers Response to the 2010 JEM Shanahan Paper

I had promised a comment on the Response to my Comment on Krivit and Marwan’s article. As expected, according to them, I am completely wrong, everywhere. They come to this conclusion by systematically misunderstanding and misrepresenting what I wrote. Case in point, they refer to the idea that my CCS problem requires random results. In fact I have clearly published that that is not true, it is highly non-random. Yet they state it is according to me (their strawman), and then use it to prove I can’t be right, except it is _their_ proposal that is incorrect, not mine. It is truly astounding the level of denial these folks evidence. The rest of the paper is the same way, so I’m not going to bore you with details. I suspect some CF promoter will want to work it into the article. For my part that will be fine as long as done correctly. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you provide a link to that Response? Not to mention, OF COURSE the CCS phenomenon is non-random. It is controlled exclusively by Kirk Shanahan: Any experiment that detects small amounts of excess heat must be a CCS thing, and any experiment that exhibits such large amounts of excess heat that CCS cannot possibly explain it, must be explained instead by hydrogen-oxygen recombination. :) V (talk) 15:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The link to JEM's on-line publications of accepted articles is http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Journals/JournalIssues/EM#/AdvanceArticle . Undoubtedly you will have to buy the article(s) as I had to, it is a subscription journal like all the rest. You will have to look for it, as they keep adding new ones. When I posted this, my article was 4th and the response was 5th in the list. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:58, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

V, I suggest you google 'systematic error'. When I did, I found out, without even going to the pages brought up, that a systematic error is not random (of course I already knew this, but you never believe me, so I supply proof). The CFers response completely mis-states my proposal as being one of random errors. There is no excuse for that, they just refuse to know. Which proves the point I make in my Comment that they refuse to deal with conventional explanations. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:58, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Would you please describe an experiment which could measure calibration constant shift? Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 22:52, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The short answer is "No", because you have not proposed an article edit for discussion, so I don't see why we need to start this discussion. The long answer is "I already have", the 'experiment' used the very same data that Dr. Edmund Storms used for his 2000 presentation (so he did all the data gathering), I just analyzed the data differently. So, I suggest you read my first paper to understand what I did. The manuscript version can be obtained at Jed Rothwell's lenr-canr site, look under my name in the index. Then remember that science is conservative, meaning that when an interpretation of data is available that does not violate known physics/chemistry, and produces a reasonable interpretation, meaning you don't have to stretch your thinking to the breaking point, that explanation is to be preferred over one that suggests known physics is wrong and requires mental backflips to try to understand what might be happening. 'Cold fusion' was only a reasonable last alternative to explain apparent excess heat signals as long as there was no other reasonable alternative, i.e. it was the explanation of last resort. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Should calibration constant shift be described in the article as an effect which can be measured experimentally, or as an alternative hypothesis for interpreting data? If there is no way to measure how much calibration constant shift is occurring, then the article should say that, shouldn't it? If it is possible to measure the extent of CCS, could you please at least explain in a few sentences how someone might go about measuring it? Ura Ursa (talk) 15:58, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Hey Ura, some of the comments that got archived a long time ago from this page were about experiments deliberately attempting to find evidence for a calibration-constant shift, and none succeeded. Shanahan never explained why it only occurs in experiments where he wants it to be an explanation, and doesn't appear in experiments designed to prove it can actually happen. Also, if the X-ray thing is valid, then Shanahan has ANOTHER problem, trying to make his purely-chemical explanation produce X-rays...normally, fairly-high-speed electrons are required to exist, before X-rays can begin to appear, and the voltages to cause such electron speeds are MUCH higher than those normally found in an ordinary electrochemical cell. I'm not aware of ANY ordinary chemical reactions, including Cs+F->CsF, that can produce X-rays. V (talk) 07:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you find that discussion in the Archives or History for me, please? If an effect can not be measured, it might be a hypothesis but it can not be a falsifiable scientific theory. You would think that Shanahan would want his readers to understand how his theory could be tested. Maybe that he can't is why he feels that the experimenters don't listen to his arguments? Ura Ursa (talk) 17:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm sure it was more than a year ago, and I don't know enough about how to search the archives to find it. Also, if memory serves, the discussion was a bit short on specifics (references to the experiments). 208.103.154.105 (talk) 04:50, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

There has never been a valid test of the CCS outside of my reanalysis of the Storms data. There are many instances of where CF data seems to support the CCS, but it is too little to firmly do so. There are no examples proving it doesn't apply. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

This is not a page for debating Cold fusion or the merits or demerits of Mr. Shanahan's hypothesis. This is a page for the discussion of changes to the article. I am now COI on this topic, so I will be confining my comments to Talk pages, except for making non-controversial edits to the article, or, if I think changes I'd propose might be controversial, to sometimes making self-reverted edits, so that changes can easily be seen directly, much easier than looking at an "explanation." As to the above, I don't see a proposed change there, rather a personal defense by Mr. Shanahan of his position against "CFers," which is probably out of place here. His Talk page would be fine for that. --Abd (talk) 21:33, 15 September 2010 (UTC)