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<small>''intentional provocative wording'' </small> ;-) --[[User:POVbrigand|POVbrigand]] ([[User talk:POVbrigand|talk]]) 08:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
<small>''intentional provocative wording'' </small> ;-) --[[User:POVbrigand|POVbrigand]] ([[User talk:POVbrigand|talk]]) 08:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
:I do think I've already posted stuff on this Talk page to the effect that, so far as I know, '''every''' pressurized-deuterium-gas experiment, involving palladium, has produced anomalous heat. So there is no reason to mess with electrolysis and room-pressure deuterium, and all the uncertainties of that class of experiments.... :) [[User:Objectivist|V]] ([[User talk:Objectivist|talk]]) 05:21, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Revision as of 05:21, 30 September 2011

Warning
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.
Former featured articleCold fusion is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 24, 2004.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
August 16, 2004Featured article candidatePromoted
January 6, 2006Featured article reviewDemoted
June 3, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
June 7, 2006Good article nomineeListed
July 19, 2006Good article reassessmentDelisted
December 26, 2006Good article nomineeNot listed
May 28, 2008Good article nomineeListed
November 23, 2008Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Former featured article

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


Laser experiments

A cold fusion experiment usually includes:

  • a metal, such as palladium or nickel, in bulk, thin films or powder;
  • deuterium and/or hydrogen, in the form of water, gas or plasma; and
  • an excitation in the form of electricity, magnetism, temperature, pressure, laser beam(s), or of acoustic waves.[105]

In other experiments where laser beams or deuteron beams were used as excitation the reaction rates of D-D fusion were shown to increase. [127] In a paper from similar experiments the researchers conclude that their "findings also provide a first independent support for the claim in cold fusion ..." [128]

There didn't seem to be a problem with including these experiments in earlier versions: "Supporters of cold fusion point, for example, to astrophysics experiments where bombarding metals with multi-keV deuteron beams greatly increases reaction rates via electron screening.[139]"

But I guess that wording matched your POV so perfectly that you didn't notice what it was about. --POVbrigand (talk) 09:40, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please be civil; I am attempting to bring this article closer to NPOV, not my POV. I don't like being accused of damaging wikipedia.
As I hinted in my edit summary, the objection I have to these sentences is the amount of weight they give to experiments which are not attempting to produce cold fusion. However, it is a close call. Maybe we can figure out a single sentence which can point to both 127 and 128. Olorinish (talk) 12:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Olorinish, if my guess in the last line of my comment above is wrong then let us discuss, I am civil. I am currently thinking very much about the WEIGHT policy and how it is used here for cold fusion. The article cold fusion is about a controversial topic. In light of the article the proponents of cold fusion are not a tiny minority they are a signification minority. The opinion of this significant minority as opposed to the opinion of "most scientists" is the sole reason why this article exists. If we apply the WEIGHT policy again and again in order to delete content ([1] [2] [3]) it will eventually very effectively mute the signification minority. You don't correct weight by deleting content, you correct weight by adding the opposite view. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:00, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in mind that even after my recent minor deletions, the majority of the article text is about activities of cold fusion supporters, even though they are a small minority of working scientists. A very large amount of deletion would be required to mute that minority in this article. To keep the length of the article short enough that it is easy to read, we should emphasize the main points of the different sides, and not load the article up with minor topics, such as the high energy experiments. If, in the future, information gained in those experiments is described as guiding cold fusion experiments toward success, then they would be more relevant for this article. If they don't, that is an indication that maybe they don't belong in the wikipedia article. Keep in mind also that wikipedia is intended as an encylopedia for general users; it is not intended as a collection of information to help the progress of people working in a certain field. Olorinish (talk) 01:44, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here is relevant text from NPOV [4]:
"An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and neutral, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements."
we discussed the laser experiments before [5]. I AGF, but we are a bit dragging the discussion. If the scientists say it is relevant to cold fusion, if they say it is "the first independent support", then you cannot judge otherwise. Trying to find reasons like "maybe they made a mistake" or "that's not relevant for cold fusion" or "that's not cold fusion" or "that's adding WEIGHT" or "that's a minor topic" is not ok. I agree that the article should not become a list or collection of the multitude of experiments. I agree that some of your recent deletions (for WEIGHT) were minor, but if they are minor how come they were too much WEIGHT to keep :-) ? --POVbrigand (talk) 08:38, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you are deleting for WP:WEIGHT you should not rephrase that to WP:SIZE when being held accountable for your deletion. --POVbrigand (talk) 09:19, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
According to the wikipedia policy above, we as editors are instructed to ensure articles do not give undue weight to any aspects of a subject. Therefore we are required to judge what is relevant and what is not. We are also warned to guard against disproportionate discussion of isolated events, criticisms, and news reports. I am simply saying that the high energy experiments are isolated and should not be given much weight in an article about cold fusion. Olorinish (talk) 12:32, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You have a high confidence on your ability to judge. Why do you believe they are isolated and not an integral part of research in the field of LENR ? --POVbrigand (talk) 12:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They seem different from most cold fusion reports, and I can't think of anyone commenting on the importance of those articles or continuing that research. Does anyone know of any? Olorinish (talk) 12:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't you just investigate the sources ? Search for laser or ion beam. You are completely ignorant of what is going on in the field and yet you are self confident that you are able to judge. --POVbrigand (talk) 13:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You ask why I don't investigate that list of sources. One reason for not doing so is that it is a very long list. Can you identify any that support discussing sources like 127 and 128 above in this article? Olorinish (talk) 02:42, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are evading. I did my best to show you why laser experiments are normal business in the cold fusion field. There is no policy to delete the mentioning. I suggest you drop the stick --POVbrigand (talk) 08:04, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am curious, what do other people think? Olorinish (talk) 01:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Haarv errors, etc.

I noticed the following harv errors in this article -- shortened footnotes with the broken links which should point to a full citation:

  • Goodstein 2004
  • Park 2000
  • Close 1993
  • Storms 1993
(all fixed except Storms 1993, because I can't find the relevant paper. The year is probably wrong. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]
I deleted Storms 1993, maybe it was (Fusion Technol., 1993. 23: p. 230. ), but we have enough references there already --POVbrigand (talk) 13:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the following entries in the bibliography section don't have any shortened footnotes pointing to them; perhaps these should be in a Further reading section:

  • Anderson, Mark (August 2007),
  • Bockris, John (2000)
  • Brooks, Michael (2008)
  • Britz, Dieter (2008)
  • Cartwright, Jon (2009-03-23)
  • Charles, Dan (1992)
  • Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, Stanley (1992)
  • Fleischmann, Martin (2003)
  • Iwamura, Yasuhiro; Sakano, Mitsuru; Itoh, Takehiko (2002)
  • Kozima, Hideo (2006)
  • Krivit, Steven B. (10 April 2008)
  • Lewenstein, Bruce V. (1992)
  • McKubre, M.C.H; Crouch-baker, S.; Rocha-filho, R.C.; Smedley, S.I.; Tanzella, F.L.; Passell, T.O.; Santucci, J. (1994),
  • Park, Robert L (2000) -- that one seems to match one of the harv errors
  • Seife, Charles (10 December 2004)
  • Shkedi, Zvi (1996-10-26)
  • Szpak, S.; Mossier-Boss, P.A. (1996)
  • Storms, Edmund (2006)
  • Storms, Edmund (October 2010)

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:01, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

NASA research deleted with WP:WEIGHT

An approved quotation of Dennis Bushnell from evworld was reverted for WEIGHT.[6]

NASA's research in 1996 verifiable by a Technical Memorandum was deleted for WEIGHT.[7]

The edit comments:

"This edit gives far too much weight to the opinion of one person who has little expertise in nuclear reactions." (emphasis mine)

"This sentence gives too much weight to a minor event, an internal NASA report that is 15 years old."

I object to these reverts: NASA has done research evident by a technical memorandum and a chief scientist states in an interview that it is "THE most interesting and promising..."

The mere fact that NASA states something positive does not mean it can be "censored" (for whatever convenient reason). Had NASA concluded that "we did some tests, but they didn't work so we think it is not worth it" That would surely have been used extensively to put WEIGHT to the notion that "it doesn't work".

I still don't understand where the hordes of "most scientists" are hiding, but certainly not at NASA, or MIT, or SPAWAR, or numerous other research centers.

I am really sorry for the skeptics that "most scientists" have not produced recent evidence that "it doesn't work" and that scientists at renown research center provide evidence that it does. Why can't they stop with producing evidence, it makes the work for skeptical WP-editor so hard.

The opinion that we get force fed is that the "most scientists" have their fingers in their ears while shouting "we're not listening, we're not listening". Based on 18+ year old books from John R. Huizenga, Frank Close and Gary Taubes.

Let's look at experimental evidence from reliable sources which is perfectly verifiable and then discuss were the WEIGHT currently is in this article ! --POVbrigand (talk) 10:52, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

NASA has not endorsed cold fusion. Those are all statements and reports made by individual scientists who work at NASA. I don't see secondary sources saying that they have had a significant effect. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:12, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What policy are you refering to ? --POVbrigand (talk) 11:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It could be noted that there is another NASA memorandum (its link was archived perhaps a year or even longer ago) which describes the equivalent of a pressurized-deuterium-gas experiment (if I recall correctly, the date on that memorandum was even before Arata began making claims about this variety of CF experiment). AND that experiment ALSO detected excess heat production. If I recall right, the reason that memorandum was rejected was because NASA memorandums don't qualify as a "reliable source" publication. Tsk, tsk. As if that somehow made the data invalid! V (talk) 12:59, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I found the original NASA technical memorandum: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19900008108_1990008108.pdf
In the process of looking for it, I found a couple other things: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/docs/IPP-Palladium-Fralick.pdf --this one looks more like some sort of Official NASA Release than a mere technical memorandum.
And, http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BiberianJPexcessheatc.pdf --we probably need to find out where this one was originally published, since this link/document-copy is at That Most Hated Site of CF detractors.

You don't see secondary sources because you're not looking hard enough: 2006, Xing Journal of Fusion Energy Volume 25, Numbers 3-4, 175-180, DOI: 10.1007/s10894-006-9023-8 free download available.

And there is no need to provide a second source if I just want to add a fact without adding any interpretation. WP:PRIMARY: "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." --POVbrigand (talk) 14:06, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Enric, maybe I was a bit harsh, you were not the one reverting that NASA stuff. But I am a bit agitated regarding the fairytale policy of the need of a secondary source when adding uninterpreted primary sourced facts. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
what fairy tale? It's in the first paragraph of WP:SECONDARY, which is part of the "No Original Research" policy, I suggest you re-read it: articles should not be based on primary sources, articles should be based on secondary sources and at most tertiary sources, primary sources are only permitted if they are used carefully, and conclusions must come from secondary sources and not from the editor's own interpretation of primary sources.
It is referred to in the Reliable Sources guideline, in the Verifiability policy, in the Biographies of Living People policy and in the Fringe Theories guideline. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:21, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Enric, let's both re-read it :-). Primary sources should be used carefully. We both read that correctly. You must be careful because you cannot make conclusions or interpretation when you use primary sources, because that would be WP:OR unless of course if you can provide a secondary source that makes the same conclusions. --POVbrigand (talk) 17:41, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Man, you are doing it backwards. First you read the best secondary third-party published sources in the subject and then you report what those sources say. You don't first make your own conclusions from primary sources and then fish for any source that supports your conclusions, regardless of it being primary or secondary, regardless of it being actually published or not, regardless of it being written by someone who is a party to the dispute, regardless of its relative weight when compared to the best secondary sources, and regardless of the contradictions with the conclusions that most of the best secondary sources make. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How I do my thinking, backwards, sideways or any other way is irrelevant. What is going on in my head is irrelevant. The only thing what counts is what I actually add to the article and that is the only thing that we can discuss here. What you are proposing is a very good and decent way to contribute to WP, congratulations ! Unfortunately nothing of what you say is stated in a WP-policy. So what you say above is very valuable as advice, but utterly worthless when it comes to discussing actual content edits. When it comes to discussing edits we look at the WP-policies. And if we look at WP:PRIMARY it states: "primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia". What I am thinking before, during or after an edit is irrelevant. What I had for supper is irrelevant. The WP-policy is relevant and my edit is relevant. The policy states: "primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia". --POVbrigand (talk) 23:31, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Only if used carefully. You are not using them carefully. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:09, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I do not want to insinuate anything, I just want to mention them. --POVbrigand (talk) 10:13, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The main problem is that the alleged "best" secondary sources on the subject are from 1992-1993 (Huizenga, Close, Taubes) and the DOE report from 2004 (which only commented based on the articles that were reviewed). They won't tell you anything about what happened ever since.

The more recent secondary sources are journalistic articles from newspapers or magazines that mostly only comment on one particular publication or event.

In the last years 3 source books have been published:

  • Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook, American Chemical Society, 2008, ISBN 0-8412-6966-1
  • Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions and New Energy Technologies Sourcebook Volume 2, Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 0-8412-2454-4
  • Nuclear Energy Encyclopedia, Wiley, 2011, ISBN 978-0470894392

But we are are not allowed to use these sourcebooks, even the mentioning of them is WEIGHT.

Things are not the same as they were back in the early 1990's. The "best" secondary sources on the subject today are not the best secondary sources of years past.

Those who complain that I am "doing it backwards" should really meditate on their backward views instead. --POVbrigand (talk) 09:59, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You still have to address LeadSong's comments in Talk:Cold_fusion#Wiley_publication. And the first two sources are sourcebooks, they are selections of primary papers. And see WP:NPOV#Balance, those sources don't have nowhere near as much prominence as all the sources that you want to contradict. And from the same link, all of them are written by proponents of the field, they are not "secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint.". --Enric Naval (talk) 10:39, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A thesis for a University Master's degree would satisfy: [8] "Where available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources,", wouldn't it ? --POVbrigand (talk) 12:50, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Master thesis don't rate very high in the scale of source quality.... They might rate even lower than conference papers. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But they rate higher than an average news article, because those are mostly opinion of the author. We have no current secondary sources that support the 1992-1993 CF-debunking sources. We have no primary source about the opinion of most scientists [9]. We have flimsy news reports that do nothing more that reiterate the early 1990's [10].
Except for a few pathological deniers and some WP-editors the CF-debunking looks pretty barren to almost everyone else. --POVbrigand (talk) 11:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We have secondary and tertiary sources for the opinion of most scientists, which is enough for wikipedia. If you want to publish your own conclusions from primary sources, wikipedia is not the place for that. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:28, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, we do not have secondary sources for the opinion of most scientists. We have secondary sources for the assumptions of the opinion of most scientists. You are selling opinion for fact. That's a big no go in WP. You can't have a secondary source without a primary source. And there is a reliable secondary source admitting there is no primary source. --POVbrigand (talk) 16:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The sources say that this is the opinion of most scientists, not that they are assuming that it is. Your own interpretation of primary sources is original research. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:12, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I repeat myself, but it is not my original research:
"[*CORRECTION 29/05/08: It has been brought to my attention that part of this last sentence appears to be unsubstantiated. After searching through past articles I have to admit that, despite it being written frequently, I can find no factual basis that “most scientists” think cold fusion is bad science (although public scepticism is evidently rife). However, there have been surveys to suggest that scientific opinion is more likely divided. According to a 2004 report by the DOE, which you can read here, ten out of 18 scientists thought that the hitherto results of cold-fusion experiments warranted further investigation.] - Posted by Jon Cartwright on May 23, 2008 3:05 PM - physicsworld.com.
Jon Cartwright is a freelance journalist based in Bristol, UK. He specializes in science and has reported on everything from the smallest breakthroughs in nanotechnology to the greatest questions in cosmology. His work has appeared in The Observer, New Scientist, Nature, Science, Prospect, the Times Higher Education, Venue, Sky at Night, Physics World and Chemistry World. Recent investigations include the militarization of space, the lost science of cold fusion and accountability for AIDS denialists.
I know your reply is: "I'm not listening! La-la-la!", but just bring a factual basis. --POVbrigand (talk) 22:54, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that there are lots of sources that say otherwise. Please see WP:WEIGHT. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:29, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and there are a lot of sources that say other-otherwise. You are blindly accepting the CF-debunking stuff, and blindly but vividely refusing the CF-supporting stuff. May I remind you of your desperate attempt to read something significant out of the word should in this blog : "Blog from Discover magazine A Tentative New Hope for Discredited Cold Fusion "Cold fusion is the dream that won’t die for some nuclear physicists. (...) Work on cold fusion has been relegated to the margins of science since a much-hyped experiment 20 years ago was discredited, but now a new team of researchers says they’ve conducted experiments that should reinstate the field. (...) However, the team didn’t prove conclusively that the neutrons were the product of fusion, and other researchers say the subatomic particles could have been created in some other, unknown nuclear reaction. For now, the debate over cold fusion will continue." --Enric Naval (talk) 12:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)" here: [11]
The fact that you named your private project "Enric_Naval/pathological science" says it all. You have lost the ability to objectively weigh sources, and assess reliability of sources. WP:COMMON --POVbrigand (talk) 12:35, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It only has my name because it's hosted in my userspace. The userspace is where editors can dump material that they will use later in articles, so I dumped that list there. The userspace is all pages starting with "/User:name_of_user" or "/User_talk:name_of_user", and they are all automatically assigned the username in the title. It's called "pathological science" because it started as a list of sources that called CF a pathological science. If you have a suggestion for a better name.... Next time, remember to assume good faith when assessing the actions other editors. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:32, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Enric, I assume good faith and I appreciate your work here. I know userspace, I used your "pathological science" naming as an example to make a point. The point is that my impression is that you are happy and uncritical with sources that claim CF is "not believed", but for sources that claim otherwise you are happy to dig through the WP-policies in order to find a reason why that source is not valid to use. There are indeed many secondary sources that claim "most scientists don't believe" as fact, but I think it would have been more correct if they had claimed "it is assumed that most scientists don't believe". The first one is claiming a fact, the second one is claiming an opinion. In a normal text there isn't a big difference, but here in WP too much weight is put in analysis and we go beserk over the smallest indications. I have a rock solid source (Jon Cartwright) admitting it is not a fact, but an opinion. But I only use this whole "most scientists" stuff to get my point across. My point is that I believe that your work in WP will be even more valuable if you manage to step back from "fighting the crackpots" and start listening. --POVbrigand (talk) 09:01, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just compare the article by Randy Alfred: "March 23, 1989: Cold Fusion Gets Cold Shoulder"[12] with the article from Jon Cartwright: "Cold fusion: The ghost of free energy"[13]. Both were published on 23 Mar 2009, one in Wired magazine the other one in Groundreport. Just compare the quality of journalistic work. --POVbrigand (talk) 12:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I want to know why Bettencourt 2009 states that cold fusion is a classical example of pathological science. If it was no longer the case, I would have expected him to say so.
Man.... That 2009 article by Cartwright says again that most scientists dismiss CF, and this time he doesn't include any disclaimer.... --Enric Naval (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree that the label "pathological science" is attached to cold fusion. I have complained that the label is used 5 times in the article where IMHO 2 times would suffice. I have moved one statement that peeved me to another place for other reasons and there is one statement left that still annoys me, but I never intented to delete all mentioning of pathological science from the article. Attaching the label "Pathological science" to a subject is within the eyes of the beholder, maybe it says more about the one using the label, than about the subject being labelled.
I fully agree with Cartwright, he says: "Indeed most mainstream scientists perceive cold fusion today as nothing but the vestiges of a defeated uprising, a cultish band of researchers who have an unyielding belief in their work.". I couldn't have found better words. For me there is a huge difference between the general perception of the credibilty of a field in total, based on the events of 20+ years ago on one side and on the other side the appendix "most scientists don't believe those claims" being attached to any CF-evidence.
The "pathological science" label and the notion that mainstream science is not paying attention does not justify WP-editors to waive through any dimwitted source that utters something anti-CF and dismiss CF-supporting sources solely on the fact that they are supportive.
btw, have you read the quotations of Goodstein and Park ? Goodstein admits that all scientific arguments levelled at [cold fusion] have been rebutted. That is nowhere mentioned in our article. What should we do now ? Should we redefine Goodstein as a CF-supporter now, so that we can happily dismiss his opinion ? --POVbrigand (talk) 20:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rather than "have you read the quotations", it is usually helpful to cite the specific quotation you'd like someone to read. It eliminates confusing guesswork. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Park quote: he replies that they are the “most interesting” ones he has seen. “I don’t know what’s producing [the pits] and it would be worth following up,” he says. “But there are a lot of more worthwhile things to look into.”
Goodstein quote: “Scaramuzzi believes in it, and I believe in him,” says Goodstein. “So I have a counterweight.” Goodstein speaks guardedly about his own opinions on cold fusion, but admits that all scientific arguments levelled at it have been rebutted (see “Killers” list below). He does not know of anyone whose opinion has changed. “That’s one thing that is characteristic of this field,” he adds. “Everybody’s first opinion is his last opinion. Yes, people should be more aware of it so they can make more accurate judgements. But they’re not.” --POVbrigand (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

chemical environment

Enric, your edit "In general, pressure and chemical environment only cause small changes to fusion ratios." reliably sourced by Huizenga is in direct contradiction (on the chemical part) with these guys saying: "So far, nuclear reactions have been regarded as isolated processes. Impact from the environment has been seen as negligible or as a trifling disturbance. However, several measurements show that the environmental influence can be significant on radioactive decays as well as on nuclear reactions. The investigations of the members of this institute yield that solid matter can modify the order, scale, and products of nuclear reactions in a massive manner.".

What shall we do ? --POVbrigand (talk) 19:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tell them to get back to us when their new theory is accepted as a mainstream physics theory?
Well, jokes apart, Huizenga says in page 113 "All previous experimental evidence supports the position that the effect of the chemical environment on nuclear reactions is essentially negligible except for very small effects associated with reactions involving the atomic electrons. Pressure and chemical effects of of very small magnitude have been observed for electron capture and isomeric-transition processes. For example, the half-life of the electron capturing isotope 7Be decreases by about 0.6 percent under a pressure of 270,000 atmospheres [Hensley et al., Science 181 1164 (1973)]. These effects, however, are understood quantitatively. Extremely minor changes (...) may result from the Oppenheimer-Phillips process (...). Any major modification, however, of the known branching ratios for the D+D reaction in a metallic lattice environment represents a second miracle." So, I ask, since 1993, has anyone achieved higher changes in nuclear reactions by applying only pressure and changes to chemical environment? Is there any review work covering those experiments? --Enric Naval (talk) 20:10, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if it is schoolbook science yet and I won't be able to find out because I don't have access to a university library. I read it also in a (I think) NASA paper, I will try to find that one. For me it would be sufficient if we present it as "status of research". I would think something like "other more recent experiments suggest that the environment can have a significant impact ...". Even Cartwright 2009 in the very last paragraph "it's impossible" indicates that it has become accepted knowledge that the "theoretical impossibility" has been rebutted and Goodstein backs it up. --POVbrigand (talk) 07:39, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Goodstein said in his 1994 article "Is it plausible that the nuclear reaction might be altered radically when it takes place among the atoms in a metal, rather than in a rarefied atmosphere? The answer, quite simply, is no. [because the nucleus are too far from each other and the metallic environment has not enough time to react to those nuclear reactions]" He republished the article in his 2010 book On fact and fraud, changing only the title to "The Cold Fusion Chronicles".
The "It's imposible" section in Cartwright is pure rethoric. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:31, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there are nuclear reactions (like the chain reaction in a fission bomb), and then there are other nuclear reactions. Consider the data about the sun's Proton-proton cycle (from that article): "In the Sun, deuterium-producing events are rare enough (the vast majority of these events produces a diproton instead) that a complete conversion of its hydrogen would take more than 10^10 (ten billion) years at the prevailing conditions of its core." Fast fusion reactions can only happen between deuterium-deuterium pairs, or between deuterium-tritium pairs (which is one of several reasons why they use lithium-6 deuteride to make H-bombs; a neutron from the fission-trigger chain can kick a tritium out of Li6; other reasons include the fact that LiD is much denser than pure hydrogen (the bomb can be smaller), and that Li6 is stable while tritium is radioactive --a bomb can still work right after long-term storage). Nevertheless, remember muon-catalyzed fusion? Individual fusions happen at a slow rate, even in pure liquid deuterium, but they are still nuclear reactions. So, do not assume that in CF experiments, if fusion actually happens, there must be fast reactions! V (talk) 14:24, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that section is about how the claimed reaction rate is too high. If F&P were claiming just 1 Watt of power via nuclear reactions, then they were claiming a lot of reactions per second. Even if the Sun's fusion rate is low, the total amount of reactions is high because it contains a lot more hydrogen than a CF cell. The mainstream view is that, if you had a palladium rod big enough to store as much deuterium as the mass of the Sun, you would still only get 1 fusion per year (if I understood it correctly, it's pages 9-10 in Huizenga). --Enric Naval (talk) 15:22, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Enric. Still, there is the fundamental CF question, "IF fusion is happening, HOW is it happening?" (Does that reference you are using make any mention at all of muon catalysis?) If the CF mechanism involves some other sort of catalysis, then the reaction rate could indeed be as high as claimed. It just depends on how much deuterium is in there, and the quantity of catalyst. For example, there is an "electron catalysis" proposal that incorporates loose "conduction band" electrons, of which there are rather greater numbers than any amount of deuterium likely to have permeated into solid metal. So, per that hypothesis, quite a high fusion reaction rate could be possible, because any catalytic electron that is "too slow" to assist a second reaction can be ignored if other electrons are available to assist that second fusion reaction, see? V (talk) 20:18, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that was written by a computer programmer while playing with unorthodox ideas. Literally. His "electron catalysis" paper is linked from his "Mad science" page here. He even posted his theory in the "Half baked ideas" page, and promoted it in Rothwell's Cold Fusion Knol, note the weasely "Recently a hypothesis was published" when he had written and self-published that hypothesis himself. Or maybe you are talking about Horace Heffner's theory, which has been published only in his personal website[14] under "Some Fringe Thinking Regarding Cold Fusion", accompanied by other far-fetched hypothesis like partial orbit hypothesis, atomic expansion hypohesis or dual catalyzed electron hypothesis. I don't think this is usable for the article.
Anyone with a bit of knowledge can make an hypothesis. That the hypothesis is valid or even viable is a different thing. Even Nobel Laurate Julian Schwinger made a hypothesis, and it wasn't even backed by any experimental results (again from Huizenga, pages 136-137, 196-198, Schwinger's theory postulated the production of 3He with all gamma rays becoming heat inside the lattice, H+D->3He+energy, with the H coming from contamination of light water in the heavy water, but no 3He was found in any experiment) --Enric Naval (talk) 23:43, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I agree that we can't use the hypothesis I mentioned, because although it was published and it is even available at WikiSource ( http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cold_Fusion_Hypothesis ), its publication didn't qualify as a "reliable source". But I didn't mention it to talk about it, other than to point out that just because somebody claims that nuclear fusion reactions happen at a rate faster than other things can keep up with it, that doesn't mean the person making that claim is correct with respect to all circumstances! If nothing else, the facts about muon-catalyzed fusion should prove that person to be only partially right. V (talk) 02:36, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Only that the person making the claim (Huizenga) does mention muon-catalyzed fusion and does explain why it has an increased rate and does mention that it doesn't really apply to F&P's experiment. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:42, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, muon catalysis certainly is not a part of modern CF experiments. The point remains, however, that fusion can be catalyzed. Whether or not some other catalyst exists, associated with a metal lattice, remains to be determined. Which seems doubtful of happening so long as CF detractors continue to insist that nothing of interest --certainly not fusion!-- is happening in those experiments.... V (talk) 18:03, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No it's not pure rhetoric, but as you are still digging deeper into Huizenga, I can understand that you see it that way. What Goodstein said in the 1994 article about not enough time to react is understandable, but it is not a killer argument why it can't happen. Because that argument doesn't take into consideration that in (or on the edge of) a metal lattice the order, scale, and products of nuclear reactions are modified in a massive manner and that is a killer argument why it _can_ happen. I don't have a good source yet for this part of the story. So until I do you can happily continue copy-pasting Huizenga into the article, because that seems to be the only source you have. Just be aware that it might already be very outdated. --POVbrigand (talk) 12:50, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The current mainstream view, as reflected in current textbooks, is that it has no effect, for example, General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry, H. Stephen Stoker, Cengage Learning, 2009, page 316.

Chemical reaction Nuclear reaction
Reaction rates are influenced by temperature, pressure, catalysts, and reactant concentrations. Reactions rates are independent of temperature, pressure, catalysts, and reactant concentrations.

Per WP:FRINGE#Quotations, claims to the contrary can be included, but they should be attributed properly as a non-mainstream view. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:35, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tsk, tsk, what "mainstream" are you talking about? Why does Wikipedia have the Muon-catalyzed fusion article, if nuclear reactions can't be affected by a catalyst? Yes, I know full well that this particular catalyst is very special, that most catalysts are chemical compounds and so indeed cannot affect nuclear reactions. Nevertheless, if the table specifies "catalysts" without being precise, then the table is in-essence wrong. --Not to mention that muons aren't the only particle known to be able to catalyze fusion reactions: http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/95253-EpF93N/webviewable/95253.pdf (this catalyst is even more energy-expensive to make than a muon, alas!). V (talk) 02:49, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(1836 times more massive than electron? Wow, muon is only 207 times more massive....) It's not wrong, it's simplified. The exceptional cases will appear in more specialized books. Huizenga himself cites one case where very high pressures (270,000 atmospheres) will change the fusion rate of a certain reaction by 0.006 orders of magnitude (by 6%). Now, deuterium in palladium only has 10,000-20,000 atmospheres and needs to increase the fusion rate by 50 orders of magnitude (by 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000%) And then, if CF really follows the third pathway, the branching ratios still have to be modified by a few orders of magnitude..... --Enric Naval (talk) 04:42, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I'm talking about the table you actually presented. Why did you pick that one, if you knew that fusion can be affected by a catalyst, and if you knew that other tables might be out there that actually specified it? Was it simple laziness/carelessness, or did you want to distort this discussion or the article? Whatever the case, this is why people like me need to speak up, when such faulty data is introduced! V (talk) 18:03, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not faulty, it's simplified for teaching. Muon-catalyzed, pressures on the order of hundreds of thousands of atmospheres, etc, are exceptional cases that appear in more specialized books. Exceptional cases. If one such case applies to CF then we need a source that says so. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:43, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is supposed to be an "encyclopedia", and there are many articles here which cover various fine details of their subjects. Simplifications like that, which could allow someone seeing the article for the first time to say, "fusion can't be catalyzed", are not acceptable! In fact, to insist that an article include such data, simplified-to-the-point-of-inaccuracy, is tantamount to POV-pushing, which also is totally unacceptable. V (talk) 22:03, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Our article doesn't say that fusion can't be catalyzed. (because we are using specialized books that mention the muon-catalysis topic in relation with cold fusion, which means that they consider it relevant to this topic, even if it's only to explain why it doesn't apply) --Enric Naval (talk) 22:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is a critical fact that fusion can be catalyzed at all, so there shouldn't be even a hint in the article that fusion might not be catalyze-able, and this is part of why I so strongly object to that table you brought to this Talk page, worded the way it is, as if you somehow intend to use it in the article. Readers should not be subjected to the opinion that just because no known sort of catalyst can explain CF results, there is nothing else that might also do the trick (and "therefore cold fusion is impossible"). You know full well that despite the lack of mainstream-convincing evidence supporting the claim that fusion happens in CF experiments, a lot of hypotheses were developed, and regardless of whether those hypotheses were formed by Nobel winners or by crackpots, they seem to have in common the notion that fusion can be catalyzed by something other than a muon (or antiproton). The article, of course, has to wait for secondary sources describing either hypotheses or experimental results, but it need not be bound by the views of those who claimed, after the Pons & Fleischmann announcement, in essence, "I cannot imagine how fusion might be happening in those experiments; therefore fusion cannot be happening in those experiments." V (talk) 00:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for looking that up. I am fine with including it as a non-textbook science view and we can put it in a bit vague wording. As long as it acts as a "disclaimer" to the Huizenga view (only regarding the chemical environment). I still have no clear picture if the sources are saying in true cold fusion sense: "it's D-D fusion, but with different probability and branching" or if they are saying in true LENR sense "something is happening and it is not compatible to D-D fusion in probability and branching as known from plasma experiments." --POVbrigand (talk) 19:54, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"... perceive the field as the remains of the controversy of the early 1990's"

I can't find support for this phrasing at the end of the introduction. Can someone point it out to me? Thanks. Olorinish (talk) 12:28, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is supported by Cartwright, it was introduced in this change.[15]. I have restored part of the old text, please take a look. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I want to see something along the line: "it is rarely published in (top) peer reviewed journals, therefore mainstream scientists don't notice what's going on and therefore they still think the status of cold fusion is like it was in the early 1990's" The paragraphs of Cartwright that I want to use are: "Indeed most mainstream scientists perceive..." and "Few mainstream scientists appear to be aware of such developments in cold fusion, ...". We can combine it with the "scrutiny" bit, but I think there is a difference between scrutinizing scientific work and merely being aware of it. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:28, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(It is rarely published in all journals, not just in top journals?)
Apart from that point, I agree with the general idea. I made an edit to try and convey this idea --Enric Naval (talk) 13:25, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proponent's theories

I tried to clean up the "proposed theories" section. [16].

Here were some issues:

  1. Theoretical predictions of palladium loading indeed predict a closer spacing of hydrogen atoms (the reference to nuclei is not neutral since there is no indication from the energetics that any nuclei are separated from electrons), but the distance is not "greatly" reduced.
  2. The article claims that there is somehow a "lower potential barrier" in this situation. Screening might allow for that, but the lower barrier is not explained. I checked the articles cited and they do not indicate that the potential barrier is lowered.
  3. Some proponents still claim fusion is happening. That, as much we all agree upon. However, the "new proposals" are all over the map and don't really stand-up to the kind of scrutiny that we would expect. Most cold fusion researchers, in fact, judiciously avoid discussing theoretical mechanisms because they think empiricism is more important than theoretical explanation. The last real novel theoretical explanation that was offered by a serious scientist was Schwinger's proposal, and that was essentially dismissed out-of-hand by the community and only gets passing mention in Wikipedia, I see. Including buzz words like "surface effects" or "Bose-Einstein condensate" is more-or-less name-dropping and doesn't seem to be a real proposal. In any case, there was a tag since May on the statement, so removing the buzz words seemed appropriate. I think we can say that there are a lot of "novel" ideas floating around in the community, but none of them have the consistent backing nor the support of more than the single person advocating them. To that end, they probably don't belong being advertised here.

140.252.83.220 (talk) 03:28, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure the reason that most CF researchers are focusing on data-gathering is, for the mainstream community to accept the notion that something odd is happening in those experiments, whether fusion or something else, irrefutable repeatable experimental evidence is needed. Theories would, afterward, then naturally be sought avidly, to explain the "something". I'm aware of one class of CF experiments, barely mentioned so far in the article here, that may offer the necessary "irrefutable repeatable experimental results". So far as I know, all experiments of this class have produced anomalous energy. A Reliable (but, alas, "primary") Source link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0375960109007877 V (talk) 05:27, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's also something of an accident of the way the story developed. The people making the claim most strongly were the experimentalists (Fleishman and Pons) while the theorist (Storms) for perhaps both professional and political reasons crapped out. Storms is now really making an ass of himself with his outlandish 9/11 conspiracy theories, so that's not so good. Yeah, this isn't something to be derided, but it's simply a fact on the ground that the theories offered are either all over the map or widely discredited. If the cold fusioneers would invent the cold fusion battery already, I'm sure the theoretical physicists would sit up and notice, but as it is the feeling that most get is the same one gotten from over-unity devices, electrogravitics, etc. That's the problem with the fringe, you can't tell the goose shit from the golden egg. Fortunately, the scientific method has a self-correcting mechanism. Anyway... this is off-topic. 140.252.83.220 (talk) 08:56, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(I was going to remove the comment about Storms as an unsubstantiated personal attack, but I then I saw [17], which falls under 9/11_conspiracies#Foreknowledge.) --Enric Naval (talk) 11:53, 26 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]

I think this is absurd,...

The article starts out by acting like it is going to give you the definition of "Cold Fusion". But then ends up telling you it's history, as if someone was trying to brag about being "smart".

I see this WAY too often on Wikipedia.

The very first section should be a short, concise definition of the topic/entry, NOT an hour long article that never really gives you the information about the topic itself, just the history of it.

The history should be included, but it should be included deeper in the article, not at the VERY start of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.160.197.141 (talk) 05:25, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As long as many folks think that this research field is mistaken, Wikipedia editors will not be able to agree about "what it is". The result is the compromise you see. V (talk) 15:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

mainstream respectability

What I have claimed all along, but die-hard uninformed pseudo skeptic non-believers won't (can't) accept.

[18]: Tests conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center in 1989 and elsewhere consistently showed evidence of anomalous heat during loading and unloading deuterium into 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.

Relevant Presentation: + Download presentation given at a LENR Workshop at NASA GRC in 2011 [available soon].

Of course from a true pseudo skeptic point of view NASA is absolutely nobody and only Science (journal) and Nature (journal) approve what is respectable science.

intentional provocative wording  ;-) --POVbrigand (talk) 08:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do think I've already posted stuff on this Talk page to the effect that, so far as I know, every pressurized-deuterium-gas experiment, involving palladium, has produced anomalous heat. So there is no reason to mess with electrolysis and room-pressure deuterium, and all the uncertainties of that class of experiments.... :) V (talk) 05:21, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]