Talk:Cold fusion

An editor has been banned from editing the Cold fusion article, for a period of one year.
	Pcarbonn has been banned by the Arbitration Committee from editing the Cold fusion article. The user is additionally prohibited from discussing or proposing changes to the article, on this talk page. Upon expiry of this ban, any editor may remove this notice. Please refer to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion, the relevant Arbitration case in which the editor was banned, for further details.
This notice was posted by Tznkai (talk) 22:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC) on behalf of the Arbitration Committee.

Discussion with and about Minhducthandan's edits here

On 18:35, 23 February 2009, Minhducthandan posted this comment here: "I tried the experiment described on [link] and it works I think it worth to test it out." [1]. The comment was later deleted by another user, citing Wikipedia:Talk#Others'_comments (bullet 4). Bullet 4 seems to me to be about personal attacks, and the comment doesn't seem to me to be remotely like a personal attack. Maybe LeadSongDog meant "Deleting material not relevant to improving the article"; however, I think that while at first glance the comment may seem to be discussion of the topic matter rather than discussion of article content, on second thought I believe the comment is intended as an argument in favour of keeping this material in the article, and as a response to Verbal's invitation "please discuss source on talk." Here I'm not expressing agreement or disagreement with the comment, but opposition to the deletion of the comment from this talk page. (see below)^{(20:45, 28 February 2009 (UTC))} ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The stated reason given was wrong, sure, but the removal was obviously for spamming links that had nothing to do with improving the article. It's so obvious I can't believe I'm discussing it. The user has a history of adding external links and promoting companies and website. For example, [2][3][4][5]. It's hard enough fighting this stuff without editors endorsing it by putting it back in.

P.S. Abd's sleuthing has revealed that the user is the owner of the website he posted, which is massively unsurprising given a 2 second glance at the spamming in his contribution history. Can't we use a little bit of clue here and get rid of obvious spamming without a mountain of drama and wasted time? Phil153 (talk) 18:54, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Phil obviously wanted to mean bullet 3 "Deleting material not relevant to improving the article". --Enric Naval (talk) 20:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

To Minhducthandan: Wikipedia articles are based on reliable sources. That website seems to me to be just a website. Anybody can put up a website. We use things like books published by universities or by good publishers, articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, newspaper articles etc. A website of a university or a government etc. might be a reliable source. If you can find a published book or article saying that someone tried that experiment and it worked, that would be a first step. When you say you tried it: you and I are just Wikipedian editors; we don't write Wikipedia articles based on that. If you want to tell people about the website, Wikipedia might not be the best place to do that.

To Enric Naval re bullet 3: as you may have seen, I already replied re that above.

I think the description is sufficient enough for ALL to replicate and observe the heat it's so obvious that my 9 years old child has felted it. Even where you can go to buy the equipment yourselves and come down to the cost at exact dollar and cent. If it's wrong or a hoax prove it!! ... then tell it to the whole world, otherwise it is a valid experiment. In science one should deal with "fact" not speculation. Unlike other experiments and "publications" that "only the author can produce and . . . fails to reproduce", this one works all time, every time. What are you asking for in term of fact?

As a little note: If you can not find the equipment at your local hardware stores then they are widely available on Ebay too. If you are too "poor" for a scientific cause to spend your money on the ultrasonic cleaner then the local jewelry store may let you use for 15, 30 minutes. In this case, it only costs you two pencils, one 9 volt battery and a kitchen glass. And I don't think it is too much if indeed one wants to verify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Minhducthandan (talk • contribs) 13:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Minhducthandan, several editors have pointed out how your edits here were inappropriate. You claim that what you are reporting is "cold fusion," but the only evidence asserted on your web page is heat. How much heat? Unless it were shown that the heat generated is more than the energy put in, your "replicable" experiment shows nothing, and few would bother to try replication. It may only cost a few dollars, but it will cost a lot of time. Further, even if you were absolutely right, supposing fusion of a new kind is being shown in your experiment (it's not the same environment as most of the cold fusion experiments, which were with deuterium and palladium or another catalyst, nor is it the same as sonofusion, which is hot fusion, i.e., fusion taking place at high temperatures inside the bubbles, millions of degrees, and which was also with deuterium), we still could not use your work in the encyclopedia, until and unless it is, as a minimum, published in a reliable source publication. Your web page does not even approach this. If you really think, in spite of the objections I've made here and elsewhere, that you have discovered something, do the work. Find people to verify it (trying that here is not appropriate, though what is done is done), find a publisher, and get it published. However, at this point, I doubt that you could get the work published in even alleged fringe sources, such as newenergytimes.com. They do have standards. --Abd (talk) 14:20, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

To Phil153 Re linkspamming: I don't have an opinion at the moment that there was or wasn't linkspamming; but if there was linkspamming and someone thought it would save time to delete the whole comment along with the link, I don't wish to criticize that.

Re clue: I was in the middle of trying to think of a good reply to that when a family member pointed out that I was absent-mindedly starting to eat my dessert before my main course (LOL!), so I think I'll stop there. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:45, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, I mistakenly said bullet 4, but intended bullet 3 as Coppertwig correctly inferred. LeadSongDog (talk) 22:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, LeadSongDog! LeadSongDog and Phil153, I apologize for having originally posted the words I've struck out above. That was a mistake: I'm not saying that there was or was not linkspamming. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 09:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Minhducthandan: Wikipedia is not the place to tell people about new things you've discovered. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. Arguments that the method works are not valid arguments for including material in the article. Material to be cited must be published in reliable sources. This talk page is not to be used for discussion of things like your experiments, but only for discussion about developing this article. When you post on a talk page like this, please end your post with four tildes, like this ~~~~, which will automatically sign your username. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: The Title is Cold Fusion

The article is titled "Cold Fusion" not "Origins and Debates Over CF".

However, the lead of this article (today) is dedicated to the debate over the original claims (SP and MF), and the conflict.

Note these words in the initial three initial paragraphs:

1) ... SP and MF 2) ... made headlines 3) ... enthusiasm turned to skepticism

I propose instead that the scientific processes, in simple terms, should dominate the article, dominate the introduction.

What does the term refer to?

It seems safe now to suggest he term "cold fusion" has an identifiable meaning, and that is in relation to certain 'experimental processes', ones that have varied results: some positive, some not. This is primary.

Then, other themes are secondary: 1) theories about how the results are alleged to be possible 2) there are many many theories, apparently not settled

Then, it is tertiary: 1) whether the results are possible 2) the findings were argued by some to be impossible 3) are the rejections of cold fusion supported by peered published evaluations of each experiment claiming positive results?

And 4) some of the debate is the normal tension in science between theory and discovery 5) some of the debate was highly emotionalized involving science politics

I acknowledge that the highly acrimonious political origins of cold fusion is a 'reality' that can be defended as 'relevant'. However, those origins do not *entail (define) what cold fusion *is today.

Thus, I propose that the paragraphs that "lead" the article instead belong to a subsumed section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ihaveabutt (talk • contribs) 00:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"I propose instead that the scientific processes, in simple terms, should dominate the article, dominate the introduction." The present introduction is already dominated by the scientific processes. It describes some details about the proposed reactions, how the researchers presented their experiments and their results, and how other researchers responded. It then describes, briefly, how the government has reacted to the situation. Olorinish (talk) 05:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Please double check. I acknowledge my note is not perfectly expressed, and I acknowledge that PART of the introduction is rightly about science, but my note warrants more than just a casual dismissal. Ihaveabutt (talk) 19:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to propose an alternative. I don't see any problem with the current lead (along the lines you suggest) Verbal chat 20:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The second sentence is, "More broadly, but less commonly, it can be used to refer to..." Fine; but is the article about the narrower definition in the first sentence, or does it include the broader definition? Would it make sense to either rename this article to low-energy nuclear reaction or to have a separate page on that topic, since I believe that term is more commonly used than "cold fusion" in current research publications?

Regardless of the answer to the above, I suggest appending "e.g. muon-catalysed fusion" to the end of the 2nd sentence. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

How about:

The phrase "Cold Fusion" is a description. Whether or not it is a correct description has been disputed ever since 1989, when it was coined. In that year the electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons described some experiments involving the electrolysis of heavy water, and claimed they had observed quantities of heat energy being released that could not be explained in terms of ordinary chemical interactions. They therefore proposed that the energy could be explained if nuclear fusion reactions were occurring between deuterium nuclei under relatively ordinary physical conditions, far colder than the conditions inside stars, where fusion typically occurs in Nature. It is known that special events such as muon-catalyzed fusion can occur even at liquid-hydrogen temperatures, but it is also known that muons are not available to explain Fleischmann's and Pons' results. Therefore the label "Cold Fusion" exists to describe whatever other mechanism might be able to do that, and that label has persisted in spite of all the conflicting research carried out afterward, some of which directly contradicts the original claims that something unexplainable in terms of chemistry had happened.

This article will describe the original experiment, attempts to duplicate it, variant experiments on the general theme, theoretical objections, ...

(take it from there, folks!) V (talk) 19:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

What is better about this version? It seems more complicated to me. Olorinish (talk) 21:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It has less politics and more science in it. Science can indeed be complicated. So? V (talk) 16:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

This version is less formal and less encyclopedia-like. It also has fewer details than the equivalent section of the current article. Keep in mind that a large part of the notability of cold fusion is that there was a great deal of attention just after the FP announcement, which means that this article should include a lot of information about that. The notability of the post-2000 work is much lower, and reported either as being fringe-ish (such as in the Wired and Physics Today articles), or is reported in unusual forums (such as the Mosier-Boss articles). I don't understand what is wrong with the present version. Olorinish (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The introductory paragraph doesn't need to be as formal as the rest of the article, and it could be argued that some of the details in the current introduction could wait for a later paragraph. Also, one thing that bothers me is the need for such words as "postulated". NOW the phrase "cold fusion" is equivalent to a postulate, but what if the phenomenon is proved to indeed be fusion? Then the article has to be edited throughout, to remove such words, because the phrase would, from then on, be describing something real. On the other hand, the fact that the phrase "cold fusion" is a description will remain true, no matter what the future holds. Heh, the second sentence in my proposed paragraph might someday need to be rewritten as "Whether or not it is a correct description was disputed from 1989, when it was coined, until ####, when it was {[(dis)]}proved." But very little else, of text written from the CF-is-a-description viewpoint, would need a rewrite. Sure, extra text would be needed to describe the proof or disproof, but like the word "polywater", the phrase "cold fusion" can always qualify as a description, regardless of being real, fictitious, or uncertain. V (talk) 17:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a good candidate for transwiki to to the Simple English Wikipedia. Not quite encyclopedic enough in tone for this one, IMO. Phil153 (talk) 18:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

To simplify the introduction, I have edited the first paragraph. Any comments? Olorinish (talk) 18:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for simplifying. But it doesn't quite work with the paragraph that follows. You'd need "a claim of cold fusion made worldwide news headlines" or similar. And the simpler version doesn't encapsulate the fact that "cold fusion" most commonly refers to a disputed field of research involving palladium and D. I don't know how to fix it short of a revert...we'll see what someone else comes up with. Phil153 (talk) 18:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

A couple of minor points. The word "refers" is possibly overused in that short paragraph. The last part, involving muon catalysis, might be better if "for example," was replaced with "e.g.,", because IMO "for example, see" is superior English, while the well-known abbreviation of the Latin phrase works well without "see". V (talk) 03:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Holy Grail Found? -- 2007 Review article

page 1 preview springerlink He Jing-tang, Nuclear fusion inside condense matters, Frontiers of Physics in China, 2007. At first glance, this appears to be a general physics journal. I'll try to get a copy. --Abd (talk) 19:02, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

table of contents of issue in which the article appeared: [6]

[7] gives a summary of the article, Nuclear fusion inside condense matters. "Description: This article describes in detail the nuclear fusion inside condense matters—the Fleischmann-Pons effect, the reproducibility of cold fusions, self-consistentcy of cold fusions and the possible applications."

See, from this author, [8], abstract. This was published in 1993

Abstract A study on anomalous nuclear fusion reaction by using 10kV pulsed high voltage discharge in deuterium was completed. During high voltage (HV) pulses no neutron signal was detected, but two peaks of gamma rays were detected. The energies of two gamma rays are at 425 and 870keV, respectively. It might be explained as 108Pd* and 56Fe* excited by high energy charged particles de-exciting radiations. Neither neutron signal nor gamma signal was detected in the intervals between the pulses.

I recommend reading the original paper linked as PDF above. They mention Pons-Fleischmann, and this paper is a confirmation of anomalous fusion, fusion that seems to have a different radiation signature than expected.

I doubt that Frontiers of Physics in China is a reliable source, so it's not even a clean drinking vessel, let alone the holy grail. It's noted at Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples (linked from WP:RS) that The vast majority of well-regarded journals are indexed in the ISI Web of Science., which FOPC doesn't appear to be. Biberian's "review" had the same problem. Reliable journals simply don't publish uncritical nonsense. Phil153 (talk) 20:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to find out if it's listed. That content seems to require payment. However, note who owns ISI: Thomson Reuters. So see this, from Thomson Reuters. What does Thomson Reuters have to say about Higher Education Press and its Frontiers series? I'm, here, countering an a priori, categorical rejection of a possible source, apparently based on conclusions. I.e., the topic is fringe, therefore the journal is flaky. Isn't that a tad circular? --Abd (talk) 00:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I missed this later insertion. I had no issue accessing the ISI web, I'm not sure why you can't. A search in their list for "Frontiers" in 2007 (the date of publishing) yielded 9 journals, which didn't include the above. A search of the eigenfactor rankings, which indexes all of ISI and most journals that ISI journals cite, shows up no mention of the journal.[9]. However, your press release looks solid for the Frontiers series generally. The journal itself may well be good enough to be used as a source somewhere in the article.

I invite anyone who thinks I'm being biased in calling this "uncritical nonsense" to actually read the first page of the paper that Abd linked above. Read it carefully. It is the least scientific and most imprecise piece of crap I've ever read in a physics journal. Yes, it is "uncritical nonsense". It contains statements of unknown facts without qualifiers (In the process of electrolysis of heavy water using Pd as the cathode and Pt as the anode, if the following two conditions are satisfied spontaneously, excess energy will be produced. Not "has been observed", not "X studies have reported excess heat when...". As a serious or credible review document this is a joke. And that's not even counting the spelling mistakes (self-consistentcy)!! and grammar mistakes. This is despite Springer claiming that the articles are carefully peer reviewed once translated into English. Your use of this as a platform to suggest that I am POV pushing in questioning the reliability of this source is confusing. Surely you can see how unscientific this work is?

Anyway, from your comments below I think we're talking past each other. You posted this section as if some new review had finally been found ("holy grail" - your words) vindicating cold fusion in a reliable source beyond what had existed previously. My response is that despite the reliability issues (which are real), there are major weight issues to consider, since this is emphatically not a reliable enough source for extraordinary claims contradicted by the most reliable journals and the mainstream in general. The journal had been going for 1 year - 1 year! when this study was posted (Vol. 2 No. 1), and as yet appears to be lacking a good impact factor (it's not even indexed!!), which is another thing noted at WP:RS and associated pages as being important for reliability. Journals without high impact factors haven't established reliability. These are the things I check because this is what our RS pages say. The rest is editorial decision which I will expound on in very long post later today.

The trouble with these threads, as I and others have repeatedly said, is that this is all abstract, including the issue of whether this journal is sufficiently reliable. You need to actually propose text or changes to the article that this journal is going to be used for. "A 2007 review of the field by <chinese professor> noted..." in the "experimental results" section might be ok for this source; "Mainstream reviews of the field have been mixed, with one noting..." in the lead is not ok for this source. It all depends on text, weight, position. References are there solely to support article text, and whether they can support that text depends on what the text is and where it is inserted. Without proposed text, we can't discuss any of the relevant issues, and this is all abstract meandering that is at best tangential to improving the article.

Perhaps this was all a misunderstanding and you were merely sharing your preliminary excitement about a new review which looked like it supported cold fusion. In which case, carry on and let us know when there is article improvement to discuss.

Further comments will follow in an extremely long posting. Phil153 (talk) 21:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Phil, you are correct. I was sharing with the editors of this article my discovery of this source, which seems to have been entirely missed. Rothwell didn't know about it. You are now conceding that the source might be used "somewhere in the article." Great! What I pointed out was that, before any edit was asserted, before any specific edit was even proposed, the source was being attacked as you repeat above, "uncritical nonsense." I will, below, review what's on the first page, perhaps in response to Enric. The lack of response says to me more about attitudes about China than about reliability. Push has not come to shove until there are edits asserted and contradiction is established. Heads up! If anyone gets a copy of this article, let us know! (I will if I do.) --Abd (talk) 13:12, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

And the basis for your doubt, Phil? This publication is associated with Springer, here is their page on it: http://www.springer.com/physics/journal/11467. The editorial board is at http://www.springer.com/physics/journal/11467?detailsPage=editorialBoard. But forget it. It's RS, it is published by an independent publisher and if you think it's unreliable, you will have to impeach it, specifically, and not with a circular "uncritical nonsense" argument. ArbComm is watching, Phil.

Members of the editorial board who have articles on Wikipedia: Chao Tang, Charles M. Lieber, Daniel C. Tsui. My guess is that many more are notable in China. I now understand why Jed Rothwell had such trouble with incivility here. Phil, you either want to cooperate in this enterprise or you don't. For too long we have had editors who have some fixed conclusion in mind, who have worked steadily to make sure that the article creates this impression. Where do you stand?

Now that you mention it, I should also look at Biberian's review! Was it similarly dismissed? --Abd (talk) 02:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm just going off the policy examples linked above, which you didn't address in your reply. Some journals are more reliable than others, and some are barely reliable at all. It's a difficult editorial weight issue, not a binary "IS RS" or "ISN'T RS". When Nature refuses to publish something and a 3 year old journal not listed in the ISI web, called Frontiers of Physics in China, publishes a summary of that same field, yes, we likely have an RS and weight problem. I'm not aware that the inclusion of a journal in Springer makes it reliable. If you want to see the kinds of articles that get published there, do a search for parapsychology.

Since I'm far from an expert on reliable sources, and the burden of proof is on the person who wants to include it, let's get some more opinions. Or maybe take it to the RS noticeboard once you actually propose text to reference from this journal instead of just making threads about "holy grails". We're here to write an article, and the best way to move forward and find consensus is to actually propose text to insert or change with references to support it. We can then discuss the text, the weight, and whether the journal is reliable enough to support that particular text. Everything else is rather academic without specifics.

As for Jed's incivility, he's not 10, and he's responsible for his own behavior. Implying he was uncivil because of some flaw in those who disagree with you and him is uncivil in itself. Arbcom is watching, Abd. Phil153 (talk) 07:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

This search for parapsychology is supposed to mean something? First return, sober paper, as far as I could read it. The topic exists, you know. Are you claiming that the journal that paper was published in isn't a reliable source? Phil, what exactly is the basis for that? That they publish a paper with Parapsychology in the title? Have you read Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science? Might be worth the time. Read it carefully. --Abd (talk) 23:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Part of the above comment by Abd was deleted in this edit. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

If I didn't hold Jed responsible for his incivility, I'd have appealed his block. However, his incivility took place in a context where many others were uncivil, and incivility breeds incivility, and it is very dangerous to blame just one side. As I wrote, ArbComm is watching, from the future, so if you think I'm being uncivil, do something about it. I found a source that is remarkable, a review article, by a physicist, at what appears to be a major physics institute, writing in a journal that is covered in RS as a premier peer-reviewed journal for China. Instead of just dumping it into the article, and I know what would have happened, I'm discussing it here first. You don't like that? Why? I'm not going to do some major writing just to see it reverted with the usual arguments that are applied, it's beginning to seem like to me, regardless of the actual merits, but based on results. I.e., if it looks like it supports cold fusion, it must be fringe or defective in some way, without actually investigating the sources, just assuming it. Have you actually researched Frontiers of Physics in China more than seeing where it is not listed? Have you looked at the Board? No, I don't see that you did. Instead, you simply make up all the negative arguments you can think of and ignore the positive. That is what has to stop. It's got a name: POV pushing. Show me, Phil, where you have ever found a source that might show something positive about the cold fusion idea, and you brought it here? It might cause me to revise my opinion. --Abd (talk) 22:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yet another primary source from a second-rate journal contradicting the secondary sources in higher quality journals and the statements from government and scientific agencies. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Enric, too bad. You too. It's not a second-rate journal. Have you actually investigated it? What do you base that conclusion on? It's published by a cooperation between Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag. Higher Education Press is the largest publisher in China, 45th largest in the world, according to Publisher's Weekly. Frontiers of [science name] in China, covering quite a few different sciences, is China's attempt to do its best in the field of scientific publishing, and I've seen what the Chinese do when they go for their best. (But they need someone with better English editing!) The article is not a "primary source," it's a Review. Did you look? This is a secondary source, published in a peer-reviewed journal. Ultimately, peer-review depends on the review Board. I gave a link to the Board above. "Second-rate"? Tell it to their institutions. What, exactly, is contradictory? Please specify. Or stop making unfounded accusations! The journal is a general physics journal, clearly, from perusing it. It's not "fringe."

If we have a contradiction of sources, then we need to weigh and balance. Okay, what source is being contradicted? Remember, from your claim above, it's a "secondary sources in higher quality journals," plus -- though this means much less, "statements from government," and I'm not aware of involved "scientific agencies," but maybe you have something in mind. --Abd (talk) 23:40, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, you are right, it's a review, my bad.

It's probably contradicting the 2004 DOE report and Nature[10][11], the scientific consensus as reported by several New York Times article, the university press books that I added at Martin Fleischmann describing how most scientists don't think that cold fusion has shown any definitive proof, etc., although it's hard to say without seeing the conclusions, and the list of studies to see if it's covering experiments already covered by the other sources, and if it's raising points already criticized at the other sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sources contradicting each other: good, we can describe the controversy. The bit about claiming that heat "will" be produced may be a translation error: I believe Chinese doesn't have verb tenses as such; perhaps it should have been translated as present or past tense indicating that it's referring to results of experiments, presumably described in more detail later in the article. Scientific articles with many grammatical errors because the author doesn't speak English as a first language are fairly common and do not necessarily indicate that the science in such articles is not excellent. This report adds to the set of reports that talk about measured excess heat while speculating about possible nuclear reactions as explanations. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:14, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

How does a review article contradict those sources? How does an article which asserts a reasonable basis for a hypothesis contradict prior conclusions, made earlier, that evidence is "not conclusive" but that also indicates further research is warranted? --Abd (talk) 13:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, sorry, I don't know whether there is a contradiction or not. If there is, we can present both sides. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC) (My comment of 14:14, 7 March 2009 and Abd's of 13:49 seem to have been an edit conflict.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:14, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Abstract and first page text

first page

Abstract: The abstract could be read as POV. The language seems to assume that CF occurs. However, this is a review article and such a conclusion could be warranted, it would depend on the evidence.

Introduction: "got more energy output than they had put into the system." That's a conclusion; there is substantial support for it in the literature, it's not uncommon to consider, for example, the alleged excess energy as being anomalous, which means "unexplained." Possible POV here may be simply a translation problem: "got" might have been intended as "found." That was, indeed, their finding, and was published as such in RS. The introduction section goes on to report the 1989 and 2004 DOE reports. We've had edit warring over how to report those; the paper's description is accurate (Huizenga is a tenacious critic of cold fusion, apparently). Again, this kind of reporting may be appropriate as an introduction to a review article. Reviewers get to have and express opinions.

Reproducibility of cold fusion: This seems to be the sticking point. if the following two conditions are satisfied spontaneously, excess energy will be produced. That has a note that I haven't read. The conditions are:

D/Pd ratio larger than 0.88. This kind of conclusion has often been reported, I've seen 0.85 asserted before. It wouldn't be surprising to find that the rate of fusion, if it happens, is sensitive to deuterium density. What's surprising here is that he asserts this as definite. That could be a summary, i.e., it might represent "almost always." Or it might be that he actually found this upon review. There are lots of questions raised: how did he know the loading ratio?

The current density of the electrolysis is larger than 280 mA per cm².

What prior reviews stated was that reproducibility was inconsistent. Reporting reproducibility under specified conditions does not contradict that. However, suppose that the conditions exclude all but one or two experiments. That would be grounds for further research, at most, but if it is much more than that, it would be significant. Note that in the SPAWAR experiments, loading ratio is effectively something like 1.0, and they report very high reproducibility. There may still be additional conditions.

So where is the beef? What I see here is an attempt to define the conclusions as "uncritical nonsense" based on nothing more than a belief that cold fusion is nonsense, which I've pointed out is circular. If the source doesn't actually contradict prior work, it's usable; if there is contradiction, it may still be sufficiently reliable to use with attribution.

Further, I've asserted a number of reasons to consider the journal a reliable source, and all that has appeared are different reasons to consider it other than that, with no agreement -- or contradiction -- with the reasons in one direction, i.e., toward reliability. This, again, is typical of POV pushing, it picks arguments on one side and refuses to accept arguments in the other, often completely neglecting them. Does FPC have an adequate review board? Nobody else has even mentioned the review board; I gave evidence for it right at the beginning of this section. Is the publisher independent and reputable? Nobody has dared to challenge the reputability of Higher Education Press, which is the largest publisher in China, and it's working with Thomson Reuters, which is the largest publisher in the world. Nobody is demanding that any particular conclusion be determined in the absence of a specific edit, but if we can't even agree on background facts, reliably sourced, what chance is there that we can agree on text? In the positive direction, it's been acknowledged above, by Phil, that the source may be usable in the article. That's progress. --Abd (talk) 13:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I had the opportunity to look at the offending paper. I won't comment on the content because I don't feel I'm qualified even though I've actively worked in closely related fields. I did think I would be worth including this paper's reference list. For anyone who is unfamiliar with review papers most have between 200 and 500 references. Such a few number of references would never fly for a review in an ACS or RSC journal. I also expect that APS also includes more references in their reviews. The author just doesn't demonstrate a breadth of understanding with fewer citations than this Wikipedia page. Not to mentions more than half the citations are from talks or websites. If you think that is frowned upon on wikipedia in the established peer-reviewed science literature disdain for such sources is taken to the next level. This is very bad academic practice. If it was related to my research I wouldn't waste my time reading the review. (In interest of full disclosure; I think there might have been 10 references, one could have been lost in a copied and pasted accident. In addition I've removed portions of LENR-CANR.org address' to get this through the spam filters.)--OMCV (talk) 04:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

References

1. Toni Feder, Physics Today, January 2005: 31

2. Peter L. Hagelstein, Michael C. H. McKubre, David J. Nagel, Talbot A. Chubb, and J. Hekman, New physical effect in metal deuterides, LENR-CANR.org

3. Brian D Josephson, Pathological Disbelief, http://www.tcm.phy. cam.ac.uk

4. Jones S. E., Keerey F. W., Johnson A. C., et al., Neutron Emissions from Metal Deuterides,10th International Conference on Cold Fusion, 2003, Cambridge, MA, USA

5. Jones S. E., Keerey F. W., Johnson A.C., et al., Charged-Particle Emissions from Metal Deuterides, 10th International Conference on Cold Fusion, 2003, Cambridge, MA, USA

6. Kasagi J., Ohtsuki T., Ishi K., et al., J. Phys. Soc. Japan, 1995, 64 (3): 777−783

7. Takahashi A., M.Maruta, Ochiai K., et al., Phys. Lett., 1999, A255 (1): 89−97

8. Arata Y. and Zhang Y. C., Proc. Acad. Ser. B., 1999, 75: 281−290

9. Arata Y. and Zhang Y. C., 10th International Conference on Cold Fu-sion, 2003, Cambridge, MA, USA

Good point about the references. Maybe not a very reliable source. Inclines me to give more credence to the arguments about the language on the first page. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Notice to Abd about battling and tendentious editing

I let this slide the first few times but since you show no signs of stopping, I'm issuing you a warning, and asking other editors to please watch for your incivility. You're again accusing editors of POV pushing, and again raising drama instead of improving the article, with comments like the below and many others:

Quote from Abd
Instead, you simply make up all the negative arguments you can think of and ignore the positive. That is what has to stop. It's got a name: POV pushing. Show me, Phil, where you have ever found a source that might show something positive about the cold fusion idea, and you brought it here? It might cause me to revise my opinion.

If this continues, I'm going to ask an admin to block you for deliberate incivility and bringing WP:BATTLE to an article talk page covered by AE. This isn't an isolated case, you're continuing in the vein all over Wikipedia and it has to stop. We're here to write articles, not raise drama and non existent problems to help get your banned buddy's site (who you are chatting with off wiki) unblacklisted.

As for your question, both I and P.V. Keller have supported and asked for the inclusion of more material from Storms 2007, a book written by a cold fusion advocate that's highly favorable to cold fusion. It's not even peer reviewed, but an intelligent look at it suggests that it's a careful work that's cited frequently in the field, and reliable enough to be used in the article. I am doing the exact opposite of "making up all the negative arguments I can think of" on that book, so your suggestions that I do this generally is a either a deliberate or careless lie. And just like a good look at Storms shows it to be reliable, I believe an intelligent look at this Chinese review reveals it to be an unreliable source that lacks many of the requirements for a well regarded journal at our RS pages, not to mention lacking the careful language used by well regarded scientists in real reviews. It's obvious, and OMCV's observations below further bear this out. It's called editorial judgment, not POV pushing, and you are completely out of line suggesting that I am POV pushing. Did you even stop to consider that my objections to this source might be unrelated to any POV?

To further answer your question, my edit history to the article bears out my impartiality. I was the one who inserted [12][13] and fought to keep text of the DOE showing the full breakdown, which was favorable to cold fusion, against those who wanted only the summary, which was less favorable. Most of the items crossed out on Pcarbonn's list are in the article now because of me. Unlike you, I'm not out to impeach people who have a different point of view, I'm here to write an article. I don't care what your history or POV is, I only care that edits and suggestions are made in good faith attempts to improve the article. Your posts have become very much like banned Rothwell's and Pcarbonn's, especially crap like this (in case that needs context - he's rudely dissing an editor's considerations and claiming that the tide of CF evidence is rising so much on this talk page that the skeptical dam holding back the CF tide from the article is breaking) . Seriously Abd, what's gotten into you?

In that vein, please cut the crap. If you want to improve the article, then go and edit it! We can always revert and discuss changes if other editors disagree. Or propose specific changes you wish to make here on talk. But please, quit raising drama, treating this as a forum, continuously bringing up ideas that have previously been rejected, and accusing multiple editors of POV pushing. It's not only against our policies, it and the rest of your activities in this area are wasting editors' time. I don't have a lot of time on here and I prefer to spend it doing useful things rather than answering your accusations. Phil153 (talk) 14:17, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning, Phil. Had you not already done so, I would have considered it as if it had been posted on my Talk page, and I would have place a link to this section there, for the convenience of any administrator considering blocking me. I only noticed your Talk page warning as I was looking for a link to place in this response. Now, as to the points made:

• tendentious editing The topic is a difficult one, as can be seen by the current topic bans of two editors who were active here, Pcarbonn and ScienceApologist. I don't think I've been tendentious, but vigorous debate in Talk may be essential to finding consensus. Better in Talk than reflected in edit warring in the article!
• show me, Phil, Phil showed me, which only took a few words, and it might indeed cause me to revise my opinion. However, what I saw here was serious attempt to impeach a source before it had been asserted in an edit, before sufficient details were known to judge the paper, apparently on the basis of the conclusions in the abstract, and the language used was extreme. So, for me, the jury is out. But I'm not the judge. I see long-term tendencies of some editors to argue preferentially against sources that may appear to support a disliked POV, and I would prefer for Phil to join me in considering this a problem, and in resolving it, instead of defending himself against suspicion not raised to the point of any request for intervention.

• not raise drama and non existent problems to help get your banned buddy's site (who you are chatting with off wiki) unblacklisted. The matter of banning and blacklisting is not related to this discussion, and will be dealt with in an RfC to be filed imminently, with the support of other editors. As to "chatting off-wiki," when I found the subject paper, I wrote to Jed Rothwell, who isn't my "buddy," in order to find out if he had a copy of the paper. He is utterly uninterested in Wikipedia and has no desire to be unblocked or delisted or whitelisted, and you might note that the only attempt I made to get lenr-canr.org links whitelisted was successful, an important link was whitelisted, which, BTW, should be linked here, we do cite the paper. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmansearchingf.pdf. If and when I actually attempt to get the site whitelisted, I would be highly likely to succeed. I don't tilt at windmills, and I would not attempt such a possibly disruptive move without substantial support. Meanwhile, Phil, do keep WP:AGF in mind. I do. --Abd (talk) 14:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC) (continued below)

Note to Olorinish below. I'd agree that this place isn't the most appropriate one for this discussion, and I have no problem if it is archived or moved. It was placed in the middle of a discussion, I moved it to the end of the section and considered moving it to the end of the Talk page. However, since serious charges were made here, and weren't redacted or deleted, I'm responding here, hopefully briefly. To continue,

• deliberate or careless lie, is uncivil; a "careless lie" would be what I'd call a "reckless disregard for the truth," not quite a "lie," (which is necessarily willful deception) and more serious than a mere error. I have continued to assume good faith on your part, and still do in spite of this, so I urge you to be careful. Editors may push POV even with good faith, based on an assumption that their POV is NPOV. I am unwilling to believe that you are lying, and do not even suspect it, but also noted an appearance, and I haven't seen recent behavior that negated that appearance. That is not a demand that you act in any way, but was a warning, a very mild one, not accompanied with any threat other than the implicit threat of consequences independent of my actions; whereas you have now escalated by threatening me with request for block. Please, again, be careful. I do everything I do with the assumption that ArbComm is looking over my shoulder, because, someday, possibly soon, they will be, even though I do everything I can to resolve matters short of that.

• I was the one who ... Phil's contributions to the article are noted and appreciated. And, indeed, they would be even if they were "POV-pushing," I'm no fan of blocking people for POV-pushing as long as behavior remains within guidelines. We need representation of various POVs in the editorial community in order to find true NPOV. POV is a POV detector, and the most reliable sign of true NPOV is that reasonable editors, in spite of varied POV, will agree on the text.

• rudely dissing an editor's considerations. Actually, I came to the conclusion that it was rude, though quite in line with what I've seen done here routinely by editors about whom Phil does not complain, possibly even Phil himself. Nevertheless, I struck it as gratuitous, unneeded, about a half hour before Phil's warning appeared, and certainly I would have struck it on request -- given that I did so anyway!

• Unlike you, I'm not out to impeach people who have a different point of view Uh, Phil, WP:AGF? I was warning you, gently compared to a Talk page warning, not impeaching you. A warning on Article Talk doesn't establish a basis for sanctions, unless the editor clearly responds to it, showing that it's been read. If I wanted to impeach you, I'd file an RfC, and, quite simply, I don't have the evidence justifying that. Now, if CF goes before ArbComm again, and it became important, I'd research the long-term history of involved editors and would provide evidence as I found. I'll say this much: you are, if you have done anything reprehensible, far from the worst offender, and I believe that it is possible to work with you. However, I should also note that PCarbonn expressed similar sentiments about ScienceApologist and they both got banned.

• please cut the crap Sure. Point it out, specifically. However, if you see "crap," you know what you can do, because I've seen you do it, if I recall correctly. You delete it or archive it, or perhaps you collapse it, as someone might do with this discussion, whether or not it's "crap." It's not clear that Phil's screed beginning this section is helpful to the article, so .... goose/gander sauce, anyone?

• your activities in this area are wasting editors' time. I don't have a lot of time on here and I prefer to spend it doing useful things rather than answering your accusations. Simple suggestion, Phil. You had no obligation to respond, indeed, you have no obligation to read my general comments in Talk. So, if they waste your time, don't read them and don't respond to them. If you think I'm attacking you, let someone else take care of it, or just let it slide. Unless you want to take the time. Don't waste your own time and then blame someone else for it.

• Just, if Phil cares, as I assume he does, he can watch the edits to the article! My general comments here are a heads-up, and they are not essential, they are discussion, and I'm not about to make controversial edits to the article in any serious way without attempting, first, to find consensus here. I'd prefer not to waste my time. I've only been involved here a very short time, so forgive me if I raise, here, arguments which are claimed to have been previously rejected. I'll say, though, that when a consensus appeared previously in an article, helpful editors, being familiar with it, will point to it in Talk archives, instead of just, once again, putting up a wall.

• Yes, 'wall. I'll stick with the metaphor. I didn't write "CF tide," that was Phil's ABF interpretation. The tide is continued scientific examination of the issues, based on the entire record of research, and not just depending on a 20-year old rejection and a history of "pathological science" -- on both sides. Here, it would refer to a recognition that reliable source is reliable source regardless of the POV which it appears to support. undue weight is an argument I've seen used many times to prevent an article from becoming truly balanced; and when I mention this, I can anticipate a chorus of complaints, but I'm not suggesting any violation of guidelines or policies; indeed, as has been noted, I'm suggesting, instead, that we follow them and not make "cold fusion" an exception because it is allegedly a "fringe" topic. --Abd (talk) 17:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me interject here with my two cents. I would like to see much less discussion that is not directly related to CHANGES IN THE ARTICLE! If you have a text change you want to propose, type it in either here or in the main article. If you do not, please think twice before posting your comments on the talk page. I would appreciate it. Olorinish (talk) 15:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Abd, you seem to have lost a lot of good faith toward cold fusion editors since JzG's out of process admin actions here, which clearly bothered you. You're a fair minded person and that's entirely understandable. My warning was an attempt to get through to you in what seemed like an escalating incorrect view toward other editors on this page. It's not like you. I'm happy to move on and assume a lot more good faith toward you, and reply to the topics you raise more precisely. Phil153 (talk) 18:23, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Please, give examples, specifically. I'm claiming that some editors sometimes appear to have lost sight of some basic Wikipedia values, not that they are editing in bad faith. However, moving on isn't a bad idea at all. Below, I return to our regular programming, having received a response from our friend Jed Rothwell, who, in spite of what everyone seems to be assuming about him, provides a somewhat negative review of the paper in FPC. Given that I haven't seen the actual paper yet, and he has, I find it quite interesting. But do remember, he's banned, so reading his contributions may be hazardous to your mental health. Don't follow the link if you are taking MAO inhibitors, or if you will be operating heavy machinery in the next four hours. --Abd (talk) 03:45, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Continued discussion of He Jing-tang paper in Frontiers of Physics in China

As I've mentioned before, I consulted Jed Rothwell of lenr-canr.org about this paper. BTW, I'm not his "crony" or "pal," my contact with him was simply as one inquiring about something where I thought Rothwell might have something to contribute, and I was interested in whether or not he'd heard of the paper, given that Rothwell may be the most informed person on the planet as to literature in this area. (I've called him an expert, and this was derided, but "expert" doesn't mean a person who holds some set of correct opinions, but someone who has a great deal of related knowledge, and that's Rothwell. That he may have a POV is irrelevant to that. Lots of experts have strong POVs, and, indeed, experts can get into trouble on Wikipedia, we are famous for being hard on them. Well, Rothwell answered me, with an IP edit here, signed. There is a description of the sequence of events at [14]. In short, I responded to the edit and my response was reverted because it quoted the comment from Rothwell. Whether that was proper or not, it's moot, because I don't need to copy that material here, anyone can read the history showing Rothwell's edit. Below is my response, reverted by Enric Naval:

This is a criticism of the He paper I introduced above. I did ask Rothwell for his opinion (as I've noted before); he had been unaware of the paper. An editor reverted this contribution because Rothwell is considered banned; the actions behind that have not yet been challenged, and for the moment, I agree that a ban is in effect. However, a useful edit of any banned editor may remain, see current discussion of User:ScienceApologist at [15]; if it is reverted, any other legitimate editor may bring it back in on the editor's own responsibility, which I have done (and, by the way, which I also did with a useful edit to Cold fusion by SA. The comment by Rothwell is not disruptive, it is useful and relevant discussion by an expert in the field. I had already concluded that the paper was not a general review, but rather a narrow one, from the references list provided by another editor with access to the paper, and Rothwell confirms this. I'm still interested in obtaining a copy, and I'll also be looking for a copy of Storms' book.

For our purposes on Wikipedia, the Storms book and this Chinese paper can be considered WP:reliable source; conference papers are more problematic because of lack of peer review; they can still be useful, sometimes, if attributed as the opinion of the author, and if the author is notable in the field. Further, they can sometimes be extremely useful in background discussion. Some editors are wondering why I'm discussing all this in Talk and not just editing the article. To me, discussion is essential for editing in controversial fields, and I know full well what will happen if I start dumping what I'm finding into the article without warning and without discussion. I'm not going there. There will be edits, as certain matters become clear and have been refined through discussion, and there are already edits influenced by my discussion here, for example, this. There was an attempt to slap me with a wikitrout as a result of my initiation of discussion of that usage of "cold fusion," the charge was led by SA,[16] and ... SA is now blocked for 24 hours, not because of that incident but because of many like it, and ArbComm is considering making it three months, one more arb and it looks like a done deal. If any editor doesn't like this discussion, I'd suggest not reading it. In the end, only the article counts, discussion here can usually be ignored until there are edits to look at. Silence is not consent unless there has been notice and clear opportunity to comment. --Abd (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the edit you mentioned. It's an informal usage that's barely used, the explanation given is kind of OR and isn't supported by the source. It doesn't deserve mention in the lead. Not to mention, the non OR stuff is already covered by the previous text. We previously had text that clearly mentioned a variety of alternative users: More broadly, but less commonly, it can be used to refer to any real or proposed routes for nuclear fusion to occur without the extremely high temperatures (millions of degrees Celsius) required for thermonuclear fusion , but it was removed by a cold fusion SPA who also removed "postulated" and "disputed" in the same edit...[17] this edit made by Phil153 04:07, 11 March 2009, note by Abd (talk)]]

The usage isn't informal if it is used in the title of a peer-reviewed paper. I replaced the mention, attempting to address the issues. Please don't bring up OR if there isn't any factual problem, the level of OR here is trivial, and OR prohibitions don't prevent us from stating what's obvious by consensus. The prior mention you describe did not cover this high-temperature usage of "cold fusion." I may have done it better this time, I hope it is acceptable. Otherwise, that this information is missing from Wikipedia may lead to other confusions like my initial puzzlement at the usage. I find it puzzling, still, that "cold" is used to refer to energies adequate to cause significant (usable for practical purposes) reaction rates; I'm not sure of the temperature equivalent to particle energy just barely adequate to overcome the Coulomb barrier, and it's not important enough to look up now, but that fusion is very, very hot, in ordinary language, and there is utterly no controversy over this kind of "cold fusion." It is, as we have been using the term, "hot fusion." I called it "lukewarm" in the edit summary, i.e., just barely warm enough to be not cold. --Abd (talk) 16:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The new version is an improvement, although the lead still needs work. Your previous edit stated that Cold fusion also can refer to fusion at energies just barely sufficient to overcome the Coulomb barrier, but not hot enough to encourage immediate fission. This is wrong/misleading in several ways, and unsupported by the source, hence me calling it OR. There was no bad faith mention of OR. There never is bad faith with me; you'd do well to assume that. Phil153 (talk) 16:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Phil153, your comment about "bad faith" seems to assume that it was alleged, or even that it crossed my mind. It did not. Had you simply improved the language, no need for discussion here. That language is more deeply explanatory than what I next put in, but that explanation, to my knowledge, is not at all controversial. That explanation, too, isn't perfect. "Just barely sufficient to overcome the Coulomb barrier," could be misleading. The energy might not actually "overcome" the barrier, but bring the nuclei close enough together that the reaction rate reaches a practical level. My guess is that the ideal energy brings up the reaction rate to maximize net yield, i.e., as many desired nuclei are formed and stick around instead of fissioning. Higher energy equals more fusion, lower energy means less fission. There may indeed be reliable source on all this, but it isn't the topic of the article, and the only purpose of the mention there is to differentiate between this usage and what the rest of the article covers, where the energy is such as to be far, far below the level needed to overcome the Coulomb barrier. If there is reliable source on it, some enterprising editor might get to create an article or a section probably in Nuclear fusion. With reference here that becomes much simpler. --Abd (talk) 17:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Goodstein's analysis of the cold fusion history

We currently use Goodstein (1994) as a source for this:

In 1994, David Goodstein described cold fusion as "a pariah field, cast out by the scientific establishment. Between cold fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. Cold fusion papers are almost never published in refereed scientific journals, with the result that those works don't receive the normal critical scrutiny that science requires. On the other hand, because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for external critics, if anyone outside the group was bothering to listen. In these circumstances, crackpots flourish, making matters worse for those who believe that there is serious science going on here."[42]

We also refer to this source for the statement that:

The speed of the decay process together with the inter-atomic spacing makes such a transfer inexplicable in terms of conventional understandings of momentum and energy transfer.[93]

So far, so good. But Goodstein actually gives information about both sides of the cold fusion debate. This was 1994, not 2004 or 2009. I recommend reading the whole article if you are interested in the cold fusion issues.[18]. Goldstein is saying that, on the one hand, there are very good theoretical reasons to consider cold fusion, of the "bad kind," i.e., massive heat, impossible. But, on the other hand, there are some very solid experimental results that don't seem to be explicable any other way. And he laments the situation that, because of problems with the initial announcement, the rush to judgment, the mistakes that were made, the physics world isn't taking the later, more cautious, results seriously.

I'm beginning to think we need at least two articles: one of them on the Cold Fusion affair, as an example of "Bad Science," which doesn't mean that Pons-Fleischmann were "Bad Scientists," though hardly anyone (including Fleischmann) thinks that they made no mistakes, but that the process of science by press conference, rushed attempts to confirm, rushed negative conclusions, etc., etc., was seriously defective, and there are enough sources on this to justify an article. What would the other article be? Well, what is "cold fusion" as an alleged phenomenon? What is reported? What theories have been published in reasonably reliable sources to explain the experimental results? (Which would include Shanahan's attempts to explain the alleged heat, etc., Kowalski's theories about non-nuclear damage to CR-39 chips, etc.) We can do all this without review articles, if we attribute opinions and simply allow what appears in reliable sources to determine balance. What must stop is the highly selective application of RS guidelines to exclude some material while including other material just as reliably sourced. It's going to take patient work to find consensus, but I believe we can do it. Goodstein gives very good experimental detail about Scaramuzzi's experiments, how much effort they put into addressing the criticisms of prior work. Did they succeed? Goodstein says that he still "believes" cold fusion is impossible. But he also "believes" that there are these experiments that haven't been explained any other way. That kind of tension is actually what makes for good science. His position was, in fact, reflected in the 2004 DOE review. Something is going on that hasn't been adequately explained. While there are still very good theoretical reasons to think cold fusion impossible, until the contrary experiments are more carefully reviewed and reproduced or rejected, we really don't know bleep. Theory is still theory, and science grew up when it abandoned theory as the basis for truth. Meanwhile, Goodstein reports Scaramuzzi as having figured out why the Fleischmann effect was so hard to duplicate, a loading ratio below 85% (which is hard to obtain), no heat. Above that, he reports Scaramuzzi as claiming 100% reproducibility.

As an example of problems that may still exist in the article, there is a section on non-nuclear explanations for excess heat. However, what's missing is that many experiments considered and ruled out these explanations. Further, experiments where ordinary water was used as a control have been performed. Apparently, Fleischmann and Pons did these experiments and were reluctant to report the results. Why? They indeed found some excess heat in them. However, there are more recent experiments that show the same: some excess heat from ordinary water. I think there are some SPAWAR experiments, and what they note, as I recall, is that the excess heat is explainable by the amount of deuterium present in ordinary water. I.e., much less excess heat. My point is that the article is presenting, in that section, "one side." Is there reliable source for the other side, of similar quality? (By the way, I'm suspicious of the ordinary water results, because, remember, loading factor of 85%? But maybe loading with mixed hydrogen and deuterium does something we don't understand.) --Abd (talk) 21:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Executive summary please. Verbal chat 22:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure: If you want to understand the topic, you'll have to do more than make brief, knee-jerk comments. You might actually have to read some sources, and think about what people write. One is mentioned. Goodstein (1994). It's cited in the article. Come back when you've done your homework. --Abd (talk) 02:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring your patronising attitude, your comment is longer than would be allowed in the article. Now that is fine, but it is not clear in the first few paragraphs what you are proposing. Conciseness is a virtue. So that we are all on the same page you should explain you proposal concisely, and then move on to justification - which should also be concise. If there are questions then this can develop into a discussion. Long comments just invite WP:TL;DR style responses, or will just be ignored. If they are ignored then they are useless. Basically, long comments aren't useful and do not help improve the article. Verbal chat 13:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

My attempt at summarizing Abd's comment:

• Abd proposes splitting this article into two or more articles: one about the Cold Fusion affair (history of science), another about cold fusion and excess heat measurements as alleged phenomena and explanations for them.
• This article cherry-picks from Goldstein (which Abd recommends reading [19]) and needs to present the other balancing views that Goldstein expresses.
• Selective application of RS guidelines must stop.
• The article has an incomplete, unbalanced presentation of non-nuclear explanations, and needs to add arguments refuting these explanations, including information on control experiments using ordinary water. This is an example of a problem with the article.

Paraphrasing Abd, ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, Coppertwig has read well. Thanks. As to tl;dr, that's usually five characters too much for a response. There are how many million editors who didn't read a comment? Unless it's on your Talk page, if it's too long to read, don't read it, and tl;dr can be very appropriate on one's own Talk. Nobody has an obligation to read anything on this article Talk page, unless they plan to revert an edit explained here, and even then, it's not really a problem, what's important will come around again. --Abd (talk) 15:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I read and enjoyed the Goldstein article. Thanks for recommending it. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Having taken freshman physics from the man years ago, I can assure you that his name is spelled Goodstein. Sorry if that comes across as too picky, but given that "Goodwin" is also being used on this page (though that has been partially self-corrected) I felt the need to clarify. --Noren (talk) 14:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Query

Is User:Abd helping at all in the editing of this article? Perhaps he should be referred to WP:AE. He already has taken bizarre joy in personally attacking me. Just a question for those watching this page, is all. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, Abd is attempting to get the most frequent editors of this article to more-exactly follow certain WikiPedia guidelines. goodluckwiththat, Abd! As for personal attacks by Abd, that's news to me. V (talk) 21:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, V. I thought so too. I was referred to AE, after having been warned by Hipocrite who then took it there before I'd even read the warning, and without any ongoing cause, and it was practically laughed off the page. As to who is contributing to the article, the same question might be asked of SA. Why was this posted here? It's disruptive, and disruptive edits do, in fact, violate his ban. So I expect that this won't be repeated. As to SA's spelling corrections to the article, they are welcome, except for one problem: they complicate Arbitration enforcement. Hence I've suggested that if he sees a spelling error in an article covered by the ban, he fix it with an edit summary like:

(sp, will self-revert per ban)

Then revert it with:

(revert self, undo to fix sp)

Most of the articles covered by his ban are watched often enough that this would quickly result in a spelling correction, if that's his intent. In fact, it's been claimed that I've been stalking him, which is preposterous (I haven't even looked at his contributions and there is no response pattern); suppose I were, though, perhaps helping with AE. I'd then see the proposed spelling corrections and could fix them in seconds. Others have proposed that he propose spelling corrections in Talk, but that's quite a bit more cumbersome, less efficient, and would gunk up the talk page with trivia. If SA is sincere about helping with spelling, or any other non-controversial edits, he has a way to do it without complicating Arbitration enforcement and with minimal fuss; if, on the other hand, his very purpose is pushing the limits and thumbing his nose at ArbComm, well, we'll know soon. Meanwhile, his spelling correction here was reverted by Hipocrite as a ban violation, simultaneously with a report at AE in which Hipocrite explains that he thinks the ban ridiculous. That's a violation of WP:POINT. I reverted the spelling correction back in, which I would do with any easily verifiable or clear improvement to the article proposed by SA and self-reverted as I described.

If it were asserted that non-disruptive edits self-reverted immediately were topic ban violations, I'd vigorously defend SA against such a charge. However, defiant edits, and SA has declared defiant intent at AE, are disruptive, not because of the content but because of the intent, and do violate the topic ban. If it is contended that intent does not matter, we should note that Pcarbonn was topic banned here -- more thoroughly than was SA -- because of evidence regarding intent.

SA's constructive participation on this page is welcome. --Abd (talk) 16:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The probability of reaction.

Cold_fusion#The_probability_of_reaction. Goodwin Goodstein (1994) covers this in some detail. We have this:

Because nuclei are all positively charged, they strongly repel one another.[85] Normally, very high energies are required to overcome this repulsion.[86] Extrapolating from known rates at high energies, the rate at room temperature would be 50 orders of magnitude lower than needed to account for the reported excess heat.[87]

Sounds devastating (assuming that the reader knows what an "order of magnitude" is, many wouldn't). However, Goodwin Goodstein, note 87 at this point, also points out that this figure is based on the normal distance between deuterium nuclei at room temperature.

At the inter-nuclear spacing in the deuterium molecule, the probability is too small by forty or fifty orders of magnitude. Physicists love to throw around phrases like that one. An order of magnitude means a factor of ten. Too small by forty or fifty orders of magnitude really means too small beyond discussion, beyond imagination, almost beyond meaning. On the other hand, that probability is insanely sensitive to how far apart the nuclei are to begin with. To increase the probability by the requisite 40 or 50 orders of magnitude requires getting the nuclei closer together by just one order of magnitude. It is extremely difficult to imagine how -- given the well-known forces involved -- they can be gotten closer together by a factor of ten in an experiment on a table-top. In fact, the whole purpose of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on hot fusion is to produce exactly that result. Nevertheless, once we have been anesthetized by talking about 40 or 50 orders of magnitude, the idea that a one order of magnitude gap might somehow be overcome is not so hard to swallow.

I'd like to interject a statement to the effect that in 1994 the Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor was not as widely known about as it is today. That gadget easily fits on a tabletop and causes fusions. Farnsworth actually beat everyone else in the hot-fusion field, to making a significant-quantity controlled-fusion device; it just wasn't talked about much, for four or five decades. V (talk) 03:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no. It was known for a very long time how to get fusion, and was done in lab devices since way back. He created a practical application (ultimately a neutron generator), but it's not an energy-generating device. Basically, it's hot fusion, on a very small scale. That's why it's "controlled." There are claims it could be scaled to become a power generating device, but the engineering hasn't been developed. Same with all other hot fusion, really, though I understand the big ones are getting close. This has nothing to do with cold fusion; same with Sonofusion, except that people make the mistake of calling that "cold fusion." --Abd (talk) 22:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Abd, I was responding to the statement, "It is extremely difficult to imagine how -- given the well-known forces involved -- they can be gotten closer together by a factor of ten in an experiment on a table-top." Sure, I know the Fusor is a hot-fusion device, but that was not the point; its ability to fit on a table-top was the point. (Even if CF is real, they don't yet get very useful quantities of energy from a table-top device, so the break-even aspect is not a factor.) Also, this article popularized the Fusor in 1998, which is after 1994, lending support to another part of what I had written: http://www.fusor.net/newbie/files/Ligon-QED-IE.pdf High-school students started building working fusion reactors not long after that article was published, and they didn't care about break-even, either. The article mentions Dr. Robert W. Bussard, and hints at a variation of the Fusor that would use magnetic fields for confinement, eliminating one of the key energy-sapping problems with the Fusor. Bussard himself described some of that work to a crowd at Google headquarters: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606 There is also an inside story about that project, available here: http://www.fusor.net/files/EMC2_FusionToPost.pdf (OKAY, gotta stop being off-topic!) V (talk) 23:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

He is, here, explaining why some physicists didn't immediately reject the possibility. There is another problem with the claim about physics here. "extrapolating from known rates at high energies." All this is saying is that if the materials behave at low temperatures as they do at high temperatures, then we'd expect this rate. But we already know that materials in a crystal lattice behave differently, and Goodwin cites the Mossbauer effect to show this. Goodwin Goodstein is still convinced that present theory rules out cold fusion. But he's also aware that "present theory" could be wrong or inappropriately applied. What the argument really shows is that if cold fusion works, it isn't the same mechanism as hot fusion. That "extrapolation" depends on an assumption that it is the same mechanism. --Abd (talk) 22:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

To sum up both sections, I don't think your summary of Goodstein (I assume that's who Goodwin is?) shows an appreciation of how he weights each of his arguments. Furthermore, you've misunderstood "extrapolating from known rates at high energies". The energies are irrelevant (see muon catalyzed fusion, for example). It takes between 0.01 and 0.1 MeV to overcome the barrier between nuclei, leaving 24MeV of energy that has to go somewhere. As I said before, it's like flying a toy plane into a tornado - the incident energy is irrelevant. And the energy goes somewhere in a very specific way, whether the temperature is at 100 million K, a million K, or 300K. I'm not an expert on nuclear physics (my experience is limited to three years of college, which, incidentally, is three years more than our "expert" Jed), but I'm pretty sure that if unusual reaction pathways were observed in any of numerous isotopes tested in muon catalyzed fusion, it would be a massive event in physics. I'd suggest that you're trusting the cold fusion true believer rhetoric, that "hot fusion reaction products can't apply low temperature cold fusion", a bit too much. Phil153 (talk) 23:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Goodstein. The language about "extrapolating from high energies" and my comment about it remain and aren't contradicted by what you stated, Phil. I actually only have two years of physics. With Richard P. Feynman, who greatly influenced how I approach the subject and the world. (I also had Linus Pauling for Chemistry, which probably also explains a lot, and I worked with the Mossbauer effect in sophomore physics lab, hence it was pretty easy to read Goodstein on that and understand what he was saying). Frankly, I don't see that you understand the statement in our article. You are making a different argument, one that Goodstein also raises: where does all the energy go, if we do get fusion. That's the third theoretical incompatibility. What's above is the first. Yes, I'm really getting it, why Jed burned out here. Pay attention, Phil. You don't understand what's right in front of you. Jed is an expert because he has soaked himself in the topic for years, he's probably read about everything that has been written on it. He's also an abrasive personality and probably not suited to being a Wikipedia editor, but he abandoned that idea long ago, and just made occasional comments in Talk. Most of them were quite cogent, if occasionally uncivil, and he was faced with a very hostile environment, I've been reading over the article history in detail, preparing for What Shall Not Be Mentioned. Basically, cold fusion isn't hot fusion. That should have been obvious from the very beginning. If it happens, it isn't happening -- almost certainly -- because some local forces are causing brute-force reduction in nuclear distance. Essentially, it must be some other mechanism, some other pathway, and we really don't know what it is, though there are theories. It's totally correct, if what were happening in the palladium was the same as hot fusion, dead graduate students. Neutron flux has been found (in spite of early failures), but way, way below the level expected from hot fusion. Indeed, the SPAWAR evidence is now for neutrons in addition to ionizing radiation (probably alpha particles, i.e., helium nuclei).

Does it appear that I'm pro-cold fusion? I wouldn't be surprised. However, I'm really pretty solid with Goodstein's position. It seems to violate known physics. Yet there is some solid experimental evidence that doesn't seem to have any other explanation. Goodstein was writing in 1994. Do you have any idea how much work has been done since then? --Abd (talk) 03:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

No, you're confusing Goodstein's position. Pay attention Abd (stupid thing to say, isn't it?). The statement "Cold fusion isn't hot fusion" is manufacturing a distinction that doesn't exist. You see, there's a thing called fusion that happens when nuclei get within close enough range of each other. Incident energy, or even muon shielding, is irrelevant to how it works and what products it creates. This is proven beyond doubt. You appear to not understand that. Unless you are suggesting that there is some entirely new, non fusion process going on like Blacklist Power's mechanism, which let's face it, is desperate grasping at straws that even the cold fusion advocates usually reject, this is fusion involving the nuclear force. Most agree on that.

I'd like to interject a remark to the effect that although "fusion ... happens when nuclei get within close enough range of each other", this only happens after at least one of those nuclei has escaped its electron shell. As was specifically pointed out in a reference I found some time ago, for hot fusion. http://books.google.com/books?id=KKW908I8TzIC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=%22nuclear+fusion%22+%22electron+shells%22&source=bl&ots=FUugDw4T2o&sig=bIs6rJSyuXKt2MoCeLOjf8cwUFw&hl=en&ei=SYyQSfyRG8H7tgf1zKCsCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result But why that fact seems inappropriate in an article about cold fusion has yet to be explained by anyone posting to this discussion page. ESPECIALLY is that fact relevant to the article if there is truth to your statement about "manufacturing a distinction that doesn't exist". V (talk) 06:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't recall seeing any document which mentions electron shells as a barrier to cold fusion. Does anyone else know of one? My take is that in cold fusion, supposedly the deuteron does not really have a shell of its own, but instead occupies space in between the Pd atoms and shells, inside pockets that make it likely that deuterons spend a lot of time close to each other. In this scenario, the deuterium shells are not really a barrier at all. Olorinish (talk) 12:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Well clearly it would be an electrical force - in addition to the protons in the nuclei - to overcome. probably much easier since the distances are greater at that point and the particle is orders of magnitude lighter. I recall seeing it mentioned on a book i read on cold fusion, in the phrase "electron screening". But the thing is, one could argue that this doesn't really apply so much in a plasma because the electrons are freely floating anyways. That might be why you've never seen it mentioned. Or it could be that the mass and distance ratios in comparison to protons make the effect relatively insignificant. I wouldn't know - i'm not a scientist. just sort of a (semi-) educated guess.

As to your take - that is a common theory. i think p and f proposed that themselves. multiple d2s get packed w/in a single Pd lattice, (while their electrons become part of the Pd crystal, thus not being a barrier between said d2s anymore) thus getting closer to fusionable distance. Now it's rather trivial to show that the packing ratio does, in fact, exceed 1, but that still leaves you pretty far from fusionable distance. One could argue that the relative elctronegativity of the surrounding crystal would push the d2s towards the center of the lattice, cutting the occupied space in, for example, half, but i don't think that would make that much of a difference. All in all, it's a decent start but it's not sufficient. Kevin Baas^talk 13:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

If that is a "common theory", then why isn't it in the article? (Oh, all the references to it are published in "unacceptable" sources?) Here are a few known facts: Electrolysis of water can yield hydrogen. Typically the hydrogen appears as a gas, two-atom molecules, each with two nuclei accompanied by electron shells. Hydrogen molecules are significantly larger than helium atoms: http://www.standnes.no/chemix/periodictable/atomic-radius-elements.htm Yet hydrogen can permeate various metals (such as palladium) while helium cannot: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6103028.html (scroll down toward the bottom, at end of second paragraph of Example 4). Therefore it logically follows that hydrogen is doing something special, when it permeates metal. If it is interacting with the conduction band of the metal, per the above theories, each atom of hydrogen giving away its sole electron to that band, then it would be obvious how the hydrogen can permeate; the bare nucleus is about 1/100,000 the size of the atom. On the other side of the metal the nuclei would take some electrons back and emerge as gas once again. INSIDE the metal, of course, is where Cold Fusion is claimed to happen. Why should the article not contain an explanation of why electrons shells are not a factor in the CF enviornment, when we certainly have a reference indicating they are a generic barrier to fusion??? IF they are not a factor, of course! V (talk) 14:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the electron shells are much of a barrier to fusion. For one thing, it's easy to strip the shell from hydrogen or deuterium; in normal water, neutral pH, one water molecule per 10^7 has been dissocated into a hyrogen ion (H+), no electron, plus a hyroxyl radical (OH-). In a strong acid, dissociation is complete (pH 0). In electrolysis, hydrogen ions, basically free protons (though they keep gaining electrons and losing them, passing them along) are attracted to the cathode, where they gain electrons from the cathode (the electrolyis current) and combine with each other to become H2 gas. With most electrodes, this bubbles out, but with a palladium electrode, if I'm correct, it's absorbed for a time, until the electrode is saturated. No, the barrier to fusion is the positive charge on the nuclei, they repel each other, strongly. The electrons are very weakly bound, and they are "spread out," so the charge isn't heavily concentrated where two atoms might be approaching each other. And that's as far as I'll go now, before I stick my foot in my mouth.

Okay, here goes the foot. Above, the image is of hydrogen molecules (neutral charge overall) being stripped of their electron by the metal. I don't think that's what happens. The hydrogen is not attracted by the charge of the cathode, only dissociated protons are. But there don't have to be very many of them. --Abd (talk) 19:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Abd, in one sense I don't care how trivial a barrier the electron shells are, to fusion. Remember the phrase "a little bit pregnant"? If electron shells are in fact even the slightest barrier to fusion, then fact is fact, and an encyclopedia is supposed to be about facts. In another sense, though, Things Are Relative. How much would it cost to give a mass equivalent to your body kinetic energy such that it could orbit the Earth? In terms of pure energy, purchased from the electric power grid, maybe $10. In terms of the way we actually apply energy to accomplish the task, hundreds or thousands of dollars per pound. Electrical systems can be quite efficient at accomplishing tasks, and that ease can cause forgetfulness about various difficulties that might previously have been associated with certain tasks. Remember how messages were sent before the invention of the telegraph? Temperature is a brute-force way to strip electrons from an atom; electricity is an efficient way. I'm saying here that this efficiency should not lead to ignoring the existence of the problem it solves. V (talk) 21:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

In the separate comments I've made above, among these indented paragraphs, I'm trying to point out a certain logical thing. (1) If fusion is fusion and cold fusion should be compared on an equal basis with hot fusion, then electron shells are a factor, a problem to solve, worthy of mention in the article, because the temperatures that break electron shells, for hot fusion, are not present in cold-fusion conditions. (2) If cold fusion should be treated differently from hot fusion, such that electron shells are not a factor, then in essence we are saying that the thing known to be a problem in other circumstances is not a problem here --yet no explanation of why it is not a problem is given in the article.

There seems no logical reason why nothing on that topic should exist in the article. V (talk) 15:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Find some reliable source on what you are saying, it could be in the article. Otherwise, I'd say, it's a diversion. We don't need to explain why something is not a problem. There are millions of possible things that aren't problems. In a metal like palladium, if I'm correct, the electrons are pretty much smeared out, they don't belong to any atom, and I'd think that the same would be true for the absorbed hydrogen or deuterium. Indeed, in that environment, hydrogen may behave like a metal. Somebody help me to stop! I haven't studied this stuff for more than forty years.... I really am working on the article and want to find sources, not just make up science from my imperfect memory and poor analysis, which may or may not be better than that of some others here. I found a very interesting source yesterday and notified the editors of it here, a 2007 review article in a peer-reviewed journal that somehow escaped the notice of lenr-canr.org, as well as, possibly, Storms and others. (I wrote to Rothwell, who was offended by the bad English in the article. Goes to show. Spelling above substance, I've always said, Right?) I'm sure we'll be looking at it. Once I can get a copy.--Abd (talk) 22:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

"I'd say it's a diversion" --that's opinion, not fact. The existence of electron shells is a fact; that two nuclei cannot interact without at least one losing its shell is a fact (even muon catalysis requires getting rid of at least one electron shell). We have a reference regarding generic fusion and shells; we have Phil talking about a distinction that does not exist, with respect to cold and hot fusion (he's talking about the event, not whatever might lead up to it, and I tend to agree that much of the actual event is indeed going to be independent, since the Strong Nuclear Force is known to be overpoweringly stronger than anything else in Physics). At least one of the distinctions that do exist between cold and hot fusion must, logically, somehow be associated with whatever mechanism enables CF to occur (provided it does indeed occur, of course). So long as we don't know which distinction is the key, why should any of them be left out of the article? The article could present a list of those distinctions, and plainly state the Simple Obvious Logic that if CF is real, it somehow depends on at least one of them, and nobody yet knows which, or how --and that lack of knowledge, even after 20 years of theorizing, is exactly why many physicists have assumed and continue to assume that CF cannot be real. V (talk) 15:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Back to his other point about experimental evidence, which I did not address. Goodstein's position is clearly that there is no cogent explanation for what's been observed, but that this is not evidence of much weight toward a new process. There's a monstrous difference between "While these are apparently careful scientists, we don't know every possible detail of the experiments and how error and bias could have arose, and a cogent explanation is lacking" and "There are careful scientists, and the lack of cogent explanation for their results gives a good chance that there could be something new and exciting happening here". Goodstein is very clearly in former, even if he doesn't explicitly spell out every step in his reasoning. Especially since he goes to pains to point out how theories have been wrong before, and how experiment is king. For him, P(experimental results on their own->cold fusion) is very low, which is why the theoretical objections are king. As for "having any idea how much work has done since then", I'm not sure if you have any idea how it's basically the same kettle of fish. When Arata produces nonsense like his tiny temperature differential in 2007 as proof of something, and gets excited about it, 13 years after Goodstein, you can see the field isn't producing much new. The CR39 stuff is interesting to layman like me who doesn't know the first thing about CR39, but not enough, by itself, to indicate something given the burden of proof. BTW, Goodstein published this paper in 2000 (can't remember the journal) so presumably he still stood by it then. Phil153 (talk) 03:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's start with what is clearest. Phil, above, confused the first theoretical reason, given in our article, why "cold fusion" is impossible, with the third reason. That is, in an argument about nuclear distance and the extremely low rate of fusion "extrapolated from known rates at high energies," the first argument in our article, he raised the issue of where the excess energy would go if fusion occurred. That's the third argument, not the first. The third argument would lead us to expect gamma rays from deuterium fusion, and since gammas aren't observed, Q.E.D. The first argument is one that, if correct, would lead us to think that fusion wouldn't happen. Except, of course, fusion does happen at low energies, under the right conditions; that is, there isn't any doubt, Muon-catalyzed fusion.

I did not claim that Goodstein was claiming "weight toward the discovery of a new process." I simply noted that Goodstein points out the problem: theory that indicates one thing, and experiment that appears to indicate something different. If this were just one isolated experiment, it would be one thing. Some things will never be explained. However, it's many experiments, and many of the shortcomings of the early work have been addressed and overcome. For example, stirring the electrolyte! Better neutron detectors. Running the experiment inside a mountain to greatly reduce background radiation. Better calorimetry. Recombination of all the electrolytically generated gases. And on and on. But the more recent SPAWAR work is terrifyingly simple. Kowalski, while appearing to debunk the SPAWAR CR-39 results (not successfully, mind you), actually verified the basic experiment. The biggest problem, cited over and over again, has been the difficulty of reproducing the excess heat and other phenomena. Yet, it appears, reproduction rate has steadily increased, as more and more was understood about the specific conditions that generate the effect. In spite of the early reports, such as the New York Times article that is cited in the lead (and which had a fabricated title! -- I just fixed it), that Fleischmann had supposedly produced fusion "in a jar of water," implying simplicity, it was far from simple and far from easy. The claims of vast, cheap energy might turn out to be just as impossible with the Fleischmann effect as with muon-catalyzed fusion, not because it doesn't happen, necessarily, but because it is so difficult to set up and maintain the reaction. Those electrodes disintegrate, weird stuff happens with them. And palladium is expensive (though it isn't consumed, there would be costs to recycle it). The SPAWAR group uses co-electrolysis to simultaneously plate the electrode with palladium and generate deuterium gas, so the built-up palladium is immediately fully loaded, and, as prior work might lead one to expect, excess heat begins immediately (they claim, and there isn't any particular reason to doubt this observation). Right away, this disposes of the whole idea that power has been stored up in the electrode from all the "dead time." But using this for power generation isn't necessarily simple, and it could prove to be impossible. Abd (talk) 04:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was definitely confused what you were writing about and admit to skimming your long post. Your last paragraph says:

He is, here, explaining why some physicists didn't immediately reject the possibility. There is another problem with the claim about physics here. "extrapolating from known rates at high energies." All this is saying is that if the materials behave at low temperatures as they do at high temperatures, then we'd expect this rate. But we already know that materials in a crystal lattice behave differently, and Goodwin cites the Mossbauer effect to show this. Goodwin Goodstein is still convinced that present theory rules out cold fusion. But he's also aware that "present theory" could be wrong or inappropriately applied. What the argument really shows is that if cold fusion works, it isn't the same mechanism as hot fusion.

There's been a lot of discussion and theory about the probabilities of various reaction product and I thought you were continuing that vein. Goodstein mentions the Mossbauer effect to discuss why physicists suspended judgment about the reaction products (it's directly relevant, since it involves the way nuclear products can behave differently to expected).

Since you're talking about the initial reaction, I have no idea why what you're talking about is relevant to the article. Cold fusion requires a different mechanism to overcome the electric repulsion...we know that. Neither Goodstein nor anyone else thinks this repulsion magically disappears in a crystal, so I don't see how it matters. Could you summarize your point for creating this section in two sentences max? Or maybe summarize text you propose to include? I'm struggling to see how Goodstein affects anything on the repulsion side of things (although it's clearly relevant to the end products). Phil153 (talk) 04:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm usually talking about more than one thing at a time. Sorry. Look at the beginning of this section. I quote what's in our article, which sounds like a very strong argument, with this huge number, 10^50, as the ratio between an extrapolated reaction rate and what is necessary for the reported heat generation. When I was young, I read a book, How to Lie with Statistics. Basically, you can present numerical data in ways that will create a false impression without actually lying. One of the things Goodstein points out is that, sure, that's one way to look at it (but he says 10^40 -- 10^50), but then he points out that the necessary reduction in distance between the nuclei is only 10^1. I.e., one-tenth of the normal separation. (By the way, this isn't a simple calculation, it's not specified in sufficient detail.) So what does CF require? A change in a value by 10^50 or a change in a value by 10? The statement in the article is what has been referred to by others as a "negative" about cold fusion without any counterargument. Is there a counterargument? Why is this an argument showing a "violation of basic principles of physics"? I'm aware that we can find reliable source for such a statement, but it's certainly not clear in itself.

Predicting the frequency of am emitted photon for an excited nucleus, when the photon is free, not bound, is fairly straightforward. However, when the nucleus is part of a crystal structure, it can be different. A nuclear process proceeds differently in this case. This is the Mossbauer effect. The nucleus, unbound, would emit the photon (a gamma ray) and recoil, to conserve momentum. But when it's in the crystal, it can transfer the momentum to the whole crystal, shifting the frequency of the emitted photon a bit. The crystalline environment is affecting how the nucleus behaves, even though there are, we might think, these "vast spaces" that would make this impossible. (This touches on argument three.) Mossbauer won the Nobel Prize for his work, the year I became a freshman at CalTech, which was his school.

In the end, what is important here is, indeed, the article. But what we do here is to discuss the article, which necessarily involves discussing the topic, as background. I find the current text *in that section* to be POV imbalanced. So I'll be looking to find ways to balance it, if possible. Consider this a request for assistance. --Abd (talk) 19:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Abd, I have been following this talk page for a long time, and I can honestly say that I don't understand what assistance you are requesting. Can you summarize in two or three sentences what you want to change about the article? Olorinish (talk) 20:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(Long thread moved to its own subsection below, to preserve the sanity of people trying to make sense of the indentation) --Enric Naval (talk) 00:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Phil, some of what you wrote is exaggerated. In hot fusion the 24MeV, when that is what the fusion produces, mostly takes the form of a gamma ray. As you know, that is rare; most of the time the products of hot deuterium fusion are associated with about a sixth of that much energy. You may be aware that some of the CF people claim to have found those other reaction products. If true, and regardless of whether or not enough were found to explain the total heat measured in CF experiments, those products would indicate that somehow SOME cold fusions had happened in spite of the Coulomb barrier. I would consider that to be a significant chink in the wall of objections raised by the detractors; it would mean they are at least partly wrong. It would mean it would be worthwhile investing some thought into how those few cold fusions managed to happen. It might mean that after that problem was solved, the answer might point the way to solving the objections regarding how 24MeV could appear as heat instead of as a gamma ray. One kind-of-fun thing to think about: BOTH the CF people and Kirk Shanahan could be right. Heh, Kirk's work could explain where the 24Mev went (it didn't happen), and the CF people could still chortle over the few cold fusions that actually happened. After all, how often is it, in other heated arguments, that the truth lies in the middle? V (talk) 03:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

POV problems in "incompatibilities" section

(this thread moved to its own subsection, for clarity) --Enric Naval (talk) 00:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

(dedent) Sure. Request assistance in balancing apparent POV in Cold_fusion#Incompatibilities_with_Established_Physics section. The very title is POV. However, certainly there is allegation that Cold fusion is "incompatible with Established Physics." It's a claim that has long been made, and there is broad -- but uninformed -- opinion about this, and lots of RS, in fact, on the issue of Bad Science, i.e., scientific consensus by press conference and mass opinion, as distinct from peer opinion. But this shouldn't be presented as a fact. It's not a fact, it's an opinion, even if widely held among those who haven't studied the field and especially the more recent evidence. What do we have on the other side? Anything? I can find things, but I'm asking for assistance!

(Editors here have insisted on peer-reviewed, reliable source for anything that smells like support for cold fusion; okay, do we have such source for the claim about incompatibilities?) Sauce for goose is sauce for gander. I'm not implying that the sources there can't be used, but only that we should use the same standards for all sides. --Abd (talk) 21:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

That section seems pretty NPOV to me, including the title (which I wrote). Olorinish (talk) 02:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I've reviewed that section a bit, and I can't find POV problems. The sources are from Accountability in Research journal, an article from knowledgeable source David Goodstein at some silly publication from Caltech (American Scholar), and Scientific American, which look adequate for unchallenged statements. What part are you exactly challenging? (and I mean that you challenge the content so that better sources can be looked for) --Enric Naval (talk) 04:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It may be time for editors here to re-read the WP:REDFLAG section of WP:V.LeadSongDog (talk) 17:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

"Exceptional claims require exceptional sources"? OK, since sources such as New Energy Times and Infinite Energy have been excepted from the mainstream, they qualify as "exceptional", right?  :) In a more serious note, what if the title of the section was changed to "Cold Fusion vs. Hot Fusion Theory"? V (talk) 18:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The sources aren't pitting cold fusion against hot fusion, they are comparing cold fusion against several nuclear fusion phenomena, conventional nuclear physics, fundamental laws of physics and existing physical theories.

“ "To believe that Pons and Fleischmann, Jones and Scaramuzzi and many others who claimed to observe either heat or neutrons or tritium were all observing the same phenomenon, one must believe that, when fusion occurs inside a piece of metal, such as palladium or titanium, the outcome is radically different from what is known to happen when fusion occurs in the Sun, or in a hot fusion plasma, or an atomic bomb, or a nuclear accelerator. In other words, it is different from conventional nuclear physics. Let's call the three possible outcomes of fusion a, b, and c. In conventional nuclear physics, fusion results about half the time in a, half the time in b, and one millionth of the time in c." Goodstein[20] ”

“ "Accepting the three miracles does not imply a violation of the fundamental laws of physics: in particular, conservation of mass plus energy is satisfied." Scaramuzzi www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Scaramuzzitenyearsof.pdf ”

“ "All new theories explaining 'cold fusion' effects require large revisions in existing physical theories (one might call them 'miracles')." Scientific American [21] (this one doesn't even mention hot fusion) ”

--Enric Naval (talk) 20:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in what I meant by the proposed title. " Cold Fusion vs Hot-Fusion-Theory " --that first quote, Enric, seems to partially equate hot fusion theory with conventional nuclear physics. The section is not about "Cold Fusion Theory" vs "Hot Fusion Theory". Note that the first Big Problem, getting the nuclei close enough, has a known CF-type solution (muon catalysis) that does not violate any aspects of physics, yet was totally a surprise when it was discovered. (A similar discovery would make the Scientific American conclusion just as totally surprised/wrong.) So, regarding "miracles", I might recommend reviewing one of Arthur C. Clarke's Laws, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A miracle is simply something we don't understand YET. V (talk) 21:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

How about "Incompatibilities with conventional nuclear physics"?

Rationale: I pick the wording from the guy that makes TV programs that educate the masses in Physics-related matters. I suppose that he chose in his article the wording that would be more understandable for the layman reader, which would fit the goals of wikipedia. The Scientific American wording is "existing physical theories", which, honestly, sucks a bit. Scaramuzzi wording is "fundamental laws of physics" which will probably be more protested than the actual one. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:07, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not unreasonable, and the biggest strike against my suggestion was how easily it could be misinterpreted. However, I happened to think that if the words were switched around, "Hot Fusion Theory vs Cold Fusion", that problem would be solved. Another problem, though, is that too many casual readers don't know that a modern Theory is more than just a guess, so using that word can lead to other misinterpretations. ("Evolution is just a Theory", see? Of course, the correct response to that is, "Creationism is just a Hypothesis!", followed by encouragement to study the meanings of those words as used in Science.) And then there is another problematic aspect, which I didn't originally consider: muon-catalyzed fusion is not hot fusion, but has the same product yields as hot fusion. So, how about "Known Fusion Facts vs Cold Fusion Data"? It is the CF data, after all, that encourages proponents to think that fusions happen in that environment. That they don't match up well with known fusion facts, that IS what that section is about! V (talk) 14:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Sources are not comparing against fusion "facts", not even against fusion theories, they are comparing against physics theories or nuclear physics.... It's not a comparison of one type of fusion against other.... --Enric Naval (talk) 00:16, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed it to "conventional nuclear physics". (funny how the old title had "Established Physics" in capital letters) --Enric Naval (talk) 02:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Enric, you seem to be missing the point that "fusion" is not the whole of "nuclear physics", conventional or otherwise. And it is glaringly obvious that various facts about already-observed fusions are on stage front-and-center, in basically saying that there are difficulties with CF as an explanation for observations of excess heat, in that section of the article. Why is it not equally obvious that IF cold fusion really occurs inside deuterium-saturated metal, and typically does such things as the D+D->4He reaction, yielding heat instead of gammas, then certain details about how fusion takes place there must be different than the details of either hot fusion or muon-catalyzed fusion? V (talk) 08:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

topic derrailment. Pages are to discuss changes to the articles, per WP:TALK --Enric Naval (talk) 23:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
(unindent) There is more. Yes, CF requires something quite different from either high-energy fusion or muon-catalyzed fusion. However, excess heat isn't the only reason to suspect that some nuclear process is taking place. There is other evidence for condensed matter nuclear reactions besides the electrolysis work and heat generation; neutrons, other radiation, transmutations. There are hypotheses that attempt to rationalize the fusion, such as electron capture by a proton, creating a neutron which can then approach other nuclei and cause transmutations, including the particular one we call fusion. Every hypothesis, I'm sure, has its difficulties, including the one of rampant experimental error. The first step for a scientific approach would be, not to try to find a theoretical basis for the experimental results, but simply to verify the experiment. But an experiment that may depend on unknown sensitive conditions can be difficult to reproduce, many attempts may fail. However, usually, with time, the exact conditions that generate the anomalous result are likely to be identified. This can take years! Hence the early rejection of the F-P work, before there was adequate time to conclude that reproduction wasn't possible, such that the field itself became a pariah field, is itself an example of bad science, and we have RS for this view. This is a big story that I don't think we are adequately covering. But I think I'm going to begin by a systematic examination of the sources we have, and other editors will be very welcome to join me in that, I'll announce it here, for sure. --Abd (talk) 18:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC) "But I think I'm going to begin by a systematic examination of the sources we have..." Abd, please don't do that here. Talk pages are not the place to discuss the details of various documents. They are for discussing CHANGES TO THE ARTICLE! You have been soapboxing, not improving the article with all this text, so stop it. Olorinish (talk) 18:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

For the section title, how about "Difficulties with nuclear explanations"? I think the current title "Incompatibilities with conventional nuclear physics" is better than the previous title, but still find it non-NPOV: If a nuclear explanation is later established for the (alleged) phenomenon, I'm not convinced that that explanation will necessarily be incompatible with current established nuclear physics. I don't think conventional nuclear physics enumerates all the possible things that can happen with those materials: for example, muon-catalysed fusion would not have been listed before it was thought of or discovered.

Re a systematic examination of the sources: that's a necessary step to establishing due weight for the article, therefore an appropriate topic of discussion on this talk page. The discussion should not aim to establish "truth", i.e. things like whether or not there really is excess heat produced not explainable by things like experimental error, whether or not cold fusion is occurring etc., but to establish how much weight to place on various POVs about various aspects of the topic, as well as the relative weight on the aspects of the topics themselves, i.e. how much space in the article to devote to each aspect of the topic in this article. There can also be subarticles expanding on various aspects. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Not obtaining consensus is bad. Source analysis will continue at User:Abd/Cold fusion/Sources --Enric Naval (talk) 23:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I haven't been soapboxing, but neither did I intend to conduct this examination here. I can do it in one of two places: In my user space or in Talk space as a subpage. Apparently, cautious examination of sources isn't part of what Olorinish considers essential to the process of "improving the article," and he's welcome to the opinion, I'm just not likely to join him in it. I'm working on improving the article, and it starts, to my mind, with thorough discussion, not the kind of one-liners that have become far too popular. Nobody is obligated to read what I write, or what anyone else writes. You want to see voluminous text, take a look at RfArs where stuff actually does get considered in detail with wide participation. Total mess. Avoidable if a few editors discuss with thoroughness, which takes patience and time. Olorinish, your work on the article is appreciated. Be careful, though, of the Sisyphus effect. It is what happens when edits are made which don't reflect true consensus, the boulder rolls down the mountain again. Articles which have not gone through what is necessary for true consensus are very difficult to maintain and they tend to become hodge-podges. When consensus has been found, all involved editors -- or at least nearly all! -- become maintainers of the article, and if the process has been documented, new editors can be pointed to that and can remain welcome to join or specifically question the consensus. Otherwise, the wall is up, being battered and pounded and requiring constant effort to maintain. In any case, I'm deciding right now to do it in my user space. It can be moved to article Talk space if there is any agreement on that. It will keep me busy for quite a while, plus I've got Other Important Stuff to do. User:Abd/Cold fusion/Sources. All editors are welcome to help. Underscore help.

@Coppertwig, "If a nuclear explanation is later (...) will necessarily be incompatible with current established nuclear physics. I don't think conventional nuclear physics enumerates all the possible things that can happen with those materials (...)", aka WP:CRYSTALBALL (that being said, replacing "conventional" with "current" on the title could solve this problem.

Ah, I think I found the problem, I separated the "cold fusion as a nuclear reaction" from the rest of explanations. Now go find reliable sources for those. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, let me put it this way: the section title "incompatibilities with current physics" violates WP:V by implying that there are incompatibilities between cold fusion results and current physics. Not being explained by current physics is not the same thing as being incompatible with it. If it violated the law of conservation of energy, for example, we could talk about incompatibility. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(I cut your comment above to create a new section and re-signed it) "problems posed by current physics"? :P The results are not compatible with current physics, you know, that's why they are called "miracles". --Enric Naval (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem: just please provide a source to verify that statement. Just now I re-read the Incompatibilities section of this article. The only statement in the section which seems to me to be asserting that the alleged phenomena are incompatible with current physics is the last sentence, "The speed of...", which gives as a reference Goldstein, who says "It proved that there are still genuine surprises waiting for us that, once understood, don't violate conventional physical laws". I still think "difficulties with" is a better description of the section than "incompatibilities"; no one has provided any argument against using "difficulties with". I suggest "Difficulties in reconciling with current physics". ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I'll "second" that motion. V (talk) 16:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The label "difficulties" is more vague than "incompatibilities," so I oppose using it for this title. The current references 7-9 document the view that CF is incompatible with established physics. Olorinish (talk) 18:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

So, we have documentation for a particular POV? But the article is not supposed to reflect a particular POV; it is supposed to be evenhanded in its descriptions. I would not object to statements indicating there is a POV that considers CF to be incompatible with what we know, so long as there also are statements indicating that muon-catalyzed fusion was a wild card, too, before its mechanism was understood. That is, some proponents hold the POV that CF may also fit neatly into current physics, once the mechanism is figured out. (Denunciations by Authority, of course, merely turns brainpower away from trying to figure it out.) Anyway, the point is, the section heading should be NPOV --and as previously pointed out, even CF proponents admit the theoretical problems are difficult. V (talk) 20:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(<<outdent) I suggest "Lack of explanation compatible with nuclear physics" as the section heading (or "Lack of explanation compatible with conventional physics"). Note that I consider the current heading to violate WP:V, so it's urgent that it be changed; the suggestion with "difficulties" has been criticized as being less specific, but that seems to me to be a much less serious problem than violating WP:V. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Coppertwig and V. However, I'm not the Lone Ranger. I'm already making more possibly controversial edits to the article than I like, or at least it is possibly being seen that way. I'll be happy to support a better title. The "conventional" title suggested above is fine with me. Cold fusion definitely is that, it is the very paradigm of incompatibility with "conventional physics," i.e., it almost certainly requires new theory. Consider this week's reports of neutrons (which merely confirm and demonstrate the notability of what was actually reported last year or even earlier). If anyone can figure out a "conventional" explanation of the observations under the reported experimental conditions and observations, I'm all ears. Even determined skeptics are starting to say, "Well, okay, neutrons, but no proof that they are caused by fusion. Fine. Occam's razor isn't a proof of anything, but it sure is a wise guideline. The real point, made and understood among those actually familiar with the field, as distinct from those "experts" making off-the-cuff remarks, eagerly reported by writers looking for "balance," is that evidence of nuclear reactions in the palladium deuteride environment has passed the point of no return. It's now a strong experimental result, which has been confirmed in most -- if not all -- details, and, because, compared with the original CF work, it's relatively easy to confirm, the shoe is now on the other foot. As to the present point, yes. Specifically, the experimental results require a revision of the concept that quantum mechanics is adequate to describe nuclear behavior in the condensed matter environment, and the more difficult quantum field theory or quantum electrodynamics is needed. This vindicates Fleischmann's original research goal, to show exactly that. He wasn't looking for an energy source, he was doing fundamental scientific investigation, probing the boundaries of what is known. Pd catalyzed fusion was only an example. --Abd (talk) 15:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Other explanations of cold fusion

From Storms 2007:

“ 1. Reduction of the Coulomb barrier by electrons being concentrated between the nuclei,

2. Conversion of deuterium into a wave structure that ignores the Coulomb barrier, 3. Creation or release of neutrons within the structure, which add to nuclei that are present, 4. Creation of clusters of deuterons that interact as units, 5. Involvement of phonons13 to concentrate energy at the reaction site and carry away the released energy. 6. Models showing that the Coulomb barrier is not as high as previous thought if certain conditions are present. Cold Fusion for Dummies. Edmund Storms. lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEcoldfusione.pdf

”

Anyone has a problem with this list going under the new "Explaining cold fusion as other phenomena" section? --Enric Naval (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Technically, alas, yes. The way that new section is worded (in the article body, not above), it appears to be wanting NON-FUSION explanations for the observed heat. You appear to be listing explanations for why fusion might be able to occur (and thereby produce heat). While both types of explanations should be in the article for balance, the current wording would appear to preclude one type. V (talk) 06:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Also, the third miracle has to do with propagation of heat and has noting to do with nuclear theories, so back to "physics theories".

I now divided it into 3 sections: "incompatiblities with current conventional physics theories", "Unproven explanations" and "Proven explanations". And, err.... well, I had a bit of a problem filling that last section.... --Enric Naval (talk) 07:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

SOMETHING ODD: There is a subsection titled: "Non-nuclear explanations for excess heat", immediately followed by the "Explanations for cold fusion", inside of which is a "Proposed explanations" subsection and a BOX containing this: "Please help improve this section by expanding it with attempts to explain cold fusion as something other than a nuclear fusion reaction." I would say that box is out of place. V (talk) 14:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I see someone has done something about that; thanks! V (talk) 13:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

40 or 50 orders of magnitude

(section cut from above --Enric Naval (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC))

This statement seems too strong to me: "Extrapolating from known rates at high energies, the rate at room temperature would be 50 orders of magnitude lower than needed to account for the reported excess heat." It needs qualifiers. For example, perhaps it should say "in the absence of muons". There could be other assumptions also needed. "unless some unknown process is affecting the rate"? "under ordinary conditions"? "under any conditions anyone has thought of yet"? Physics doesn't dictate that the rate is necessarily 50 (by the way, should that be 40 to 50, per Goldstein?) orders of magnitude lower; it might dictate that under some set of assumptions (including the absence of muons, as well as temperature, and perhaps some other things) that that is the rate. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

That sentence is a quote from Scaramuzzi (see cites below). Goodstein says "40 or 50", Scaramuzzi says "more than 50". This refers to the distance between deuterium nuclei in a deuterium molecule. None of the two mention anything other than high/low energy or room temperature that migh affect that rate.

“ Deuterium nuclei repel one another because of the electric force between them, but if they get close enough together they fuse anyway because of what is called the "strong" (nuclear) force. The laws of quantum mechanics allow deuterium nuclei to fuse by accident every so often even if they are not initially close together, but the probability of that happening is very small. Suppose, for example, they are as far apart as the two deuterium nuclei normally are in a deuterium molecule. Then the probability of fusion is much too small to have produced the alleged effects claimed by the Cold Fusioners. There are two ways to look at just how small the probability is. At the inter-nuclear spacing in the deuterium molecule, the probability is too small by forty or fifty orders of magnitude. Goodstein [22] ”

Please note that the above description explicitly specifies whole deuterium molecules. That means the deuterons are surrounded by their electron shells. This is why it should be obvious that getting at least one deuteron out of its shell is pretty important! Why, I might wager that if a deuteron could escape its shell and hover over the shell of a neighboring deuterium (meaning that the original distance between the nuclei is halved), then the probability of fusion occurring at that distance would increase significantly. It might now be unlikely by only twenty or thirty orders of magnitude, instead of forty or fifty! :) V (talk) 06:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

“ The first one is a dramatic increase of the probability for fusion to take place. If you try to extrapolate to low energies the known probabilities at high energies, you find that the probability of such an event is some 50 or more orders of magnitude lower than that needed to account for the measured excess heat (7): in other words, there is no chance that two deuterons will fuse at room temperature. Scaramuzzi www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Scaramuzzitenyearsof.pdf (page 4) ”

--Enric Naval (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent). What should be clear is that the spontaneous reaction rate for unassisted deuterium fusion at room temperature would be 40-50 orders of magnitude lower than necessary to explain the heat generation. This is really nothing more than saying that if you have some pure deuterium at room temperature, it is not going to fuse, period. However, as muon-catalyzed fusion shows, that doesn't mean that low-temperature deuterium fusion is impossible, only that it doesn't happen spontaneously. If it did, there wouldn't be any deuterium around! This is not equivalent, to be clear, to the statement that "there is no chance that two deuterons will fuse at room temperature," which muon-catalyzed fusion makes quite clear, give the two reluctant partners a matchmaker to bring them together, they may well fuse. We know that muons can do this. There are enough muons around that there is, in fact, some rate of fusion of deuterium naturally at low temperatures, still very low, but much higher than the spontaneous figure. I think there might be some reference about this from S. Jones. What about electrons? (The muon can do it because it has the same negative charge as an electron.) One of the theories floating about, that more than one author seems to have accepted as reasonable, is that in the metallic lattice, where electrons are largely free, behaving very differently than with isolated nuclei, they may be able to catalyze fusion by allowing the nuclei to approach, in a similar way to how we know muons can accomplish the trick. So I'm a bit concerned about the presentation of this as an argument against cold fusion; there is utterly and absolutely no doubt that the spontaneous fusion rate for deuterium at low temperatures is so low that it just doesn't happen, and we would not even be considering the topic unless there weren't reason to think that some conditions might catalyze or cause it. Why did Fleischmann run palladium electrolysis experiments for so long? He had theoretical reasons to suspect it might occur, see http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanbackground.pdf Thus the argument, though it is indeed made, shouldn't really be an argument against cold fusion, it is misleading presented that way, but only background as to why cold fusion is remarkable at all.

I'd like to interject the fact that on Earth deuterium is about one atom per 6500 of protium-hydrogen. That means that most of the time, even if one deuterium got itself hooked up with a cosmic-ray muon, it would not likely encounter another deuterium before the 2-microsecond lifspan of the muon ended. I'd also like to note that elsewhere on this page an additional factor was listed: "The current density of the electrolysis is larger than 280 mA per cm²" --that means electrons are moving under the influence of an external force, causing them to not move in normal pathways that might keep them from closely approaching loose deuterons in the metal lattice. Indeed, we might expect the deuterons themselves to be moving toward one end of the metal lattice under that same external force, opposite the direction of the electron flow, and possibly accumulating to an even higher "local loading ratio" than such oft-mentioned figures as 80%-90%. V (talk) 14:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a simple analogy. Put hydrogen gas and oxygen gas together at room temperature. What happens? Nothing. The spontaneous reaction rate is zero. With a spark, bang, the hydrogen and oxygen bind to each other, releasing heat, the heat causes more combustion, etc. However, there are also catalysts which will bring the suitors together, getting around their reluctance, so combustion below the ignition temperature does, in fact, happen. Fuel cells. Indeed, biological metabolism.

It is also very clear that the conditions under which catalyzed fusion might occur are necessarily very unusual, or else we would have far less deuterium around. From what we now know about palladium-catalyzed fusion (yes, we know something about it, collectively), it might simply not occur at all in nature, the natural occurrence would be far lower than with muon-catalyzed fusion. A rare metal, unoxidized, apparently persnickity about impurities, plus deuterium gas, and possibly flow parameters? --Abd (talk) 14:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If I'm undertanding the quotes correctly, he's talking about the probability that the two atoms of a duetrium molecule, under normal conditions, just all the sudden decide to fuse. While that's an interesting piece of trivia, it's about as relevant to this article as it is to any article on conventional thermodynamic fusion. It's useful, perhaps, as a baseline. ('xcept that we really should be talking about atoms in separate molecules) Or a control in a scientific experiment: "This is how fast plants grow w/out light." But used in any other context, it would just confuse the reader and quite possible even mislead them. Because really, it doesn't have any relevancy outside of that. Kevin Baas^talk 14:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A New Reference

http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue82/releaseoflowenergy.html
"This book is historic because it is the first peer-reviewed book from an established scientific society (published by the American Chemical Society, but available from Oxford University Press)."
The title is: "Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook"
The price is, In My Opinion, ridiculous: $175 V (talk) 18:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

And back in Left Field, the place for Sources of Disputed Reliability, here's an article that purports to be a FAQ: http://www.infinite-energy.com/images/pdfs/nagel.pdf

I like the diagram at the bottom of the second page. V (talk) 18:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

According to OUP's blurb, that's published in the ACS Symposium Series, a rapid-release system subject only to these publication guidelines. Note that peer review is in essence left up to the editor, in this case Jan Marwan of Marwan Chemie. According to this search, it is the only thing he has done (written or edited) for OUP. This hardly fills one with confidence.LeadSongDog (talk) 19:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

LeadSongDog has presented a distorted view of the review process. The editor does "conduct the process," but it is checked by ACS. LeadSongDog may not be "filled with confidence," but the confidence gauge on LSD's dash isn't any kind of standard at all. The book is RS, very clearly. The wall is crumbling, the dike is leaking, and the tide is rising. How far it will rise, I don't know. Don't have a CRYSTALBALL.--Abd (talk) 03:32, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying very hard to find a way to WP:AGF consistent with the above statement. I'm not succeeding. I think I'll go make a cup of tea.LeadSongDog (talk) 06:17, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. I struck part of my comment, I'd thought about it and came to consider it gratuitous incivility, for, after all, you were merely expressing your feelings, which we should be allowed to do in Talk. The "wall" exists on Wikipedia, and it exists outside. In spite of the suggestions in the DOE reviews, that major journals apparently refuse to consider papers on the topic is a "wall," an a priori judgment that makes it impossible to resolve the issues, no matter how clear an experiment might be, no matter how balanced a review might be. I was just reading a paper about neutron emissions from deuterated foils, presented at, I think, ICCF10. Tungsten was the metal involved. This was serious research, but because it shows, if not fraudulent, a probable low level of fusion or other LENR process, because of neutron emission, it would quite likely be unpublishable in major journals covering nuclear physics. (The experiment run with deuterium gas showed neutron emission; controls with hydrogen, no emission. The levels were low, but this was done underground and with shielding against cosmic rays, the emissions were sufficiently above background to represent a clear anomaly. The Italians also found neutrons, in exceedingly careful work, as reported by Goodstein (1994), and the Chinese author of the FPC paper, early in the nineties, I think, found other evidence of anomalous reactions.) I'm beginning to get a clearer understanding of how to approach these issues, it will require creating Talk subpages where we review sources in a comprehensive, systematic way, rather than piecemeal with no clear conclusions. --Abd (talk) 13:44, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I like the fact that we're considering material from the American Chemical Society to provide support for what purports to be cutting-edge nuclear physics. Perhaps we should also scan publications of the Royal Agricultural Society for information on advances in aeronautics. 72.70.9.75 (talk) 01:56, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

If someone has figured out how to grow aircraft from seeds, we might indeed. The field of cold fusion, known to those working in it as "chemically assisted nuclear reactions," among other names, is one where chemistry and physics cross; the original work was done by electrochemists. Low-energy nuclear reactions are, precisely, those which might be chemically influenced, so if they happen (aside from muon-catalyzed fusion, then the expertise of chemists is relevant. Consider: chemist runs experiment that by all rights should be dissipating no more than so much energy. The measurement of generated heat is a technique used in chemistry, the field is called calorimetry, and it's not so common among physicists, if I'm correct; further, the determination of how much energy dissipation is chemically possible from the reactants is in the field of chemistry. The experiment generates, allegedly, much more than that. Whose expertise is needed to assess this claim? What has been happening is that chemists are saying, "This isn't chemistry, it must be nuclear in nature." And nuclear physicists, by and large, have been saying, "This couldn't be nuclear physics, nuclear reactions don't happen in chemistry labs, it must be chemistry, you must be making some mistake." So to speak. (Obviously, they can, be careful how much U-235 you allow to accumulate in a particular reaction vessel, I heard Feynman himself tell this story, but that's not what I mean.) --Abd (talk) 03:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

If plutonium was in the chemical mix, even less would need to be present to notice excess heat (due to shorter half-life). And such mixes do exist; here's a jug that was recently found: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/science/03plut.html

Anyway, back to CF-related stuff; I concur with Abd, since chemists spent decades in the late 1800s and all through the 1900s measuring the heat produced from (or absorbed by!) all sorts of chemical reactions. Chemical engineers need to know how much heat to handle, when reacting industrial quantities of chemicals. Not to mention that when the military wanted good rocket fuels, the chemists were the ones to ask, not the physicists. It is simply ludicrous, for physicists to assume professional chemists don't know how to measure heat-production accurately. V (talk) 08:31, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The concern with the accumulation of U-235 isn't about heat from normal decay, it's about reaching critical mass for sustained fission, which would have wrecked the processing equipment at Oak Ridge. In any case, we have a situation where experts in calorimetry, many of them, are reporting anomalous heat they consider impossible to be from normal chemical process, and we have physicists, most or many of them, refusing to consider any other explanation than chemical process or experimental error, and clinging to hypotheses about such errors that aren't supported by the literature, which is, in my opinion, odd. Some physicists are looking for independent evidence of anomalous nuclear reactions, and they have been finding it since the early 1990s or before, but this is only being published, for the most part, in non-mainstream journals. However, one of the remarkable things about the FPC paper discussed above, in the "Holy Grail" section, is that He Jing-tang is a nuclear physicist with the Institute of High Energy Physics, Academia Sinica, and was one of the 8 co-authors of the 1993 paper from that institution, published in China Physics Letters, "Study on Anomalous Nuclear Fusion Reaction using HV pulse discharge." This paper was cited above, but for convenience, it's at [23]. --Abd (talk) 14:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that with U235 and a half-life of something like 700 million years, one would likely have to invoke fissions to see significant heat. For plutonium, however, most of which is likely to be Pu239 derived from U238 absorbing a neutron ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptunium#History ), the half-life is only about 24,000 years, and that decay rate would be associated with considerably more heat (therefore I mentioned it above). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Objectivist (talk • contribs) 16:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

More papers mentioning cold fusion.

Usage of "cold fusion,", discussed here, really 'lukewarm fusion', just hot enough and no hotter, added to Cold Fusion (disambiguation). --Abd (talk) 17:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/-search=61804500.7/0954-3899/31/10/040 This paper seems to take cold fusion (i.e., nuclear reactions that are not at high energies) for granted. I've been finding a number of papers on theory like this, this one is published in Physical Review. http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/-search=61804500.4/0954-3899/32/11/L03 Published in 2006 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. Tell me again, please, what the reliable source is for the concept that cold fusion is generally rejected? I mean now, not twenty years ago or even five years ago. (And rejected by whom? The general public? Scientists in general? Physicists? Nuclear Physicists? Chemists?) (By "now" I would mean, maybe 2007 or 2008 or later, given that there is ongoing publication in RS about low energy nuclear reactions.) It's a sincere question. --Abd (talk) 22:29, 8 March 2009 (UTC) If you think fission=fusion (your weird interpretation offered of the first paper) or that 10 MeV is room temperature (your weird interpretation of the second paper) you probably do not belong editing here. Neither of these papers are about cold fusion or have any relevance whatsoever. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC) Perhaps I was deluded by the fact that the paper's title is "Studies of neutron-deficient nuclei near the Z = 82 shell closure via cold fusion reactions." Cold f u s i o n. Weird interpretation? If this paper has "nothing to do with cold fusion," what in the world is "cold fusion" doing in the title? If there is some other kind of "cold fusion" that is "hot," then we need to say so and disambiguate. For many reasons, the one who may not belong editing here is you. I thought it might be different. I was wrong. There is still time to look at the paper again and notice that they are fusing Zr and Mo, SA. Better response from Phil, below. --Abd (talk) 03:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC) Isn't the second paper about obtaining Ununquadium by ion bombardment at high speed? Isn't this a perfectly understood phenomen that has nothing to do with cold fusion? --Enric Naval (talk) 23:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC) Come on Abd - at least try to read and understand cites before posting them here. You seem to be doing a literature search and posting anything that fits and appears to vindicate cold fusion, then using it to support some specious text. But neither of these are related to palladium and deuterium in any way. These are "hot" fusion done at low energies. Such studies examine what happens when you bombard very heavy elements at energies near the coulomb barrier to create new isotopes. It involves easily understand freshman physics. For an explanation of what these are about and related discussion of CF (before it gets derailed by a toon), please read this Phil153 (talk) 02:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC) I was asking about the usage of "cold fusion," which appears in the title of the first paper. What specious text? I didn't propose no stinkin text. I noted the usage of the term "cold fusion," and, yes, I hadn't read the abstracts very carefully. Here is how I understand the first paper now. They are indeed running hot fusion, but they are using energies near the coulomb barrier; the energy may still be below the barrier, but this will cause nuclear approach to the point where the fusion rate starts to go up; they are trying to avoid fission, which becomes more likely the more the energy of impact. The name "cold fusion" is probably inappropriate in the title. Note that our article on muon-catalyzed fusion says that it might better be named "cool fusion," which is a total mystery to me, since the experiment described is run at a few degrees Kelvin. Here, it's warm fusion, really, just warm enough and no warmer. Okay, now, looking at the source you pointed to -- are you proposing this as reliable source? -- it seems the term "cold fusion" is indeed used to refer to cool fusion. We need RS on that. Note that this source is typical of pseudo-scientific literature I've seen recently that is holding impressions of "looney tooney cold fusion" from twenty years ago, and that assumes that cold fusion experiments are simply the Pons-Fleischmann ones, that totally neglects all the work that has been done to address the problems with the P-F experiments. I'd be pretty sure that the author would think the reviewers at the DOE were off their rockers for giving cold fusion the time of day. Unless, maybe, they actually read the research, such as Iwamura's work. The field I'm interested in is Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. We actually have an article, currently merged to this one. So the assumption that cold fusion has to be about palladium and deuterium is way off. There is plenty of work that doesn't involve palladium. Now, the second paper. It likewise uses the term "cold fusion" to refer to much higher energies than are involved in what our article here discusses. So, definitely, we need disambiguation if we can find a good source, I'm not thrilled at just picking up the word from some usage examples. --Abd (talk) 04:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC) The link contained an explanation of what the studies were about. It was for your benefit (since you seemed not to understand what the studies said) and since it was a forum posting, obviously not proposed as any kind of source for the article. As for the name, cold fusion is like fusion power in that it has an English meaning which is sometimes invoked and also as a popular and most common name for a specific field. Phil153 (talk) 05:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC) Abd, I suspect that the physicists attempting to make high-atomic-number elements would call the Farnsworth Fusor a cold-fusion device. For them, see, the atoms they want to make are mostly so unstable that a high-speed collision of the nuclei they want to fuse together --that collision would not yield a fused nucleus. But if the speeds of the two nuclei are JUST enough to get on top of the Coulomb barrier, then a fused nucleus has a chance of resulting. Note that the velocities of the two nuclei, having slowed due to Coulomb repulsion and now located just close enough to start to fuse, would be practically zero (COLD!) A Farnsworth Fusor also need only apply just enough kinetic energy to deuterons, to get them close enough to fuse. V (talk) 05:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC) Yes, V, I understand what they are talking about. The high-speed collisions do result in a fused nucleus, but with so much excess energy that it then immediately fissions, so it doesn't "yield" a fused nucleus. Yes, the term "cold" can be used, though I'd still call it misleading, because what is being used to overcome the Coulomb barrier is sheer energy, same as heat. But the point isn't my opinion or your opinion, it is that the term "cold fusion" is being used for something that we don't cover. Phil, what I'm discussing here is not the phenomenon that they are reporting. Yes, the link contained that explanation, and I wasn't complaining about that link being provided, it shows usage, but if we are going to incorporate that usage of the term, it would be better to have a more reliable source, don't you agree? We do have some flexibility, we could go ahead and note that the term is used for these kinds of reactions. And then he slaps his head! We can cite one of these papers as an example of the usage. Which one is better, do you think, or does anyone have a better idea? I'll go ahead and make an edit, but others are certainly welcome to improve it! --Abd (talk) 16:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC) (unindent) I edited Cold Fusion (disambiguation) to reflect the usage found that started this section. Accordingly, I'm closing this discussion, unless someone objects, in which case, revert me. --Abd (talk) 17:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Section "Incompatibilities with conventional nuclear physics" must be greatly expanded

This section is currently very short. But the reason why there is so much skepticism is very important to explain in this article and that can only be done by giving the detailed theoretical reasons why cold fusion cannot work.

So, I suggest that we explain that according to quantum mechanics, the validity of which is almost unversally accepted, one can write down formally exact expressions for transistion rates. In practice one cannot analytically evaluate such expressions (different approximation scemes are possible) but one can still theoretically study the mathematical formalism and set bounds on any enhancement of nuclear reaction rates.

E.g., one can approach the cold fusion problem in a possitive way and ask what is necessary for the transition rates to be enhanced and then make estimates, which will then turn out to be negligible. See e.g. a different investigation here Count Iblis (talk) 00:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the problem with such a theoretical approach: it assumes that the mechanism for cold fusion is known. It isn't. There are lots of hypotheses, but none of them have general acceptance even among those working in the field. Are you aware, Count Iblis, that Fleischmann has written that quantum electrodynamics theory is what led him to suspect that cold fusion might happen? What you have done is what many others have done: assume that "cold fusion" is just a matter of two deuterium nuclei deciding to get married. If we look at them in isolation, there is a large Coulomb barrier, and if the two nuclei are all that are present, the only way to put them together is with high energy that overcomes the barrier, like temperatures of millions of degrees. Are you also aware that cold fusion is an accepted reality, it is actually not controversial? I.e., muon-catalyzed fusion, in which a muon catalyzes the approach, brings the two lovers together at low energies?

It's pretty simple, actually. Normal deuterium fusion taking place in a plasma, which is where it was primarily studied, results in one of three reaction pathways, it's described in the article.

D + D → ⁴He + 24 MeV

In high energy experiments, this intermediary has been observed to quickly decay through three pathways:

n + ³He + 3.3 MeV (50%)

p + ³H + 4.0 MeV (50%)

⁴He + γ + 24 MeV (10^-6)

Conservation of momentum, if this is happening in isolation, requires that the energy result in at least two products, so in the first reaction, we get a neutron and a helium-3 nucleus flying off in opposite directions; in the second reaction, it's a proton and tritium, and in the third, normally rare, it's helium and a gamma ray. Now, all the products have been reported in low-energy experiments, but the levels of neutrons or Helium-3 or tritium that have been found are far, far below those that would be expected to explain the reported excess heat. Whatever is happening isn't standard fusion as was previously studied.

Perhaps the best way to introduce you to the subject of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science would be to suggest that you look at Iwamura. The paper is published in reliable source, and its been cited a bit, I discuss it below. http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYelementalaa.pdf is a hosted copy of the paper; can't create the link because one of our friends arranged to have the whole library of papers at lenr-canr.org globally blacklisted, another story for another day. Iwamura does have an operating hypothesis that has guided his experiments, and it led him to try something nobody had tried before. Long story short, he takes bulk palladium and sputters thin layers of calcium oxide and palladium onto it, followed by a somewhat thicker layer of palladium. The process creates very pure layers of these materials. Then a very thin layer of cesium or strontium is deposited onto the surface. The experimental apparatus includes equipment for X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, allowing determination of the chemical composition of the surface of the test material without removing it from the apparatus. The experimental chamber is then filled with deuterium gas at atmospheric pressure; the other side of the palladium is maintained at low pressure. The deuterium gas dissociates at the surface of the thin palladium layer and diffuses through the bulk palladium, recombining on the other side to reform deuterium gas. At intervals (2 days to 1 week), the deuterium is evacuated from the chamber and the surface of the test piece is analyzed by XPS. "New elements that did not exist on the test piece at the beginning of the experiment can be detected. Usually this process is repeated a few times to observe the time dependence of the given or newly generated elements." Then the chamber is filled with nitrogen. "The test piece is removed from the chamber and its surface is analyzed by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). SIMS is a surface analysis technique in which energetic primary ions impact the surface and generate secondary ions, which are subsequently mass-separated and detected. SIMS is capable of analyzing all the elements with isotopic discrimination."

I advise reading the paper carefully. This paper was reviewed by one of the reviewers for the 2004 DOE report, who obviously didn't pay much attention, completely missing important experimental details and observations, and mistaking an observation for a theory that, of course, the reviewer rejected as impossible. What Iwamura found is that as the element originally on the surface disappears, a new element takes its place. Strontium disappears, Molybdenum appears, but not just any isotope of molybdenum, the mass spectroscopy reveals that it is almost entirely Molybdenum-96, very different from natural Mo, which is distributed between isotopes weighing from 92 to 100 daltons. Strontium was mostly Sr-88. This fits with a reaction where fusion of four deuterons with a Strontium nucleus has taken place. The four protons bump Strontium to Molybdenum in atomic number, 38 to 42, and the four neutrons plus the four protons bump the weight from 88 to 96. Likewise Cesium (No. 55, mass 133) becomes Praseodymium (No. 59, mass 141). When the experiment is run with hydrogen instead of deuterium, no transmutations are seen.

A big complaint about the excess heat experiments is that they were -- originally -- short on evidence of nuclear ash, i.e, the reaction products. Here, there is nothing but reaction product. No radiation, and the heat generated from this level of fusion would be below detectable levels (I think, and they didn't try).

The DOE reviewer wrote (also quoted below):

The analytical results, from a variety of techniques, such as mass spectroscopy and electron spectroscopy, are very nice. It seems difficult at first glance to dispute the results. However, the Japanese workers conclude, not that the elements in question are constituents from the interior of the Pd that migrated to the surface, but that they are the products of sequential nuclear reactions, in which changes of atomic number and atomic mass of 4 and 8 are preferred.

From a nuclear physics perspective, such conclusions are not to be believed ...

This is precisely what many observers have claimed about the whole cold fusion affair. Experimental results are discarded in favor of theoretical rejection. This reviewer comes up with a hypothesis, a simple one, but it was, indeed, so simple that Iwamura explicitly considered it in the paper, did the reviewer notice this? My guess is not. When someone has their mind made up, it is really, really easy to overlook contradictory details. The values of 4 and 8 are observations, not theory, based on quite precise measurements. There are numerous reasons why the migration hypothesis is preposterous, described below, isotopic composition being one. Another would be the mystery, then, of why a thin layer of Strontium becomes Molybdenum, so we'd have palladium contaminated with Molybdenum. Fine, that sounds possible. But wait, when we layer on Cesium, we get Praseodymium. What happened to the Molybdenum, it was scared of the Cesium?. No, there are only two reasonable explanations that I can think of: there was nuclear transformation under circumstances where classical theory would predict none, or there was fraud. Given that other, independent researchers have reported evidence for nuclear transformations, just not so precisely and simply and clearly, fraud is not likely. There are now many different experimental situations which have shown evidence of nuclear transformation (which includes fusion), and it's continued since the 2004 DOE review, where many reviewers were already convinced that there was something worthy of investigation, they just didn't think the time was ripe for a federally-funded program. Remember who was in office then? -- not that this would have influenced the reviewers, necessarily, but it might have shaped the conclusions of the report.

How much of this could go in the article is still quite unclear to me, but there is plenty of RS on various aspects of this whole affair, enough to keep us busy for a while. --Abd (talk) 03:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The only thing that bothers me about all this transmutation stuff is that it is a variation of the original theme. To the extent that, say, Strontium sequentially fuses with four deuteriums and becomes Molybdenum, ordinary physicists should (1) state that this is more difficult to occur (thanks to Coulomb repulsion) than deuteriums fusing with each other, and (2) state that if Sr does undergo fusions with deuterons to become Mo, then it would be completely logical to accept the idea that deuterium-only cold fusion can happen (regardless of not knowing how). Other than mentioning in this article that sort of support for the original form of cold fusion, all the transmutation stuff might best belong in its own article--or perhaps added to the existing nuclear transmutation article. V (talk) 05:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't follow. "The only thing that bothers me about all this transmutation stuff is that it is a variation of the original theme." - why does that bother you? "...then it would be completely logical to accept the idea that " no it wouldn't. reasonable to consider, maybe, but not "completely logical" - though it may recondition one's ontological priors to make it seem more plausible, it doesn't make follow logically. and this is supposed to be why it isn't relevant?!? It seems to me like that would make it more relevant. "Other than mentioning in this article that sort of support for the original form of cold fusion, all the transmutation stuff might best belong in its own article..." why? you assert this, but you never make a case for it. Kevin Baas^talk 13:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Elsewhere on this discussion page is at least one remark to the effect that the main topic of the article is the idea of D+D fusion occuring inside solid metal at ordinary temperatures. The transmutation stuff seems to have been discovered as a side-effect. So, logically, in the article, it could be mentioned, but it need not be given a lot of space in this article; it's different enough from D+D fusion to deserve a separate article (because other atoms, such as the Strontium mentioned, have quite a few layers of electron shells to inhibit fusion-type transmutations). V (talk) 14:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Besides the significance of the material due to its corroborating nature, many people take the approach that a theory which explains D+D fusion phenomena should also explain the transmutation phenomena (this is consistent with "theory"). While I don't have any problem with there being a separate page for these transmutation results - or one on the broader topic of C.M.N.S. (after all, wikipedia is not paper), I think there should always be a summary of the transmutation results in this article in due proportion to its relevance both as corroborating material and as (potentially) theoretically bound. And in the absence of any article on CMNS or C.M.N.-transmutation, the phenomena should be described here in sufficient detail to elucidate its full scope and significance - at least insofar as the critics and supporters are concerned. Kevin Baas^talk 15:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it should be easy enough to create a "stub" page for CMNS, and likely the very first thing on it should be a note to the effect that many physicists regard the notion as preposterous as perpetual motion. That should at least prevent immediate deletion of the page. I see that when I typed the phrase into the Wikipedia search box, it redirected to the CF article. I'm not sure how to intercept that and put a stub-article in its place. Be my guest? Later, of course, plenty more information can be added to it, as we decide what should belong there and what should belong here.

I see I neglected to explain the "completely logical" thing that you questioned. It's quite simple: the Coulomb repulsion between two deuterons is far less than the repulsion between a deuteron and any heavy nucleus like strontium's, so any mechanism that can overcome the latter, enabling fusion, can also overcome the former. V (talk) 16:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Ahem! Condensed matter nuclear science. Here is the basic issue: it was concluded long ago that mere chemistry, including the condensed state, could not affect nuclear reactions; there are quite a few reasons why this idea is reasonable. However, it's not at all clear that there was a dedicated effort to look for such reactions. When the P-F work became known, others started to look for evidence of LENR. My guess is that there are actually quite a number of different pathways to low energy nuclear reactions, it is not just one mechanism, which would explain why there are such inconsistent results as to radiation and nuclear ash. Yes. If elemental transformation is possible, as Iwamura reports, D-D fusion might be easier. So it's related. But we really should have at least two articles: Condensed matter nuclear science (go to the link then, from the redirected from link at the top, you can quickly get to the redirected article and look at the history to get the most recent version before the redirect. You can also look at Talk:Condensed matter nuclear science directly. The other article would be on the history. --Abd (talk) 17:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Iwamura

http://jjap.ipap.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle?magazine=JJAP&volume=41&number=7R&page=4642-4650 Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Vol. 41 (2002) pp. 4642–4650

convenience copy: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYelementalaa.pdf (cannot be linked due to blacklist)

This is, of course, a stunning piece of work. Does anyone know what critical or other response it has received outside of the cold fusion community (where he has been widely cited)? Iwamura is reporting nothing less than total transformation of elements in a very thin film in an experimental setup where he could monitor the elemental composition of the film, taking place under highly controlled conditions, during the experiments, using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

We noticed that a certain rule exists between given and produced elements. The increase in mass number is 8, and the increase in atomic number is 4. At present, we do not have a complete theory that can explain the obtained experimental results without a few assumptions. However, if several assumptions are accepted, they are basically explained by the EINR model,(5) which is one of the working hypotheses in the investigation of the nature of this phenomenon.

5) Y. Iwamura, T. Itoh, N. Gotoh and I. Toyoda: Fusion Technol. 33 (1998) 476.

Now, this paper is mentioned in the 2004 DOE reviewer submissions. Lenr-canr.org claims to have obtained a copy of the 18 individual review papers, ( http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf ) and this is in Review 7:

The paper by Iwamura et al. presented at ICCF10 (Ref. 47 in DOE31) does an exhaustive job of using a variety of modern analytical chemistry methods to identify elements produced on the surface of coated Pd cold-fusion foils. . . .

The analytical results, from a variety of techniques, such as mass spectroscopy and electron spectroscopy, are very nice. It seems difficult at first glance to dispute the results. However, the Japanese workers conclude, not that the elements in question are constituents from the interior of the Pd that migrated to the surface, but that they are the products of sequential nuclear reactions, in which changes of atomic number and atomic mass of 4 and 8 are preferred.

From a nuclear physics perspective, such conclusions are not to be believed ...

Storms and Rothwell -- http://www.lenr-canr.org/Collections/DoeReview.htm#Report -- respond:

... The anomalous element could not migrate from the interior of the palladium because:

1. Deuterium atoms, flowing from the surface to the interior, would cause diffusion of the anomalous element away from the surface, not toward the surface.

2. Mass spectroscopy done at various depths shows that the anomalous element was not present in the palladium.

3. The element that was originally on the surface disappears at the same rate as the anomalous element appears.

4. The isotopes of the anomalous element are unnatural, and the isotope shifts are exactly what are expected should the missing element transmute into the new element

It's extremely clear that the reviewer dismissed Iwamura by making up another explanation that anyone understanding the Iwamura report could see could not be possible. Iwamura actually considers the possibility that the entire substrate contained the element that appears (it's a rare element, so I think he uses an upper limit for its possible abundance in the base material); if all the atoms in the substrate migrated to the surface, they could indeed account for the observed effect, but this, then, would violate the laws of thermodynamics. And, of course, there is the detail that the effect doesn't occur with hydrogen diffusion in place of deuterium, and the objections above. The numbers 4 and 8 are significant, of course, because they would represent the absorption of 4 deuterons by each atom of the element being transmuted.

In any case, the real point would be not the unbelievability of Iwamura's "conclusions," but his experimental data. Iwamura simply noted that the element disappearing and the element appearing differed in atomic number by 4 and mass number by 8. That's an experimental observation, not actually a conclusion. The reviewer seems quite confused.

Absolutely, it's a stunning result. But is it so stunning that it should be hidden under a rock? (Note that we aren't hiding this one, it's cited in the article.)

No matter how clear this becomes to me, or to anything short of a consensus of editors, I don't see anything yet to use in the article about the 2004 DOE review, except to note that the Iwamura paper is in a peer-reviewed journal and is reliable source, and it's possible that more of it could be used.

The individual reviews cast some severe doubt on the comments made earlier in debate over the reporting of the DOE review that the mention of continued research was mere boilerplate. There is very substantial support for research with some reviewers. As I've said, this isn't actually a fringe science, fringe science doesn't get that kind of support from a body of scientists chosen to advise the DOE.

Here is what I'd personally say about Iwamura. He is either a gross fraud or he has proven beyond reasonable doubt low-energy nuclear reactions. It's not an easy experiment to reproduce, but it could be done, and there is other work that supports that something like this is happening. There is reason why scientific frauds are essentially run out of town on a rail, they can cause tremendous damage, wasted effort, and all that. It's understandable that the scientific community was upset with Fleischmann, but it was also largely their own fault: they rushed to try to duplicate the work, not realizing the complications and difficulties, not waiting for full information, etc. There are DOE reviewers who strongly confirmed that more research is needed, but note that Iwamura's technique and many of the other techiques, including Pons-Fleischmann's original work, are not necessarily scalable to energy-generating applications, it's entirely possible that they would remain scientific curiosities that only take place under very unusual circumstances, and not scalable. Iwamura's work is done in a near-vacuum, the element to be transmuted is sputtered on, making a very thin film, and the level of reaction was very low, the released heat predictable from the conversion of mass to energy would still have been undetectable. But the scientific implications are spectacular. Iwamura essentially watched the transmutation taking place, very precisely. Occam's razor.

But one point could make it quickly into the article. The full nature of Iwamura's report is still not revealed in the article, and the article cited as if it were a refutation of Iwamura was written prior to the Iwamura publication, it mentions earlier reports of transmutation, much less specific and much less well-measured. Remember, Iwamura is reporting 100% conversion, under conditions of high purity. No batch problems, no "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't." --Abd (talk) 00:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Iwamura's XPS work has been discussed before, by a published scientist in the field whose opinion of the work was much less favorable than yours. Perhaps you should consider the science before making the sweeping claim that either Iwamura's a fraud or those who doubt this work are being unreasonable. You do not appear to have considered that the reviewer might have dismissed Iwamura for good reason- that he made claims his experimental data did not support. There are a number of ways this data can be misinterpreted (mistaking S₃⁺ for Mo⁺ is one way that appears to have happened.) [this edit was by Noren and was separated from its next paragraph by edits by Kevin Baas (originally) and then Krirk Shanahan, the continuation paragraph begins "There was an RfC on the question ...." and the original signature is there]

Thanks for the support Noren. You might find this amusing:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090304/sc_livescience/modernproblemeveryonesanexpert Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Noren, the possible S/Mo confusion is interesting, for sure, but Iwamura did not just report Sr/Mo transmutation, he also reported Cs/Pr transmutation. And two different spectrographic techniques must conspire to form the same error. I have not reviewed or seen the work Shanahan refers to, and it wasn't cited, as far as I noticed, in the prior discussion. Perhaps Shanahan can fix that. My comments were mostly based on the DOE reviewer's comment, which was ... terrible. The reviewer's job was to consider new evidence, and instead the reviewer's position apparently was, this would contradict theory, so however good the evidence looks, it must be wrong. A claim that Iwamura made a specific error, such as S/Mo, while it seems unlikely to me given how many ducks have to line up, is on another level. A claim that Iwamura's work is discredited because someone made up a possible but not demonstrated error, though, would be inappropriate. A doubt would have been raised, and, yes, if a series of such can be found, it then becomes possible to consider Iwamura wrong without being fraudulent. When I give my feelings about this work, it's not been approved by my lawyer, and every possible implication or meaning may not have been considered. I'll say it again, now that you know this. Iwamura's work is fraud or conclusive. But, of course, I haven't seen that paper Shanahan refers to.

In the Talk page discussion, V made the comment that transmutation isn't necessarily fusion. That's correct. It can be fission. What Iwamura reported would be fusion. Sr disappears, Mo appears. Cs disappears, Pr appears. The product is heavier than the raw material, Mo is Sr plus 4 D, Pr is Cs plus 4 D. Absolutely, I don't blame anyone for being skeptical. This just is not supposed to happen. --Abd (talk) 03:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, posting links and information here does not always lead to others choosing to read them. Had you read the previous discussion of the topic I referred to you would know this, but I'll excerpt it here: "The problem comes in insuring they are not simple contaminants arising from simple chemical effects or in misidentifying anomalous peaks with the wrong element. The Iwamura XPS results fall in this latter category. The 'Pr' could also be identified as Cu, which is much more common, and the Mo (in XPS) was actually S, as per Mizuno's ICCF14 abstract." The alleged Cs/Pr transmutation was also addressed, as was the other experimental technique. I'll say this again, now that you know this. Iwamura's work was sloppy and optimistic. Occam's razor was ignored by Iwamura, he jumped to an exotic interpretation of his data without first considering the more mundane possibilities. --Noren (talk) 13:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Now he did not make claims that his experimental data did not support. I believe what you meant to say is that he put forth a hypothesis that his experimental data did not conclusively confirm. Because, for instance, there are ways that "the data could be misinterpreted" - things that could trick the equipment or person reading it. but this does not mean that you should jump to the conclusion that the proper precautions were not taken AND that tricks did in fact occur (even thou you have no evidence of this) - (which many critics - even "scientific" ones! - seem to do). rather, the thing to do then is to figure out how one could avoid being thus tricked, and find out if the experimenter had taken such precautions. and if not, to do the experiment again with said precautions. one clearly can't do this in a criticism published before the experimenters' results - because the experimenters have not yet told you what they did. but this piece of logic (and others like it) doesn't seem to stop - or even slow - pseudo-skeptics. Kevin Baas^talk 15:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The 2002 Iwamura paper we are discussing was not convincing to the scientists who peer reviewed it in the (reliable secondary source) 2004 DoE review- published 2 years later.

I do not know of anyone who self-identifies as a pseudo-skeptic. The term is used here as a pejorative, and is inappropriate for this discussion. --Noren (talk) 13:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The term is innately pejorative. (and aptly so - a person who employs unreason in the guise of reason is a burden on any society.) But that does not make the term inappropriate in every circumstance. Hell, we have [an article] (or section, rather) on it. A person who takes the above descripted approach in spite of logic undoubtedly meets the definition of "pseudo-skeptic". In that sense, it is relevant to what I was saying. And it is not directed at anyone in particular. Also, said fallacy is surprisingly common and it is important to distinguish it from real skepticism. (Pseudo-skepticism is just bad for the brain.) So what I said was relevant and important. And though I concede that the "...doesn't seem to stop..." aspect was an opinion, it is consistent w/the nature of pseudo-skepticism: it is persistent (stubbornly) in the face of contrary logic - unable to absorb any information that contradicts it. In fact, that is one of the ways to recognize pseudoskepticism - one of the ways to distinguish it from real skepticism.

Now above I just enumerated the difference between a real skeptic and a pseudoskeptic - and what they would do (or at least believe the proper course to be) in the example situation (i acknowledge the existence of a third position - that of saying "it's not important or promising enough to continue experimenting" ). I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are, like me, a real (scientific) skeptic. I communicated this when I said "I believe what you meant to say is..." The rest of the paragraph was just meant to elucidate that difference, and why it is important. Kevin Baas^talk 14:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There was an RfC on the question Is this topic fringe?- the result was yes. You may want to consider the fact that your opinion on this matter is counter to consensus. --Noren (talk) 07:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You may want to read WP:Fringe and the comments on Is this topic fringe? referring to it. I say this because you seem to be misinterpreting the consensus and/or policy. Kevin Baas^talk 15:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Please indicate where in the two short sentences above that you perceive that I misinterpreted either of those things. --Noren (talk) 13:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I should have probably been more clear. I was refering to the fact that many of the people who voted "yes" commented that they did so on account of the broadness of the definition under WP:Fringe. For example, you can take a look at my comment on the vote. Interperting "Fringe" (as it pertains to WP) too narrowly can result in actions contrary to policy and consensus. Also, the broadness of the definition in WP:Fringe has implications to how the such topics should be treated, which if I'm not mistaken are spelled out on the page. Let me end by saying that I'm responding more to a feeling/sense I get of your response than any specific thing you said. If I am mistaken, then just interpret this as a general word of caution. Kevin Baas^talk 14:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Kevin. Noren, "opinion" "counter to consensus"? Consensus does not apply to opinions, it applies to edits and text, and to tendentious argument, sometimes. And consensus can change. If there were a problem with having an opinion counter to "consensus," meaning some determination of consensus in the past, then it would be impossible for it to change. I have given strong evidence that the topic is not fringe, I'd even say conclusive evidence. It is, however, commonly regarded as fringe, and, then, we face a true and difficult issue, the role of an encyclopedia when it comes to knowledge. Should an encyclopedia reflect "common knowledge," which boils down to opinion, or should it reflect "informed opinion" which requires basis in fact. It is typically possible to find sources for both, and the classical answer is "both." However, thanks for the pointer to the RfC. I'll examine it carefully and come back. --Abd (talk) 15:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Consensus can change, but I would nevertheless suggest that you carefully consider the existing consensus. Repeated, verbose, and/or emphatic exclamations of support for a claim do not make it true, nor can or should they trump a reliable source that disagrees with that claim. We do have a reliable source, the 2004 DoE review, that explicitly considered the 2002 Iwamura paper among others and found neither it nor the other submitted papers conclusive in demonstrating Cold Fusion.

I perceive that we do face a difficult problem, an area where common knowledge and informed opinion coincide, but where there is a determined minority who disagree with both. In this case the predominant view of the article should reflect what is both informed opinion and common knowledge, but the determined minority will never accept this, leading to prolonged and difficult conflict. --Noren (talk) 13:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

As long as CF-related phenomena are not completely understood, there will be political issues associated with this article. Even if the pendulum swings toward a pro-CF view, there will be a minority of opponents. Is there not still a "Flat Earth Society"? At the moment, part of the problem is the definition of "reliable source". For some info on how so-called "reliable sources" can be mistaken, read the Arhennius article. Or consider the various remarks about scientific progress on this page: http://atmoz.org/blog/2008/07/29/planck-and-science/ --possibly the first of Clarke's three laws is relevant, too. Now I recognize that the body of self-consistent scientific knowlegde has grown to such a size that most things that don't fit (like perpetual motion) simply can't fit, and generally the old fogeys of Science are right most of the time. But their knowledge does not make them omniscient, and they are still human enough to be able to occasionally jump to an incorrect conclusion. In the case of the excess heat of most CF experiments, we have the Chemists' Club offering some support for their own (knowing their required calorimetry skills), and the Physicists' Club denying the evidence, mostly because of how it was interpreted. I object! That is not the way Science works. And so there is no rationale for this article to be biased toward that denial-of-evidence, by excluding information that could be relevant to a pro-CF explanation. Even if a non-CF explanation comes along that correctly explains the heat, that is better than denying the evidence and exluding data (it could be historically useful). V (talk) 18:18, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

As to your claim that "they rushed to try to duplicate the work, not realizing the complications and difficulties, not waiting for full information, etc." How do you reconcile this with the 1992 through 1997, $20 million Japanese research program on Cold Fusion that ended with the conclusion that, "We couldn't achieve what was first claimed in terms of cold fusion"? Is it your contention that this 5 year effort was a rush job that didn't wait for full information? --Noren (talk) 07:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

That was a different experimental; a different apparatus; a different setup; a different design. that's like saying the wright brothers were wrong about the possibility of human flight because of the many failed experiments before them. As Thomas Edison discovered himself, there are over a hundred ways not to make a light bulb. Kevin Baas^talk 15:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Interjection in the name of accuracy: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/747226.html V (talk) 22:45, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The "rush" refers to the early work, not to the later work. Noren, they rushed. We have reliable source for that. Are you questioning that? That other researchers, later, were more careful, doesn't contradict that at all. As to the NY Times report, I'm not satisfied that they are reporting their sources in a balanced way, the impression of "failure to confirm" was so strong at that point, in spite of plenty of publication to the contrary, that what was really a funding decision and not a scientific one (it was more of an engineering decision, where do you allocate resources likely to produce profitable results?), is being reported as if it were a scientific decision, a search for replication, when, I'm pretty sure, that kind of money was being spent on efforts that would scale. And until you have the basic experiment solid, scaling is way premature. Reliable replication didn't start to appear until the next decade, if I'm correct. In any case, what peer-reviewed publication came out of the Japanese effort?

Here is the point about "rush." Many groups rushed to confirm. Because of the rush, shortcuts were taken, and so failure to confirm could have been because there was nothing to confirm, or it could have been because shortcuts were taken. However, a rush of failure-to-confirm reports, then, came to be seen as proof that there was nothing there, and this was a perversion of normal scientific process, which is the big story here. Both sides screwed up, leaving us with a situation where ongoing work doesn't receive sufficient respect to enjoy either confirmation or rejection. There is now a paucity of anti-cold fusion publication in peer-reviewed publications. Yet there are truly remarkable claims being made in RS. Iwamura is an example. The only review of Iwamura that I've seen, from outside the CF field, is that comment by the DOE reviewer, which was preposterous. It boils down to, "impressive work, too bad your experimental results are impossible." In other words, cold fusion can be rejected out-of-hand because it is impossible, and it is impossible because ... why? CF not only does not violate any basic laws of physics, we know CF happens, with muons. We also know that momentum transfer to a lattice is possible, under some conditions, which would explain the low radiation. Fleischmann points out that cold fusion apparently violates certain laws of Quantum mechanics, but that these laws are known to be inadequate to deal with condensed matter, which is better addressed with Quantum electrodynamics. --Abd (talk) 15:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2301330/A-Chinese-View-on-Summary-of-Condensed-Matter-Nuclear-Science

Li, X.Z., et al., "A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science," Journal of Fusion Energy, Vol. 23(3), p. 217-221, (2004) Cites Iwamura. --Abd (talk) 01:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The journal is an engineering journal, most articles are related to hot fusion. --Abd (talk) 01:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(At least this one does have an impact factor[24], no need to reply to thos comment, please) --Enric Naval (talk) 02:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Very cool web site. I'm annoyed that Science and Nature are listed under Cell & Molecular Biology but I can deal with it. Based on this analysis the Journal of Fusion Energy is completely isolated from the scientific community. What warrants including this citation in this article?--OMCV (talk) 02:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not the most reliable or well regarded journal, but I think the journal easily passes reasonable reliability standards, unlike the rather laughable Frontiers. It just needs to be understood that this isn't a particularly well regarded journal, and weighted appropriately. Phil153 (talk) 02:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Laughter is healthy, contempt is not. What, by the way, is wrong with the Frontiers series as reliable sources? Specifics? --Abd (talk) 02:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Whether a particular document is a "reliable" source depends on how that document is used in the article. The Chinese paper could be used as a reliable source that a particular person reported a certain result, but it shouldn't if it reports something dramatic like that the whole field changed because of that result. This is why I keep asking people to focus on EDITS first rather than sources. Olorinish (talk) 03:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

That's right, Olorinish, usage does depend on context. However, that is not the only approach, and when a topic is highly controversial, some background discussion first can make the later process much more efficient. If you want to focus on edits, please, be my guest. Participating in background discussion and consideration of sources in general is totally optional. Don't read it if you don't find it useful. Please. When I edit the article and I write, See Talk, then, yes, you should look for a Talk page comment specifically about that edit, especially before reverting it! --Abd (talk) 04:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Contemptable sources deserve contempt. The Frontiers article is an embarassment to the writer, the review board, and the publisher, and not because of conclusions. Similar conclusions are reached in the above paper, and in Storms, and I'm advocating for inclusion of those sources with appropriate weight.

About journal reliablility generally, I think the RS pages make the point well, although they are not clear enough and sometimes you have to go to example subpages. I'll have to tackle this on the RS pages to make them clearer.

The trouble is that there are tens of thousands of journals, and many of them are willing to publish all kinds of things for the right fee, or because a big name person is writing it or has influence, or because they're new and eager for articles. Often a key person on the editorial board is biased in a particular way or has peculiar opinions, and this reflects in what goes into the journal, regardless of peer review. The reputation of a particular journal matters a great deal in how reliable an academic, peer reviewed source is considered. This is even true among reliable publishers; some journals deliberately have more open policies allowing for speculative dialogue, which are not considered as anything but speculative dialogue by their peers.

This is why the ISI listings and eigenfactor rankings are so important, and why our RS pages states the vast majority of well regarded jouranls are indexed by the ISI web". A journal that is not cited by its peers cannot be considered reliable, because it indicates that the articles in it or the journal's reputation generally are worth much to those peers. This especially raises a WP:REDFLAG when the claims are extraordinary ones, and there is other evidence of poor scholarship or care.

RS is not a yes/no thing; the only thing binary is automatic exclusion of the worst sources such as self published works. A journal can have serious issues as to reliability and respectability in the field, in which case the things it references are close to worthless, especially in topics where it contradicts general mainstream views. Phil153 (talk) 04:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Which is one more reason why major journals, having taken the stand that CF is nonsense, must continue to keep that stand. After all, should they be proved wrong, with CF becoming mainstream science, they will be the ones contradicting the mainstream, and thus unrespectable! V (talk) 13:15, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Nature and Science and Physical Review A don't stop being industry leading journals because they publish a paper supportive of cold fusion. On the flip side, if they're the first to break credible research or reviews vindicating a major new field or theory, the upside is massive. Your suggestion is just conspiracy theory with lipstick on it.

The point is that many of the tens of thousands of journals with low citation indexes and little regard in the field lack many good reasons to exercise care, and have plenty of causes to publish less than careful work. Just like The Baupville Daily News or North Korean Herald have far fewer reasons to be accurate than the New York Times. Phil153 (talk) 13:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

This discussion slid gradually and then rapidly downhill, becoming two editors exchanging derisive comments. I'm collapsing it; there is probably some useful discussion in here, but it's too mixed with inappropriate comment to do much with it as it is. Both of these editors are perfectly welcome, as far as I'm concerned, to refactor their comments under a new section, this time taking care to avoid gratuitous inflammatory remarks. Consider this an informal warming regarding civility.

I'm curious to know how a top-notch journal, that previously published papers dismissive of cold fusion, could publish a paper supportive of CF without its editors appearing to be fools (or worse)? Especially if the originally published articles are not formally retracted as "hasty" (or worse)? My previous post assumed they wouldn't publish any pro-CF articles precisely because of this question. And then I simply reached the logical conclusion, regarding the consequences of a prejudiced editorial mind-set...contemptable, it is! V (talk) 18:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC) Well, if the CF researchers actually submitted a high quality paper that actually supported the contention that cold fusion was real (rather than just claiming that was so), I would assume they would publish it easily. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC) Except, the prejudiced mind-set automatically can do such things as assume any CF paper is low-quality. What have you to say about the claimed rapid appearance of excess heat in the co-deposition experiments? Your anti-CF hypothesis previously involved great-enough timespan that one MIGHT accept the possibility of a calorimeter getting out of calibration in that span --but that amount of time doesn't pass in these experiments. V (talk) 22:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC) Or...the prejudiced mind-set automatically can do such things as assume any CF paper is high-quality. "What have you to say about the claimed rapid appearance of excess heat in the co-deposition experiments?" Perfectly consistent with my proposed mechanism. "Your anti-CF hypothesis previously involved great-enough timespan" - no, the DATA involved great timespans, and with the co-dep experimetns, it doesn't. As I said, my explanation is perfectly consistent with all this data. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:21, 12 March 2009 (UTC) Nonsense! Nobody has that mindset at the "top" journals, while indications of the other mindset, the one I described in my last message, are documented in editorials in them. And more nonsense: You specified that the calorimeters got out of calibration. You also specified the long timespan allowed buildup of material that would catalyze hydrogen/oxygen reactions. You also needed the electrodes close enough together for plenty of oxygen to travel from its production site through the water (dissolved) to the other electrode, for any such reaction to occur. You have not indicated that any of those conditions are true in the co-deposition experiments, much less all of them. V (talk) 15:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC) ROFL...you really don't get it do you. That's why you shouldn't be editing this article, you can't attain or even approach neutrality. The fact that you can't understand what I wrote and misstate it routinely is another reason. (P.S. ...all of them are.) Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC) Tsk, tsk, an obvious lie: "...all of them are." Because the long timespan is NOT a part of the co-depostion experiments. Which proves you wrote nonsense, and therefore any claims on your part, that another cannot understand it, is ALSO nonsense. Others can understand just fine that you have written nonsense. And, being able to identify nonsense has nothing to do with POV; it has a great deal to do with plain facts and simple logic. V (talk) 17:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC) Define 'long' in the context of our discussion here. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC) You defined it yourself on your own talk page: "You need to remember that _most_ CF experiments runs hundreds of hours. The Szpak codep process cuts that way down" V (talk) 18:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC) (unindent, I was going to keep going but it is getting a bit boring...) Wow…you just keep making my points for me! Thanks V! The rest of you, please note the full quote just below, note what it says about what is needed to get a heat shift, and note what I say about the co-dep process. Seems clear enough to me… ‘Long’ in this context is however long it takes to form the ‘special active surface state’ I explicitly postulated in my 2006 paper. From my User Talk page: “This requires enough bubbles to be impacted to get a noticeable shift in heat production, which requires enough contaminants or structural changes at the surface to do that. That could take very long times in very clean systems, or, in the case of the co-deposition experiments, it could happen quickly due to the special conditions of that select system. You need to remember that _most_ CF experiments runs hundreds of hours. The Szpak codep process cuts that way down - why? Because it makes dendrititc Pd with lots of contaminants on it (from the plating chemicals). Kirk shanahan (talk) 21:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)” Now, what point was V trying to make? That I had somehow lied?? “Tsk, tsk, an obvious lie:” Yup, that’s what he said. Lets see…I wrote above, responding to V (V’s comments in quotes): “"What have you to say about the claimed rapid appearance of excess heat in the co-deposition experiments?" Perfectly consistent with my proposed mechanism. "Your anti-CF hypothesis previously involved great-enough timespan" - no, the DATA involved great timespans, and with the co-dep experimetns, it doesn't. As I said, my explanation is perfectly consistent with all this data.” Then V wrote: “You also specified the long timespan allowed buildup of material that would catalyze hydrogen/oxygen reactions.” So, does my comment from my UserTalk page from Jan 21 (which V _partially_ quotes) jive with what V says? Did I really lie??? Y’all be the judge… Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC) Why do you assume that the codep experiments involve a contaminated solution? You specify that a clean system takes a long time for contaminates to accumulate/have-an-effect, yet you offer no rationale why the codep experiments would not start off equally clean, and therefore not also require a long time for contaminates to build up. Which therefore means you are not making sense. As I indicated in a less-detailed way, above. V (talk) 20:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC) Oye ve! (Much banging of head on desk…) “Clean” is a palladium-only surface. Any chemical that contacts that can absorb and alter chemistry. There are more chemicals in the codep process because in addition to the electrolyte chemicals, you have the plating chemicals. As well, every chemical reagent used has contaminants, and the more reagents you use, the more contaminants you have. Part of the conventional explanation for ‘heavy metal transmutation’ is concentration of contaminants on the electrode. The codep approach both increases the electode surface area, allowing a faster, more efficeint concentration, but also profers more varied chemicals for absorption, i.e. it is a ‘dirtier’ process. Keep it up V, you continue to prove my point... Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:32, 12 March 2009 (UTC) If you are going to arbitrarily change standard definitions, no wonder YOU think you are making sense while others don't. "Clean" in my book includes the whole system. That means the chemicals used are as pure as available. It means unneeded chemicals are not included. For a codep experiment, the electrodes don't have to initially be palladium; palladium will be in one of the chemical solutions, to be plated (even if as dendrites) onto one of the electrodes. Why you think there needs to be lots more junk in the experiment than a mixture of heavy water, electrolyte, and soluable palladium compound, is beyond reasonable. It means the contaminants YOU claim must build up quickly, in a codep experiment, are not necessarily there, and don't get there in the short time of a codep experiment from, say, dust in the air. Not to mention, the voltage used is intended to plate palladium and elecrolyze heavy water. Since hydrogen and palladium have practically the same electronegativity, there is very little range that would encompass other elements. So a great many elements, even if present as contaminates, will stay in solution at that voltage, and not become the kind of plated-on contaminants your hypothesis requires. Platable candidates look to be molybdenum, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium, iridium, platinum, tungsten, gold, and lead. Most of that list is too valuable to not have been carefully extracted at the chemical-product plant, and any chemist who knows his stuff, especially one aware of an argument like yours (how long ago did you say you published it?) would take steps to plate out anything less reactive than palladium, before using that solution in the main codep experiment, in which the palladium is expected to be plated out. It means you still wrote nonsense. V (talk) 21:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC) "If you are going to arbitrarily change standard definitions, no wonder YOU think you are making sense while others don't. "Clean" in my book includes the whole system." - Given that we are talking about the 'special active surface state' that forms on an electrode surface, your book needs revising. _I_ am using the standard definition of a clean surface from surface science. No, you've told another lie. THIS is what you wrote: "That could take very long times in very clean systems" --The word "surface" is not in that quote. **I** know I'm talking about what you wrote, but apparently you don't. Which is more reason why the result of your writing is nonsense. "That means the chemicals used are as pure as available." - Ah yes, that means 'still contaminated'. I agree that what I wrote is not specifying 100% purity. The degree of impurity that qualifies as "contamination" is relative; it depends on the situation. For example, your household tap water may have lead in it (from soldered joints in copper water pipes, but it depends on the age of the house). Does that impurity count as contamination sufficient to discourage you from ever drinking any of it? "It means unneeded chemicals are not included." - Your book again, not mine. I should have been more clear. If a recipe calls for sodium chloride, I'm not going to add lithium fluoride. "Why you think there needs to be lots more junk in the experiment than a mixture of heavy water, electrolyte, and soluble palladium compound, is beyond reasonable." - please cite (with sourcing) where I specify what I think needs to be there at the level you here imply that I do. "It means the contaminants YOU claim must build up quickly, in a codep experiment, are not necessarily there," - which would those be, and more importantly, where do I specify them??? Citation please. On your talk page you wrote: "it makes dendritic Pd with lots of contaminants on it (from the plating chemicals)." I then asked: "if the system is very clean, where are the contaminants coming from, that you need to exist?" --You never answered that. Therefore I only have your unsupported claim (possibly equivalent to another lie) that there were lots of contaminants present. "and don't get there in the short time of a codep experiment from, say, dust in the air." - nice reference to Bockris' work. "Not to mention, the voltage used is intended to plate palladium and elecrolyze heavy water." - 'intended' being the key word. "Since hydrogen and palladium have practically the same electronegativity, there is very little range that would encompass other elements. So a great many elements, even if present as contaminates, will stay in solution at that voltage, and not become the kind of plated-on contaminants your hypothesis requires." - Where do I specify this?? "dendritic Pd with lots of contaminants" --"with" can only apply if the contaminants electrolytically come out of solution, as in "plated-on". "Platable candidates look to be molybdenum, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium, iridium, platinum, tungsten, gold, and lead. Most of that list is too valuable to not have been carefully extracted at the chemical-product plant," - first off, ppm concentrations of contaminants would likely be adequate, next, manufacturers at best offer '5-9"s' purity components in all but extremely rare cases, which means ppm level contaminants, finally, you fail to understand that my SASS is not limited to what you are claiming I limit it to. In fact I do NOT specify the nature of the SASS, as there is no specific data to support such an assignment. I will express some confidence that you are flatly wrong, that such a tiny amount of impurity can catalyze the quantity of hydrogen-oxygen reaction at the RATE needed to explain the heat-production detected by the calorimeters. Especially since very few substances are able to catalyze the reaction in the first place, which lowers the odds that one of them will be platable along with palladium. AND you are neglecting the fact that if one part per hundred thousand is your needed contaminant, right after one atom of it gets plated out, 99,999 palladium atoms also plate out at the same place and cover it, preventing it from being able to catalyze anything--I'm saying its effectiveness as a catalyst can't increase significantly, as plating continues. One atom per hundred thousand will be a constant whether dissolved or at the surface of freshly-plated metal. If we were discussing automobile catalytic converters, you'd be laughed out of town; one atom of catalyst (I see you mention platinum below) per 100,000 duds, at the interaction surface, is essentially the same as "poisoned to uselessness" (meaning, it's not about to catalyze a high rate of hydrogen/oxygen reactions). "and any chemist who knows his stuff, especially one aware of an argument like yours would take steps to plate out anything less reactive than palladium, before using that solution in the main codep experiment, in which the palladium is expected to be plated out. - and where does it say that this was done by the codepers? Specific citations please. Quotations would be better. (And, there is another problem even if this is done, which I will not explain at this point. Let's see if you can guess it.) I have no evidence that it was done, because there is no evidence that it needed to be done. But it remains a fact that in electrolysis the voltage determines which metals plate out; platinum can be plated out at a lower voltage than palladium. If a solution contained both, and if one had reason to think that platinum, with its excellent catalytic properties when pure, would pose a problem when plating palladium, then plating platinum out of solution first solves the problem, because it will be buried by layers of palladium after the voltage is raised. "(how long ago did you say you published it?)" - well, I never did publish what you imply I did in your diatribe above. Instead I just take the general condition of some "special active state", mentioned by Storms and perhaps others as well long ago, and add 'surface' to it since I studied a FPHE on Pt, which does NOT hydride, which means it must be occurring on the surface if related to the hydrogen. I explicitly mentioned the SASS in my 2006 paper. The answer to my question (2006?) merely would allow some comparison between experiments performed before and after it, to see what steps were taken to deal with things you claimed were problems. Where they took CounterStep "A" but not CounterStep "B" indicates (to me) places where that your description of "Problem A" was accepted as posssible, but your description of "Problem B" was considered to be nonsense, by the CF researchers who read your paper. "It means you still wrote nonsense." - Well, if I had actually written what you say I did perhaps (but you are doing very poor job of understanding what I am saying). But in fact I didn't, so it certainly doesn't. But what it does mean is that you are doing the standard CFer tactic of misrepresenting what I write in an illogical a fashion as possible so it becomes trivial to rebut. Except they rebut the strawman version they create instead of what I write. Looks good to the unaware layman, but proves nothing scientifically. Your adoption of this tactic again proves you are a POV-pusher who can't stand any criticism of the pro-CF position. Kirk shanahan (talk) 03:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC) Looks to me like you are indulging in a twisted form of psychological projection. I ignore your additional nonsense, therefore. V (talk) 09:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC) "No, you've told another lie. THIS is what you wrote: "That could take very long times in very clean systems" --The word "surface" is not in that quote. **I** know I'm talking about what you wrote, but apparently you don't. Which is more reason why the result of your writing is nonsense." Phase 3 - quoting out of context. - a) The _entire_ context of my thesis is the SASS. The second "S" is for "surface". b) Try looking at the sentence that preceeds the one you quote. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) "I agree that what I wrote is not specifying 100% purity. The degree of impurity that qualifies as "contamination" is relative; it depends on the situation. For example, your household tap water may have lead in it (from soldered joints in copper water pipes, but it depends on the age of the house). Does that impurity count as contamination sufficient to discourage you from ever drinking any of it?" Phase 4 - The use of red herrings. - What has any of this got to do with my thesis? (That was a rhetorical question, please don't answer it.) Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) "I should have been more clear. If a recipe calls for sodium chloride, I'm not going to add lithium fluoride." And my comment didn't refer to what you are discussing. Recall that 'unneeded chemicals' is your phrase.Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) " On your talk page you wrote: "it makes dendritic Pd with lots of contaminants on it (from the plating chemicals)." I then asked: "if the system is very clean, where are the contaminants coming from, that you need to exist?" --You never answered that. Therefore I only have your unsupported claim (possibly equivalent to another lie) that there were lots of contaminants present." Phase 3 (again) - quoting out of context. - The key is the word 'dendritic'. If you a) understood my thesis, and b) read the full paragraph you extracterd the quote from, you would realize why. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) " "dendritic Pd with lots of contaminants" --"with" can only apply if the contaminants electrolytically come out of solution, as in "plated-on" " - No, not really. Again, if you understand my thesis you will understand why I replied 'not really'. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) "I will express some confidence that you are flatly wrong, that such a tiny amount of impurity can catalyze the quantity of hydrogen-oxygen reaction at the RATE needed to explain the heat-production detected by the calorimeters." What I actually wrote was: "... the clean metal surface under the bubble catalyzes H2+O2->H2O." So, again, your strawman fails to impress me. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) "Especially since very few substances are able to catalyze the reaction in the first place, which lowers the odds that one of them will be platable along with palladium. AND you are neglecting the fact that if one part per hundred thousand is your needed contaminant, right after one atom of it gets plated out, 99,999 palladium atoms also plate out at the same place and cover it, preventing it from being able to catalyze anything--I'm saying its effectiveness as a catalyst can't increase significantly, as plating continues. One atom per hundred thousand will be a constant whether dissolved or at the surface of freshly-plated metal. If we were discussing automobile catalytic converters, you'd be laughed out of town; one atom of catalyst (I see you mention platinum below) per 100,000 duds, at the interaction surface, is essentially the same as "poisoned to uselessness" (meaning, it's not about to catalyze a high rate of hydrogen/oxygen reactions)." Phase 4 again, combined with Phase 2, the use of strawmen. Aside from the quote above, the only other time I invoke catalysis is here: "... possible in cells to get catalytic deposits formed in the gas space". Within the context of this discussion it is clear that a better word thatn 'clean' in the above quote would have been 'bare'. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) "I have no evidence that it was done, because there is no evidence that it needed to be done." - Say what?? What planet did you learn your science on? Reports of heavy metal transmutation all over the place, and you think that is not evidence that might be explained by contaminant concentration? I suggest you read Scott Little's RIFEX report... Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) "But it remains a fact that in electrolysis the voltage determines which metals plate out; platinum can be plated out at a lower voltage than palladium. If a solution contained both, and if one had reason to think that platinum, with its excellent catalytic properties when pure, would pose a problem when plating palladium, then plating platinum out of solution first solves the problem, because it will be buried by layers of palladium after the voltage is raised." Another red herring, but you are getting close to the point I was going to mention last time. I'll give you another chance at it. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC) "The answer to my question (2006?) merely would allow some comparison between experiments performed before and after it, to see what steps were taken to deal with things you claimed were problems. Where they took CounterStep "A" but not CounterStep "B" indicates (to me) places where that your description of "Problem A" was accepted as posssible, but your description of "Problem B" was considered to be nonsense, by the CF researchers who read your paper." Answering the 1st sentence: I _explicitly_ mentioned the SASS in my 2006 paper. Pre-electrolyzing the electrolyte goes way back though, but I recall only one instance of it being reported in a CF-related paper right now, and I'm not sure it was a CFer or one of those who were unable to replicate results back in the early days. The publication list is quite short post-2006, but the point is that this need is well known in electrochemical circles. So "did they or didn't they?", that is the question. Answering sentence 2: I agree, all CFers consider my explanation nonsense. Unfortunately that is a bad decision on their part, since all their arguments are based on strawmen and use a lot of out-of-context quoting and red herrings. P.S. What is Phase 1 you readers mught be asking? This: "No, you've told another lie." "your writing is nonsense" "(possibly equivalent to another lie)" "Tsk, tsk, an obvious lie" - the ad hominem attack (AKA "If you don't like the message, shoot the messenger.") V is a highly biased editor who doesn't want to understand the proposed conventional explanation for how to get a CCS, or the fact that the CCS is proven in one case and easily extrapolatable to all others via inductive reasoning. As such, his edits should be expected to reflect this. He should not edit the CF article and none of you should trust his writings. I'm done wasting time responding to V for now at least. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Please identify the uncivil comments that I made, as I did with those that V made in the last paragraph of the section that you hid from view. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Kirk, Noren came to my Talk page and requested I respond to you. As you know, I'm trying to encourage your participation here, and that of other editors as well. This page isn't the place to deal with allegations of incivility except as they are affecting our community process; my judgment was of the exchange, not so much of each editor; an exchange like that takes two people, and while it may be easy to point out what one is "doing wrong," the fact is that the other is a part of it, and might be more subtly provoking the responses. My goal here is for discussions like that to cease, and certainly not to pin guilt on any specific person. If you want me to respond to this, which would require that I review your contributions personally and critically, please ask my on my Talk page, and I will respond, in this case, on yours. I certainly should not do it here, absent some special reason why all the editors of this article should see it. --Abd (talk) 17:11, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) However, all this only applies to balance when there are questions of conflict in sources. While there may be journals which are financially motivated (payment for publication), even these kill their own golden goose if they fail to be selective; but a journal like Frontiers of Physics in China has strong motivation to have good standards. The whole purpose of the Frontiers of "X" in China series is to raise respect for Chinese science, and the Chinese government is behind it as well as serious money. Cold fusion appears to be considered a respectable field in China, and the article that led to the title of this section simply reflects that. I'll remind editors that the publisher of FPC is Higher Education Press, and I wonder if there is any larger publisher in the world that doesn't have an article here yet. They are roughly number 45; and they are in active cooperation with Thomson Reuters, which is number one in the world, and which considers FPC to have very high standards (citations for this have been provided elsewhere, above. Some editors here may think the journal "laughable," but that does little more than expose their POV and bias. It's clear that, since they publish in English, they need a better copy editor! Absolutely, I don't deny that there are problems with FPC, but "laughable," they are not. This will all be tested if edits are asserting using information from FPC, which I expect is likely. --Abd (talk) 16:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Again with the accusations of POV and bias. Reliable does not just apply to source conflicts, it's a sliding scale, and it also applies to general conflicts with mainstream understanding. Please read very carefully and absorb WP:REDFLAG. It's part our core content policies. Phil153 (talk) 16:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes it feels like swimming through molasses here. How do we know what "mainstream understanding" is? Does it appear, lotus-born? Or is it based on what we find in reliable sources? I'll stand with it. While WP:RS isn't a rigid standard, we should not pick and choose among reliable sources, unless there is *conflict* between them, and there is no conflict with a "mainsream understanding" unless there is a reliable source regarding that understanding. So the conflict is between two sources, (or sources on one side and sources on the other); further, the determination that there is conflict is itself a complex task, sometimes. If it requires synthesis, it can get dicey. If there is reliable source on the conflict itself, much better (perhaps a third source that covers the first two).

Suppose that we have source A which makes a statement, and it's in the article. Then I come up with source B, which says something different. It seems contradictory to me. Can I put in the article, "however, contradicting this, B asserts that ..."? I'd say that, generally, absent clear consensus or reliable source on the contradiction, not just A and B (let's assume they don't mention each other), we shouldn't assert contradiction. If it is acceptable to the editors, just saying, "however, B asserts that," may be okay, but even putting the statements together like that implies contradiction, so caution is in order.

There is no way to find NPOV without respect for consensus and consensus process. Which often takes a lot of discussion. --Abd (talk) 20:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Whitelisting lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com?

By the way, if anyone else is irritated by the fact that we have to pussyfoot around the blacklist, and that we have papers referenced in the article for which we can't provide a link where the papers can be freely read, we can request whitelisting of some specific pages, or of the whole sites. (lenr-canr.org is globally blacklisted, newenergytimes.com is locally blacklisted, so whole-site with NET would just be delisting.) I've been somewhat successful at this (with other blacklisted sites, and, with Enric Naval, one lenr-canr.org page). The politics at meta, right now, make it unlikely that we could succeed in globally delisting the whole site globally, but there was, in fact, no sound reason for the blacklisting in the first place; the blacklist is designed to control linkspam, and there wasn't linkspamming, the links alleged as linkspam for lenr-canr.org were like many here in Talk: not links, so blacklisting didn't prevent them. No linkspamming at all was alleged for newenergytimes.com. There is also alleged copyright violation at lenr-canr.org, but consensus at Martin Fleischmann seems to be that this is a non-issue, and no specific violation has reasonably been alleged. That lenr-canr.org is allegedly fringe should be moot; linking to a specific page that is a permitted copy of a paper, as a convenience link, does not dump the reader into a polemic for cold fusion. In any case, there is about zero chance of getting lenr-canr.org delisted globally if we don't have specific pages whitelisted here on en.wikipedia, or a whitelisting of the whole site here, the argument will be made, and it will be effective, that it isn't needed, don't bother them. --Abd (talk) 15:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking_to_copyrighted_works Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Convenience links. Note the term "reasonably certain".LeadSongDog (talk) 15:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow! That whole debate at Talk:Martin_Fleischmann#removal_of_link_to_Fleischmann_account_of_history went by without anybody notifying this page that it was going on until now. In a strange way, that's impressive.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(dedent) Since that discussion isn't formally closed as to conclusion, and since it can be reopened even as to subquestions that have been closed, anyone is welcome to join, but I would ask, please, read the preceding discussion first and consider the specific points made, and try to delink the issues, linking of issues is often what keeps us from finding consensus. Further, if there is agreement already expressed there, and you differ, how important is it, because reopening a decided question will take up more time. Decisions in a local RfC-type discussion like that aren't binding, they don't create any kind of precedent that will prevent better decisions from being made in the future. Or at least they shouldn't! However, and this was indeed the intention, they may establish that whatever is agreed there is at least a reasonable decision, to start, not just the unsupported opinion of a deranged tl;dr editor like me.

"We must not X because A and B and C and D and E." "B isn't true." "Maybe, but there are still A and C and D and E." "But D isn't true either!" "It's true!" "(diff showing D is preposterous)". "Maybe, but there are still A and B and C and E. Would you please stop beating a dead horse?"

... and this can go on for a long time. Instead, we can look at A. Is A true? If not, why not? If so, what's the evidence? Why do you believe this? And we can continue doing this, getting more and more specific. In such a process, it becomes really obvious if someone is reasoning from conclusions, and most people, realizing that this just isn't right and that the world will not end if they agree on a narrow point with someone "on the other side," will back down, and agree on the specific point or suggest some acceptable compromise (or shut up and go away). It can become a habit, and points of agreement build. And I've seen this kind of process result in total agreement when previously the sides were digging their heels in.

"But A and B are connected!" Fine. We still should try to find agreement on them separately, then, once we understand and agree on each subissue, we can consider possible connections before addressing a higher-level question.

Just in case someone thinks otherwise, this process often will not lead to X. It will lead to something else that enjoys higher consensus. I.e., perhaps argument A came to be considered valid, and action Y satisfied the concern, as well as the concerns of those proposing X. But when we have a big pile of issues, fringe linkspam copyvio uncivil alters documents kook SPA nonsense conflict of interest block evasion banned unnecessary anyway, WTF do we begin?

We find consensus by pursuing, at least initially, one little teeny-tiny question at a time.

As to the page and section on linking, I don't see the term "reasonably certain" there, and we are not obligated by policy or copyright law to be "reasonably certain" that there is no violation; indeed, read the guideline, it's the opposite: we should not link if we "know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright," and the relevant case law cited has to do with "Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright." When I noticed the blacklisting (I'm here because of that, not the reverse, I did not arrive at this article with an agenda), I asked a knowledgeable administrator, DGG, about the copyright issue. I think his opinions are cited there, and he showed up to confirm it (as he did previously on the blacklist pages). And that is fully consistent with policy and guidelines, and I haven't the foggiest what LeadSongDog was trying to point to. --Abd (talk) 18:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

My apologies, I forgot that I had clicked through from Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Convenience links, which is where the actual words were. Now refactored.LeadSongDog (talk) 20:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. This is what the referenced guideline says:

A "convenience link" is a link to a copy of your source on a webpage provided by someone other than the original publisher or author. For example, a copy of a newspaper article no longer available on the newspaper's website may be hosted elsewhere. When offering convenience links, it is important to be reasonably certain that the convenience copy is a true copy of the original, without any changes or inappropriate commentary, and that it does not infringe the original publisher's copyright. Accuracy can be assumed when the hosting website appears reliable, but editors should always exercise caution, and ideally find and verify multiple copies of the material for contentious items.

Where several sites host a copy of the material, the site selected as the convenience link should be the one whose general content appears most in line with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability.

The matter of lenr-canr.org and copyright violation has been considered in a number of venues, and the best opinion expressed is that lenr-canr.org is, indeed, quite unlikely to be hosting copyvio. There are a number of basic reasons: The site does claim permission from authors and original publishers for all the content, and the bibliography that they have is far larger than the set of papers they host, I think it's roughly one out of three that is hosted; Rothwell claims that he has thousands of papers that he'd love to put up, but he can't get the permissions. The site is highly visible. If you search for a paper that is hosted, using Google, lenr-canr.org is usually top ranked. The site hosts papers from publishers known to vigorously pursue copyright violation, so we may presume from the long-continued existence of the site, with these papers, that serious copyvio is lacking. The controlling policy is WP:COPYVIO, and the guideline you cited isn't clear on the definition of "reasonably certain," and links are routinely added to the project, without objection, where there is less reason to be "certain" about copyvio. The policy is in line with the law, with actual violation of copyright and contributory infringement.

Lenr-canr.org copies are only proposed for two purposes: convenience copies of papers cited in articles, where the paper is not otherwise available except through cumbersome or expensive procedures to get a copy, and for discussion in Talk. It's pretty hard to intelligently discuss a source if the interested editors can't all read it.

We show the URL anyway, the blacklisting only prevents the convenience of a direct link. --Abd (talk) 02:45, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it "cumbersome or expensive" to visit a library, or would you advocate that we should rely on the quality of journals too obscure for major libraries and journal databases to justify subscriptions? LeadSongDog (talk) 04:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we may rely on any source that meets WP:RS standards. It could be an obscure book very difficult to obtain, and it might not be in English, and the only exception I've seen is where an editor came to be considered untrustworthy, this editor was required to use sources in English. And, yes, it can be very "cumbersome or expensive" to visit the necessary library. Given that we could easily avoid the need for this, why are we making it more difficult for readers to find a copy of a paper cited as a source, or mentioned for further reading? LeadSongDog seems to be conflating two issues here. One is reliability and usability, the other, the issue for this section, is the usage of links for papers that are already considered reliable source for the application, they already are cited in the article, and the citation is stable. I don't see that LeadSongDog addresses the issue, but merely confuses it. The guideline that has been cited obviously does encourage the use of "convenience links," and only raises the two obvious issues for consideration: possible copyvio and reliability of that specific copy.

In the case of the link that is already whitelisted, both objections having been considered by knowledgeable editors, in a cautious environment, there is no reason not to use it. I think there are more such that could be whitelisted. They used to be in the article. When editors started removing them, one of the arguments was that there wasn't a problem with a removal because there were three or four other links to lenr-canr.org in the article. They were picked off and finally JzG removed them all and blacklisted the site without discussion.

(There was discussion later, but in a place where a small handful of spam blacklist administrators make decisions, and the tendency there seems to be guilty until proven innocent, it's an odd process, I've been able to rescue one major web site and get a couple of minor fixes. With tremendous effort. They say, "No problem with blacklisting, if you need a link you can always request it be whitelisted." It can be a mountain to climb. With one simple and quite obviously useful link, it sat for over a week with some discussion, JzG raised the copyright issue there as well, but nobody confirmed that, consensus was the opposite. I went to AN with it, where the usual suspects weighed in with the usual contempt. One of the blacklist regulars then closed the whitelist discussion, with the copyright argument, clearly neglecting the whitelisting discussion, but I ended up being confirmed at AN, essentially, and an admin reversed the close and the English interface to the site, lyrikline.org, was totally whitelisted, opening the door to what will probably be hundreds of links in the end, as many as 600, depends on what the community does with the actual edits, so far, none I've put in have been taken out, I think. I've been very noisy about it, too.)

So... coming soon, a link to lenr-canr.org in the article. Probably today. Some editors have been demanding that I actually edit the article. Happy to oblige. --Abd (talk) 17:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The issue of whether a convenience-linked paper is the same as the cited work comes down to trusting or verifying the online library. Given the level of controversy we have had over trusting this particular library, why not simply agree that before adding a link that an editor in good standing will carefully vett the actual cited paper against the one at the convenience link to ensure they are the same? The doubts over copyright permissions are also easily resolved: simply notify the copyright holder that we intend to add the link. If they've granted permission, there won't be a problem. If they haven't, they'll deal with sending a takedown notice. Either way, we haven't contributed to a copyvio.LeadSongDog (talk) 13:36, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is why not "agree about before adding the link." There isn't any reason to doubt the accuracy of the copy, it was certainly provided by the author. I'm going to make the edit. It's not copyvio and I don't think there is any reason to doubt the authenticity. If we have to stand on our heads for every reference in the article, the whole process becomes impossibly cumbersome. But if you have some specific reason to doubt this reference, by all means, raise it. --Abd (talk) 02:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

As to notifying the copyright holder, I gather that you are volunteering for this task, LSD? If you doubt the link, it would be a service to the project if you did. I presume that the copyright holder(s) would be Tsinghua University Press and/or Martin Fleischmann, and I think that Jed Rothwell, librarian for lenr-canr.org, is tight with both of them. But maybe I'm wrong, and wouldn't egg all over my face look beautiful? --Abd (talk) 02:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've raised the question of whether the meta:OTRS system can be used to enable this process. We'll see what arises.LeadSongDog (talk) 14:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Eh? What would be standard is that an editor does it, and reports the result. Testimony is presumed true unless controverted. What do you need OTRS for? If the Foundation wants to get involved in copyright verification, then such confirmation would be done by the foundation and by trusted volunteers, so, perhaps, OTRS could do it, but consider the volume of such requests that might be needed, if the tight standards being proposed were followed more generally. I'd advise against it. There is no legal risk to the project at the "absence of intention to link to copyvio" level, error in this doesn't establish legal risk, unless error persists after notice. I.e., a copyright holder says, "stop linking to that site!" Much more likely, with links that would be likely to be used here, the page goes dead, as the site pulls it from a copyright infringement notice, or the site goes dead when it ignores that. We really don't need to worry about it with sites like lenr-canr.org or newenergytimes.com; these are sites with known and responsible owners with much to lose if they infringe copyright, and all signs are that they are careful about this. --Abd (talk) 20:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this the appropriate venue for this discussion? Shouldn't it be taking place on a noticeboard? At the very least, could it be moved to a subpage in order to reduce the clutter on this talk page? Thanks, Verbal chat 20:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is the appropriate place.

Here is the situation. In short, it's about wikipolitics and minimal disruption.

Here is the situation, to bring you up to speed: lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com, which are both quite useful sites for finding information on this subject, and which do meet a certain level of reliability (though that's controversial, but note that, for example, a critic of cold fusion, Kirk Shanahan, points to New Energy Times for a description of the work of Arata in Japan. It's solid reporting, in fact. There used to be quite a few links to those sites from this article. Many of the documents hosted there can be found elsewhere, but ... not all. In any case, JzG, who was quite involved with this article, removed remaining links to the sites from this article and from Martin Fleischmann, and added the sites to the local blacklist, alleging a series of problems with them: copyright violation, "fringe," unreliability (alleged alteration of documents), and linkspamming. This was eventually noticed, and is, in fact, how I came to be interested in this article, I saw notice of this on Jehochman talk. Normal blacklisting process had been bypassed. I requested delisting, and discussion began here. Meanwhile, without letting us here know, JzG went to meta and requested global blacklisting, and it was granted with little discussion. The local discussion was closed as moot because of the meta action (it was delisted here). I went to meta and requested delisting and, after much discussion, it was denied; in what I've seen, now, many times, since I started learning about the blacklist, the decision was based on these links not being "necessary." In a typical comment, as well, we were assured that if we needed a link, we could get it whitelisted. So User:Enric Naval went to MediaWiki:Spam Whitelist and requested whitelisting for two or three pages; one was eventually granted. It was not what I'd call an easy process. Then, when Enric inserted the link into Martin Fleischmann, edit warring broke out over it. All the old arguments were asserted. Eventually, I started a process there of investigating each of these points, because what usually would happen would be that it would be claimed that the link was "fringecopyviospambanneduser and how do we know it hasn't been changed?" And if one of these arguments were impeached, well, there was still "fringecopyviospambanneduser." Impeach anther and it would be "fringecopyviobanned user and how do we know it hasn't been changed." I'm sure you have seen debates like this, where conclusions are clearly driving the arguments. The political reality is that there is little hope of getting these sites delisted, without substantial disruption, unless there is a showing of necessity or advisability of using links to them. Hence the question here. If those sites aren't useful here, there is little other possible use, so why bother? I'm addressing, gradually, the overall problems with the blacklists, which are by no means confined to this topic and these sites and the particular administrator involved.

For now, the question was asked, Do we want to use links to these sites, here in discussion if nowhere else? If we don't, why bother the good folks at the noticeboards? If enough of us would want to use them, then I do know how to proceed, but I'm not going to do it without some support. (Note that we do use the sites for reference, frequently, here in Talk, but we have to delink, i.e., not allow a link to show, I usually do it by leaving out the http://, the blacklist then doesn't detect it and block the edit.) --Abd (talk) 00:59, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Bibliography, no present link, hosted on lenr-canr.org

see http://lenr-canr.org/LibFrame1.html

• Beaudette, Charles G. (2002), Excess Heat & Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed, New York: Oak Grove Press, ISBN 9-9678548-2-2
• Bockris, John (2000), "Accountability and academic freedom: The battle concerning research on cold fusion at Texas A&M University", Accountability Res. 8: 103, doi:10.1080/08989620008573968
• Bush, Ben F.; Lagowski, J. J.; Miles, M. H.; Ostrom, Greg S. (1991), "Helium Production During the Electrolysis of D2O in Cold Fusion", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 304: 271–278, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(91)85510-V
• Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, Stanley (1989), "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 261 (2A): 301–308, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3
• Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, Stanley; Anderson, Mark W.; Li, Lian Jun; Hawkins, Marvin (1990), "Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 287: 293–348, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(90)80009-U
• Fleischmann, Martin (2003), "Background to cold fusion: the genesis of a concept", Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion, Cambridge, MA: World Scientific Publishing, ISBN 978-9812565648
• Gozzi, D.; Cellucci, F.; Cignini, P.L.; Gigli, G.; Tomellini, M. (30 September 1997), "X-ray, heat excess and 4He in the D:Pd system", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry (Elsevier) 435 (1-2): 113–136, doi:10.1016/S0022-0728(97)00297-0

Up to G, more tomorrow, I assume. --Abd (talk) 03:00, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Major lead problems

As currently written, the lead pretty much directly states that muon-catalysed fusion has severe theoretical problems and has been rejected by science

This is because someone keeps making the lead paragraph talk about the broad definition of cold fusion, but has not bothered to transition to the Fleishmann and Pons claims after that point, meaning that the paragraphs discussing problems with Fleishmann and Pons' claims now read as if they applied to a wide array of mainstream physics as well.

Seriously, can't we just through all the mainstream physics stuff into disambiguation and keep the focus of this on the Fleishmann and Pons stuff (and related fringe theories and crankery) that everyone means when they talk about cold fusion nowadays anyway, and just let the broader definition stand as part of a disambiguation link, e.g.

This article is about the Fleishmann and Pons claims of 1987, and the resultant controversy. For fusion at below the high tempratures needed for thermonuclear fusion, see muon-catalysed fusion.

Might have to skip using the template and just write the text in italics (for instance, adding "and related articles" at the end of that would be more accurate, but we could easily disambiguate it, and avoid all these problems. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 04:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It used to have a much better definition in the lead, but it was "simplified" a few days ago here. I'd certainly support restoring the old version of the lead. Not sure about moving this into the disambig section. Phil153 (talk) 04:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

We only discuss the one definition in this article, it just confuses matters to act as if we're going to discuss other things too. There are accepted physical processes that were rarely referred to as cold fusion before the events we do discuss, we should make this clear. We should also make it clear they are not what we are discussing. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I offered a reasonable first paragraph some time ago. Nobody claimed it had a POV problem; they just thought it wasn't "formal" enough for an encyclopedia. Even though you might be aware that most readers would rather not wade through technical jargon. So here, I'll copy it so you can complain about it all over again:

The phrase "Cold Fusion" is a description. Whether or not it is a correct description has been disputed ever since 1989, when it was coined. In that year the electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons described some experiments involving the electrolysis of heavy water, and claimed they had observed quantities of heat energy being released that could not be explained in terms of ordinary chemical interactions. They therefore proposed that the energy could be explained if nuclear fusion reactions were occurring between deuterium nuclei under relatively ordinary physical conditions, far colder than the conditions inside stars, where fusion typically occurs in Nature. It is known that special events such as muon-catalyzed fusion can occur even at liquid-hydrogen temperatures, but it is also known that muons are not available to explain Fleischmann's and Pons' results. Therefore the label "Cold Fusion" exists to describe whatever other mechanism might be able to do that, and that label has persisted in spite of all the conflicting research carried out afterward, some of which directly contradicts the original claims that something unexplainable in terms of chemistry had happened.

This article will describe the original experiment, attempts to duplicate it, variant experiments on the general theme, theoretical objections, ...

(take it from there, folks!) V (talk) 15:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I can create a complaint, myself. I think I saw something in the article that indicate the phrase was actually coined before 1989, which if true would require the above to need a revision. V (talk) 13:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

From a science standpoint, "cold fusion" is a hypothesis to explain what is commonly called the Fleischmann effect (that page redirects here) and other phenomena. There is much more consensus that the effect exists than for the hypothesis that it is caused by fusion. Note, of course, that the F effect might be caused by some systematic experimental error, in which case the "cause" is that error, not fusion. There is quite possibly less consensus on any specific hypothesis regarding the existence and specific cause of such an error than there is over cold fusion. Shanahan, here and in published work, claims just such an error, a calibration problem, but this would not, of course, explain evidence of radiation and detection of nuclear ash. Another hypothesis would be that CF is a result of experimental bias, i.e., researchers are looking for a thing; failures are not reported, only successes are. This possibility is particularly of concern when individual experiments sometimes "fail," when an effect is difficult to reproduce. There is, however, a remarkable paper presented at ICCF14 (2008) which reports Bayesian analysis of a large number of CF experiments, including many replication failures, and showing that if a simple set of criteria are applied to the experimental reports, experiments meeting all of these criteria (I think there are four) showed excess heat, and those that failed one or more of the criteria were much less likely to show heat. They conclude excess heat under these more-precise conditions is confirmed with high reliability.

One of the most important and unfortunate aspects of the situation was that the hypothesis that cold fusion was the cause became confused with the experimental report of excess heat. The implication that this was cold fusion caused massive premature independent attempts to replicate, based on inadequate information and understanding of the necessary experimental conditions, and, quite simply, it's not surprising that this early failure to replicate existed. To jump from that to a conclusion that the experimental science was bad was, from a scientific point of view, a non-sequitur. It must be said that the conclusion, from the early work, that fusion was taking place was also quite premature. It remained quite controversial even up to 2004, where a majority consulted for the DOE report considered the evidence "not conclusive." But I think a majority also considered that the F effect was real, i.e., that there was more heat than expected, and that further research was warranted.

When I first started looking at this article, I pointed out that the DOE report recommended further research. It was claimed at that time, quite confidently, that this was mere boilerplate, that "they always recommend that." However, if you read the individual reports from the reviewers, it is quite clear that it was a strong opinion, not just bureaucratic hedging. --Abd (talk) 13:33, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

You also made the claim that the majority of the 2004 DoE panel thought that there was excess heat back in January. At the time I pointed out that this characterization was incorrect, that the panel was "evenly split". Was that in any way unclear? --Noren (talk) 07:58, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

On "calibration constant shift"

collapse argument to make way for focused explanation --Abd (talk) 20:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've finally figured out, since Shanahan was apparently trying to redefine standard terms, that his "constant calibration shift" is just a worthless way of saying that the calorimeter functioned just fine, registering unexpected heat. He wants us to believe that its calibration became "off" during the experiment, and then magically returned to a near-normal value after the experiment. It's simpler (per Occam's Razor) to think the calorimeter actually measured heat. Whether or not the origin of the heat was chemical (such as catalyzed hydrogen-oxygen reactions) or nuclear, is irrelevant. Shanahan even specifies a source of heat to supposedly cause the calibration to go "off". DUH! The calorimeter is supposed to measure heat, and to stay reasonably calibrated while it does! Any calorimeter that can't do that should fail testing at the factory. Not to mention that calorimeters have been getting manufactured for many decades, and a calibration problem such as Shanahan describes would have made itself known long ago, as chemical engineers tried to scale up data given to them by chemists, who used calorimeters to obtain the data the engineers tried to scale up. Is it any wonder I think his paper is largely nonsense? V (talk) 16:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC) As usual, you haven't figured anything out. If you looked at my first paper, you would see that the calibration constant did NOT return to normal after each 'cold fusion' excursion, but progressed to a 'dead electrode' state, which then had to be restored by special treatments. So, your first two sentences are nonsensical. It is 'simpler' to think nothing happened (the ostrich theory of scientific research), but experience has shown many, many times that doing so is a mistake, as it is here. And I have no clue what you are referring to when you say I specify a source of heat, etc. And I agree: "The calorimeter is supposed to measure heat, and to stay reasonably calibrated while it does!", but the problem is of course that it doesn't do what it is supposed to do. The remaining sentences are the 'Rothwell' attack, used several times by Jed in the past. This clearly indicates you are unduly influenced by him, which agrees with your irrationality in your opposition to basic science facts like 4*3 is not equal to 4*4. For those here who may not have seen it before, the idea is that my CCS overturns 'centuries' (Rothwell's approach, at least V just said 'decades') of calorimetry research. Of course it doesn't. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Oh, what fun! First, there is a difference between "the electrode" and "the calorimeter" --any attempt to confuse/conflate them is just more nonsense on your part; I said it was the calorimeter that you want us to believe magically returned to near-normal calibration. Next, "And I have no clue what you are referring to when you say I specify a source of heat" --THIS FROM YOUR TALK PAGE: "What I think is happening in the P&F cell is that material is slowly deposited on the electrode surface and it alters the surface energy such that H2 bubbles adhere better. Then O2 bubbles collide and merge, and the clean metal surface under the bubble catalyzes H2+O2->H2O." -- Are you not aware that that reaction (correction: 2H2+O2->2H2O) is used in rockets partly because of the amount of energy (heat) released by it? (And what about the difference between "material is slowly deposited" and "clean metal surface"? Having both at the same time is ridiculous!) What more proof does anyone need, that your conclusion is nonsense? Next, I haven't seen Rothwell's response to your paper. I didn't need it to independently reach my conclusion; some of MY college training was in chemical engineering. Therefore the evidence is: you have leaped to yet another nonsensical conclusion. V (talk) 17:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC) For the reader, V has proven again he can't read. I made my point in the section that Abd collapsed, I don't need to do so again. If anyone else is having as much trouble as V let me know. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Oh, and P.S., it's calibration constant shift. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:26, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Tsk, tsk, a personal attack is a pretty poor way to defend your so-called "facts" and "logic". Go ahead, attack me all you want; I'm even willing to DIScourage anyone from complaining about it. Because as long as you do that instead of defend your hypothesis, when it contains such obvious self-contradictions as experiments running for hundreds of hours with electrodes slowly accumulating deposits of contaminants from the heavy-water solution, and then somehow having a clean surface to catalyze a chemical reaction --nobody need believe that hypothesis at all. V (talk) 19:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC) (unindent) I request the editors tone it down. Shanahan is a published expert in the field and respect is due. We need less rhetoric. Shanahan has a hypothesis that may explain some of the experimental results. The field needs criticism, it's essential. His work was published in a peer-reviewed journal, so dismissing it as "nonsense," repeating the word, doesn't help matters. I acknowledge my own skepticism at Shanahan's approach. For starters, it does seem that he's impeaching the usage of calorimeters by experts; nevertheless, some of us complain about what may be biased rejection of evidence for cold fusion, let's not engage in biased rejection of criticism of such evidence. We are not, here, attempting to make a decision on whether cold fusion happens or not. Some of the calorimetry experiments are done with closed systems, so that all the released gases recombine within the system; a system like this should heat up due to the inefficiency of the conversion process. One of the problems has been that reports are made of power generation, but often energy generation (integrated power) isn't given. A cold fusion cell will store a certain amount of energy as hydrogen/deuterium gas and oxygen, separated; it may release that later. Palladium stores a lot of hydrogen, that's why it's of interest. It stores hydrogen (including deuterium, of course) with high density, essentially with the density of a solid, if I'm correct, so, yes, rocket fuel. Except, of course, these are chemists and they are quite aware of this fact, and when they say that the power generated could not be from any known reaction, I'm a little skeptical that they need to wake up and say, "My God! The hydrogen is burning! Forming water! When we said "no known chemical reaction," we didn't think of making water from the gases!" Rothwell's criticism, while of some interest, isn't of much use to us, unless it's published in RS. We can discuss it, he knows the field, but I'm more interested in review of Shanahan's work by other scientists, Rothwell is a writer who has specialized in this field and is well-known for that. I consider him an expert, but in a general way, I'm not convinced that he's competent to criticize Shanahan's work. Which doesn't meant that his criticism isn't cogent; most of what I've seen from him, here has been quite cogent. I suspect we will move along more efficiently if we start to narrow down issues. Shanahan, I especially invite to inform us of peer-reviewed comment on his work, since he might be likely to be aware of it. I mentioned him because it's an example of an alternate hypothesis. It is that, and whether or not it adequately explains the experimental results is another matter. I don't see how it would approach, for example, the radiation or nuclear ash evidence. I've been coming to some understanding of what happened, why, in particular, the 2004 DOE review still came up with "inconclusive." One of the problems is that there are many effects that have been found. The research has not focused on one particular experiment, to try to reproduce it. Rather, experiments are all over the map. Some find helium, some do not, for example. That certainly looks suspicious; though there is a possible explanation: There may not be just one kind of LENR, there may be many. Some produce helium, some do not. All of them take unusual circumstances, and these were not noticed before because pretty much nobody expected them, due to the accepted theory; no expectation, no search, no results to study. Start searching, and something might be found. Iwamura's work, for example, reports elemental transformations on the surface of a complex sandwich of palladium and calcium oxide, where deuterium flow is established through the palladium lattice. This work alone would be worthy of serious attempts at replication. There has been some attempt within the cold fusion community and, I note, contrary to what some here might expect from that community, some of the report, at least, is negative. But negative results at first are not the same as "failure to reproduce." As with the original CF experiments, the precise conditions which show the effect may not be known. I fail to see how Shanahan's criticism would apply to experiments which (1) consider the whole system, like a "black box" and study input power, integrated, and overall heating, or (2) which don't depend on calorimetry, such as experiments showing radiation. I don't see why the alleged systematic error would take place with deuterium and not with hydrogen. I don't see why the possibility of this would escape all those different experimental groups. But none of this means that the hypothesis should be contemtuously dismissed. More to the point, I'm interested in how Shanahan would respond to the Bayesian analysis I mentioned. I'll find a link: I have to go do a bit of work, but why calorimetry experiments with the particular markers the paper (presented at ICCF 14) would show excess heat, with high reliability, but those without these markers would not. The markers, themselves, shouldn't affect the calorimetry, they have to do with expressed concern about purity of the materials, as an example, or other characteristics that would allow classification of experiments. By the way, I'm aware, as well, of a hazard involved in this Bayesian approach, but I won't detail it yet. --Abd (talk) 19:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Abd, getting published even in a Respected Source doesn't necessarily mean today what it used to mean. For evidence, see http://io9.com/5117892/computer+generated-paper-accepted-for-prestigious-technical-conference Enough specialist-specific technical gobbledygook can cause even expert eyes to glaze over. But try to explain the paper in plain English, and logical contradictions can become much more obvious. Perhaps the technical journals should request the plain-English translation along with the gobbledygook, to weed out pretenders in the future. V (talk) 19:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm asking Shanahan to explain for us his work with Calibration Constant Shift, a Guide for the Compleat Idiot on CCS, and I request that comments from others here be directed toward helping Shanahan to effectively and clearly explain it, not to refute it, argue against it. Perhaps, Dr. Shanahan, you could provide us with some text on this that, if we had space, we could put in the article, or you could refer to the old Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments article, which I've rescued from the junkbin at User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments.

Try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cold_fusion&oldid=239093535 Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Far too much detail for the article here, possibly even for the calorimetry article if it comes back, we don't need to know the equations, for example (my opinion). My impression is that this criticism of the calorimetry can be argued to apply to some CF experiments showing excess heat, but not to, for example, the Arata work, which shows steady generation of heat without calorimetry at all, merely measurements of heat flow, of interest without controls, but definitive with controls. --Abd (talk) 14:57, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

And this especially, but read the whole page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kirk_shanahan#The_Major_Fallacies_of_Cold_Fusion Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

tl;dr. Well, I did scan over it. One point I'll make. Shanahan's calorimetry considerations are published in RS, they are a notable criticism of cold fusion calorimetry that applies to some of the experiments. It looks to me like he over-generalizes them, as if they applied to all of these. Quite clearly they don't apply to Arata's work with loading powdered palladium alloys with deuterium, where the conclusion of heat generation is based on maintained temperature differential compared with controls, not involving calorimetry at all. At some point, I may summarize "the major fallacies," they are buried in verbage, but I'll do that on Shanahan talk. I'm particularly interested in the claims made about Iwamura's work, especially the claims that triplet S-32 was mistaken for Mo-96.

A distinction between absolute experiments and controlled experiments must be made. An absolute experiment will produce a result: so much heat was generated when we did this. Much preferred are controlled experiments: When we did this, we got so much heat, when we did exactly the same, except with this small variation, we got no heat. This is basic science, if the change should not, by existing theory, affect the heat, something new has been discovered, something unknown. In particular, controls in cold fusion experiments often involve running the experiment with hydrogen instead of deuterium. The only difference between hydrogen and deuterium is nuclear, beyond some shift in quantitative values because the extra neutron in deuterium has some extra-nuclear effect, like heavy water (D2O) is a little heavier than water (H2O), but it's small. Shanahan's criticism applies to absolute experiments, but far, far less to controlled experiments. This is the difference between "precision" and "accuracy," mentioned in some papers and discussions. In well-controlled experiments, the absolute accuracy of the calorimetry is not relevant, all that is needed is that the results be significantly above noise levels, and changes in the "calibration constant" during the experiments should be irrelevant, as long as the compared experiments show what is expected, under the hypothesis of no excess heat, to be no difference, but, in fact, there is a difference that is consistent across multiple sets of experiments.

Let us suppose that Shanahan is correct, and that excess heat in the calorimetry experiments was an artifact of CCS. I'll back up a little. Pons and Fleischmann had expected, from quantum electrodynamic considerations, that cold fusion might occur under some conditions. Suppose that they didn't get the conditions right, and that the excess heat they found was an illusion. That would not prove that cold fusion was impossible, only that they hadn't found it. But because of this error, many other people started looking for it. Some may have found it. I would, therefore, caution Shanahan against overgeneralization from his own work. His work could be perfectly correct, in terms of what was published, and that would only allow discounting of some of the excess heat measurements, those where CCS effects were not addressed, but not others where CCS is moot or was addressed. CCS applies not at all to claims of transmutation, including measurement of helium or other nuclear reaction product, including radiation. --Abd (talk) 15:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Could I suggest this occurs at either Abd or Shanahan's (probably best) talk page, with a link placed here, and then interested editors could debate there. Occasional status updates relevant to the article, or any concrete proposals or conclusions, can then be pasted or linked to here for fuller discussion. Perhaps this should be done in a new section and this section be archived rather than just collapsed? Thanks, Verbal chat 20:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

One point: I'm not interested in "debate," as such. This is a discussion page, and the problem with "debate" is that it tends to focus on sides and winning. Discussion seeking consensus is almost the opposite of debate, though it can resemble it in some ways. Both discussion and debate may involve presentation of various evidences and considerations, but in a discussion, as distinct from a debate, the parties involved, ideally, do not hold fixed positions which they seek to promote. Rather, they are exploring a topic together, and, naturally, they each have their own opinions and current POV, which they may share, but they will, ideally, all be satisfied with any outcome decided. Sometimes people are so stuck on their own POV that such consensus is impossible, but that is actually the exception rather than the rule, when there is adequate discussion in a civil environment. --Abd (talk) 15:33, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Tell you what. Let's edit the Calorimetry article in my user space to bring it into good shape. Then we can decide if the material belongs in this article, or in a separate article. That article was actually started to stop edit warring here and allow exploration of the topic. It went to AfD, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Calorimetry_in_cold_fusion_experiments, nominated by JzG, and there are arguments there we might attend to. The claim was that this was a POV fork. However, if we ensure that the article is NPOV, and if the article is summarized at Cold fusion, but still has more detail, those arguments should go away. Only if there is not enough material for an independent article, after it's cleaned up, should it stay deleted. (I argued for Merge, which preserves editorial flexibility, but I didn't take the second deletion to DRV because I prefer, usually, to try to satisfy the arguments made on the other side, which means waiting until an article is ready.) My feeling is that there is enough detail on Calorimetry in CF that it deserves an article, that is, there is enough in reliable source of sufficient notability and interest to justify more space than Cold fusion would properly bear. We don't have to decide now, I suggest the goal there is to create a clear, sourced, and interesting article on the topic. Because it's in user space, we are more free, we can put in unsourced stuff if someone thinks that sources can be found, our goal should be consensus, at first, not necessarily AfD survival or full satisfaction of WP:RS. If it's going to come back, we can clean it up. Open for business, anyone who wishes to participate. Shanahan, restrictions on WP:COI do not apply there. User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments. My user space. Be nice. folks. --Abd (talk) 22:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yoshiaki Arata's experiment

The latest experiments were done in May 2007 by Yoshiaka Arata and Yue-Chang Zang. It is noted that the conducted the experiment somewhat else (they used palladiumpowder in the electrode that was made by injecting the powder with deuteriumgas under high pressure). It was reported that 70% more heat was generated than the electricty put into the experiment.

According to anata, pycnodeuterium is formed in the experiment and they believe the scientific formula that would explain the reaction would be possible if a fonon was included (which they believe was present)

the experiment was documented in Journal of the high temperature society —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.135.164 (talk) 14:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I find this article in that journal from Arata:

The Establishment of Solid Nuclear Fusion Reactor, Yoshiaki ARATA and Yuechang ZHANG, Journal of High Temperature Society, Vol. 34 (2008), No. 2, pp.85-93[25]

Abstract: An ultrahigh vacuum stainless-vessel including only solid samples is used as a “Solid Fusion” vessel. When extremely high purity D2 gas is injected into this stainless-vessel, D2 gas is penetrated into the solid sample as “ D+-jet stream” and “ Solid Fusion” is generated instantly with [He-4] and thermal energy as the reaction products. Consequently, the stainless vessel can act as both a “ [He-4] generator” and a “Thermal Reactor”. As a result, and excellent actual “Solid Fusion” reactor is established for the first time in the world.

The paper is in Japanese. Tantalizing, but confirmation? They are using palladium nano-particles in the vessel. This is a radically different approach than the electrolysis methods, and, I'm sure, the excitement is about the possibility of a continuous process. Arata's theory is of less interest than the experimental results, in my opinion. Arata has published a mountain of research into various aspects of our topic. lenr-canr.org's bibliography gives this 2008 paper, but they have no copy hosted. In 2005, at ICCF12 in Yokohama, Japan, Arata presented a description of a "reactor" which did not involve electrolysis, the 2008 paper appears to be a continuation of that work. --Abd (talk) 13:12, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

This paper contains no new Figures over and above what was publicized and discussed previously. As such, it is still not conclusive, too many possibilities of alternate conventional explanations. And did you notice the references? all of them are to their own work! Wow... Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this was noticed. Kirk, did you read the original paper, in Japanese? Or did you read a translation? From where? --Abd (talk) 18:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I compared the Figures in the paper to those in the Krivit article here: www.newenergytimes.com/news/2008/NET29-8dd54geg.htm#hood - No new data was added, so none of the questions that came to mind then have been answered, and others besides me pointed out that the demonstration really didn't prove anything. Specifically one thing missing is control experiments showing the residual delta T is real and not an artifact. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Kirk. There are controls reported in the Krivit article, a typical kind for CF research. They ran it with hydrogen, which is chemically almost identical to deuterium, plus, with deuterium, in the paper Krivit is working from, they use two different alloys. Besides, the smoking gun there is helium. Actually there are three smoking guns.

Krivit points out, in the popular version of the article that precedes what's linked above, that the motor demonstration was, not meaningless, but certainly not conclusive, in itself: On May 22, professor emeritus Yoshiaki Arata (Osaka University) and professor Yue Chang Zhang (Shianghai Jiotong University) did it. With the flick of a finger to start the Stirling engine, they saw the heat from their LENR experiment—with no applied electrical energy—turn a small rotor for many minutes. The presumption is that the motor was turning during the nuclear energy production phase rather than the chemical energy production phase. The turning motor is symbolic, a bit of showmanship. But what's significant is the temperature behavior.

"Alternate conventional explanations." Okay, Kirt, it's not your obligation, an unexplained experimental result is not a proof, in itself. However, when we start to have to pile unlikely assumptions on unlikely assumptions to explain repeatable results, when there are controls, Occam's razor kicks in.

For the benefit of others, I should describe the experiment briefly. A reaction cell is within a thermal isolation chamber. The temperature inside the reaction cell is Tin, the surrounding chamber is at Ts. The cell contains "nanopowder" palladium alloy, in the first experiment documented, it's ZrO2-Pd, and there is 7 grams of it, as I read the article; in blank runs, there is no powder in the cell. First the chambers are baked and allowed to cool, then D2 gas is introduced. The gas is rapidly absorbed by the powder, the pressure in the cell remains low, but temperature rises rapidly. This is a chemical or mechanical effect, it happens with hydrogen. However, it is what happens next that is of interest. The pressure in the cell begins to rise, as the temperature falls. With deuterium, long after one would expect the cell to have come down to room temperature, Tin remains hotter than the outer chamber, which shows steady heat production in the cell, and Ts remains above room temperature. Chemical? Doesn't happen with hydrogen, happens with deuterium. Then come the tests for helium. Arata claims no helium is detected with hydrogen gas, no helium with an empty cell with deuterium, helium is detected, however, with the palladium alloy and deuterium gas. Generally, critics of these experiments assert that the helium must be coming from ambient abundance or contamination of the equipment. If so, why not with one of the controls? Arata filters the deuterium with a palladium filter which he claims will filter out helium. (I presume he does the same with hyrdrogen gas). He does not detect any helium when he uses hydrogen gas, indicating that the helium is not a contaminant in the powder. The chemical/mechanical heating in the initial phase happens with hydrogen as well as helium, but when the cell is saturated and pressure rises, Tin returns rapidly to Ts. The charts in the NET article go out to 3000 minutes; the temperature difference with deuterium is maintained that far out.

The experimental design is simple but clear. Heat is being generated in the cell, anomalously. As we see with hydrogen, there is heat evolved from the deuterium getting tight with the palladium. But with hydrogen, same initial evolution of heat, but that heat stops, there isn't a trace of heat generation, that I can see, by 50 minutes. It's sustained with deuterium. "At 300 minutes, the deuterium experiments are 4 degrees [and 7 degrees higher than room temperature, and the hydrogen experiment is 1 degree higher than room temperature. He has adjusted the time scale to begin with the onset of the "Skirt-Fusion Zone."" (those figures refer to Tin; Ts is at a lower temperature, between room temperature and Ts; with hydrogen, Tin and Ts are the same long before 300 minutes). In the experiments where heat is generated, helium is found.

Let's see, heat generation with deuterium, not with hydrogen, helium found with deuterium/palladium alloy, and not with hydrogen or deuterium with no palladium alloy, okay, what's the "alternate conventional explanation"? I'm not saying there isn't one, but only because there are more things under heaven and on earth than I have ever dreamed of. This is a far simpler experiment than the complex calorimetry involved with the original Pons and Fleischmann work. Because energy input is limited to the provision of gas, which flow stops early on, there aren't all the complications of looking for what is usually a needle in a haystack: the anomalous heat compared to all the energy that was dumped in to load the palladium rods with deuterium, sometimes over months.

By the way, there are no allegations flying about of fraud with any of this work; sometimes editors coming upon this, knowing that cold fusion is considered a fringe science, might think, well, that's what they say, but how do we know they are telling the truth, you know, those cold fusion fanatics will do anything to get attention. No, cold fusion research is being carried out by serious research groups around the world. Though Arata's work isn't yet accepted as conclusive, it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal in Japan. As Shanahan says, there may be some conventional explanation, but, just as with Iwamura's transmutation work, nobody suspects fraud; the holy grail for all these scientists is reproducibility, and it's awfully hard to get that with fraud.

I intend to look for references to Arata's work. Our article mentions the work, I think, in the phrase "deuterium gas loading onto Pd powders under pressure."

Comments - Protium is NOT a control for deuterium and vice versa. A) The heat of formation for the relevant metal hydride is different for H and D. B) The equilibrium P-c-T conditions are different. C) The thermal conductivities are different. As well, thermal conductivity between sample particles will be different for different materials and possibly even for the same material at different stages of the experimentation due to accumulated effects related to activation processes and differential swelling coupled with initial packing density.

All the results shown could be attributed to these factors. The T difference between the Tin and Ts are explainable in terms of standard concepts such as these, thus the paper needs to explain this, but I saw no indication in the Japanese paper of this via equations, figures, etc. Perhaps they did so in words only, but if so, I suspect it would be just a hand-waving comment, and not a real investigation of the potential problems.

Note that this does allow for an actual delta T to be present which could be used to drive a Stirling engine I suppose, but the source of the delta T is likely conventional, not nuclear. We can’t tell from this work.

Demonstrations (also known as ‘dog and pony shows’) rarely prove scientific points. And no one would accept it in this case anyway (unless they were predisposed to do so because of their personal beliefs) because this is no different than a standard perpetual motion machine demonstration. The only way that or the Ararta demonstration would be considered real is if it could be shown no ‘tricks’ (like I describe above) were involved. No such studies are yet available.

By the way, was it you that said the only options were that it was true or there was fraud present? Whomever, they missed the other option - incompetence. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Clarity of article, etc.

Abd posted this comment at 19:52, 16 March 2009 which strongly enjoined editors to be civil. Abd also said "our task is not to decide if cold fusion is real or not" and described our task in terms of presenting material from sources with neutrality and balance, including material about current research presented with caution and balance. The following comment from V (19:59, 16 March 2009) was posted in response to Abd's original comment. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The article needs to be clear and understandable to the readers. I don't object to Shanahan's work being described in the article, provided it is done in a clear and understandable way (including lacking self-contradictions). So far, to the best of my knowledge, this is impossible. V (talk) 19:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I made a further comment, but ran into edit conflict with Verbal's removal. Rather than contest this -- what a waste of time! -- I responded with what I'd written, then reverted myself, and I've done what I said I intended to do above, which is intended to proceed as V has said he does not object to. Let's start cooperating, let that start here. --Abd (talk) 20:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Review of sources

http://coldfusionpolicy.org/Cold%20Fusion%20Ann%20Biblio%20032106.pdf

This is a paper presented in a course on public policy analysis. It seems to be a relatively neutral analysis of sources on the topic of cold fusion, presenting sources to be used in public policy analysis on the topic. It's unfortunate that it doesn't seem to have been published.... but we may be able to begin some discussions with what is there.

http://coldfusionpolicy.org/ provides an overview, and addresses issues that are of major concern to us. It's worth looking at.

http://coldfusionpolicy.org/Grimshaw%20Resume%200108.pdf asserts the credentials of the author, who does not appear to have any observable bias from the history given. However, of course, Grimshaw isn't a chemist or physicist, i.e., an expert in science. However, "public policy" process is related to our editorial process here; it is properly advised by experts in the field, but actual determination is made by others, generally, who are not experts. (Experts attempting to control articles here frequently end up blocked.) So this paper may well serve as a support to our work, as if Grimshaw were an editor here, an editor who has clearly done a lot of the footwork. --Abd (talk) 14:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a response to Grimshaw at http://physicsworld.com/blog/2008/03/cold_fusion_as_policy_posterbo.html. This blog is an example of what, I'm sure, drives cold fusion researchers crazy, and it's an example of what Grimshaw talks about. The writer says, at the end, "writing as someone who did a cold fusion experiment in 1990, my personal opinion is that whatever they are seeing — it’s not fusion."

Everyone acknowledges that P-F type cold fusion was very difficult to reproduce, i.e., most attempts, early on, failed to find it. I think a lot of people tried to reproduce the experiment, far more than published. Most of these attempts failed, but it does not follow that "other researchers were unable to confim cold fusion." I've seen this statement again and again, and it is blatantly false in implication, that there was no confirmation. Not only was there confirmation, recent analysis of the publications that did appear has shown that experiments which followed closely P-F's methods and approaches succeeded. But this writer is extrapolating from personal experience, an experience which has almost nothing to do with whether or not cold fusion is real, and simply reflects a matter of consensus: most early attempts to reproduce failed. A number of writers, and we have reliable source on this, have regretted the way in which the appearance of consensus developed on cold fusion. Grimshaw points out the errors on both sides. He also points out that the nuclear physicists dominated the response to cold fusion; had it been dominated by chemists, the result might have been quite different. Chemists were saying "this isn't chemistry," and that is where their expertise is. Nuclear physicists were saying, "this isn't fusion," and that is where their expertise is. So what is it, then? It's obvious: it is either chemistry of an unrecognized form or it is nuclear physics of an unrecognized form. In other words, no matter how you slice it, there is new science here. Hence the continued recognition by both DOE review panels that further research is appropriate. Grimshaw goes further, using more formal policy analysis to recommend serious public support, given the level of certainty that he estimates from the research. Grimshaw is not limited by "peer-reviewed journals," but was able to consider all sources, weighing apparent bias, etc. Grimshaw did apparently speak at the cold fusion session of the American Physical Society in March, 2008. --Abd (talk) 14:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

A little more on Grimshaw, he is apparently adjunct professor at the University of Texas, LBJ School of Public Affairs.[26] --Abd (talk) 17:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

If it's not published in a reliable source, it isn't a reliable source. As far as its neutrality, I note that it doesn't discuss Brian Clarke's or my work, so it clearly has problems on the mainstream side. Don't include it. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Section "Incompatibilities with conventional nuclear physics" must be greatly expanded

I disagree that no theoretical framework exist to describe the situation. To the contrary, we have a theory that is in principle almost exact (the deviations are due to unknown physics beyond the Standard Model at very high energies, e.g. supersymmetry, GUT etc.).

The fact that you can have muon catalized fusion and that the fact that deuterium in a solid is more complicated that just two deutron nuclei, in no way means that "anything goes".

One can disagree with a negative attitude toward the possibility of cold fusion based on theoretical arguments. But if we don't explain what the basis of these arguments are, then the article will fail to explain the basis of the dispute. Count Iblis (talk) 14:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I strongly agree with your last sentence Count. If we don't explain the basis of the dispute the reader loses. That has been my driver for trying to get the mainstream criticisms into the article on the experimental side. Good luck to you on getting it in on the theoretical. There are too many people, skilled at Wikilawyering, who oppose this. Just compare the Sept. 17, 2008 version with today and you will see the loss of such explanation in favor of pro-CF propaganda. To the rest of you, I could sit here and write many more paragraphs in response to your comments, but in the end, I will not have accomplished anything. The apparent goal of the current article is not in line with informing the reader of the basis of the controversy, which is why I would read the article if I came looking to find out about CF. The only reason I came here was to do that. So, my contributions are not needed, and in fact have already been offered and rejecteed (multiple times). What amazes me is that the current crop of editors think progress has been made. Once again, good luck with that Count. Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

While I agree with Krik on the necessity of good explanation, the problem may be one of reliable sourcing. Kirk, however, seems to have a strong POV; that's not unusual with experts (of whatever variety). His criticism of certain aspects of cold fusion calorimetry appears cogent, but what was in the article was clearly inappropriate, and it's not gone because of "wikilawyering," though all sides on this have tended to push their POV using whatever "rules" they can think of as possibly applying. Rather, there is a problem with sourcing criticism of cold fusion. The reliable sources that exist are mostly old and based on arguments that often no longer apply. The biggest one, "lack of confirmation," may not have applied even in 1989; there are allegations of what may have been systematic exclusion even then. Huizenga wasn't exactly neutral. Regardless, it's an argument that has been repeated over and over, I see it constantly in critical comment on cold fusion, even up to material published in the last couple of years (but not in peer-reviewed journals). Yet there is publication of general confirmation over and over in peer-reviewed publications and far more if we were to allow conference papers. There is still plenty of room for debate on the quality of confirmation, but not as to its existence. It's enlightening to read the reviewer reports from the 2004 DOE review. It is quite clear that there are real scientific issues, unresolved, and that Cold fusion isn't your typical pseudoscience or clear example of scientific error, as it is sometimes treated. It's an active field of research, apparently excluded from some of the most significant publications on the basis of an alleged consensus that it's bogus, but published in some journals meeting our RS requirements. I agree that we should present the whole affair more clearly, and probably should fork the article into one on the social phenomenon (i.e., history of science) (where "peer-reviewed publication" may be an excessive standard), and one, probably on Condensed matter nuclear science, which seems to be the accepted name of the field as a science, and which is broader than the term Cold fusion popularly indicates. The articles will, of course, reference each other, with summaries following WP:Summary style. CMNS is, as a field, still quite controversial, with many standard physicists claiming, essentially, that the condensed state is irrelevant to nuclear phenomena, thus nuclei don't have a clue what's going on with those far-out electron shells and other neighbors, and chemistry is irrelevant to nuclear physics. Besides, chemistry is messy, far more complicated than nuclear physics, because the systems are far more complex. --Abd (talk) 16:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

What I think we can agree on is that prior theoretical considerations led to an expectation that nuclear fusion at low energies was impossible. However, in general, firm impossibility conclusions are, well, impossible. The Coulomb barrier seems like an unsurmoutable obstacle to cold fusion. But muon-catalyzed fusion is a clear counterexample. Of course this doesn't mean that "anything goes," but rather that special conditions may overcome the general expectation. "Conventional nuclear physics" represents what is generally accepted, but there is no theoretical reason, under accepted laws of physics, for cold fusion to be impossible.

"Fusion" is a misleading term; when "cold fusion" was claimed, the assumption was made that this was just like hot fusion. Only cold. That is an obvious error, in hindsight. It lead to, then, the other "theoretical objections." If this is fusion, where are the neutrons or gamma rays? With the accepted forms of fusion, they should be there, in abundance, given the levels of heat reported. How is it that the alleged unexpected energy is transferred to the material as heat, directly, if that is what is happening? Such a transfer is known to occur with the Mossbauer effect, but this would be of a different order of magnitude. However, these objections depend on a model for what is occurring in the experiment, and there is no accepted model.

We are faced with this: chemists say, "This is not chemistry." Nuclear physicists say, "This can't be nuclear physics, or, if it is, it's revolutionary and extraordinary proof is required." It's actually a symmetrical situation, for the chemists are saying, really, "If this is chemistry, it isn't a chemistry that we recognize."

We need to find reliable sources on the nature of the dispute, including this issue of theoretical considerations. I think they exist, some have been recently mentioned, and some are cited in the article. To dismiss excess heat and reports of helium and elemental transformation and radiation on the basis of theory is a gross scientific error, just as is to claim that such reports, in themselves, prove that fusion is taking place. Each experiment could have some kind of error, but it gets tricker when there are many experiments, with many different approaches, leading to similar conclusions. In 1989 that didn't exist. Once there are many such reports, it becomes pretty necessary to allege something like publication bias, as an example. Positive results are reported, negative ones aren't. However, as the experiments become better and better controlled and focused, this interpretation becomes less and less reasonable. Several months ago, if you'd asked me, I'd have said, like many others said, "That was really interesting back in 1989. Too bad it couldn't be confirmed." However, I've now read a lot of the recent work, and I can't any longer make a statement like that. There is definitely confirmation, at, I'd say, a level that should have justified, back in 1989, much more funding and continued work, had it existed then. Basically, in 1989, nobody knew, with clarity, how to run a cold fusion experiment, but Pons and Fleischmann had taken particular care in certain areas, whereas the initial attempts to confirm, done without adequate information from P and F, was rushed and inadequate, plus P and F probably did not know, themselves, enough of how to run these experiments and get consistent results. Based on recent analysis, electrolytical C-F is one sensitive little effect, very dependent on initial conditions and exact experimental details, in unexpected ways. The Arata work may not be; the approach, I believe, has had positive results from others; it is far less messy than electrolysis and calorimetry, likewise the analysis for helium is far simpler, with lots of ways to run controls. Folks, I'm still learning about all this; those who have claimed I have some POV to push are mistaken. If I seem to have a point of view, it's because I have formed an opinion, based on what I've seen, investigated starting with mild skepticism, but if there is anything I hate, it's getting nailed to a mere opinion. (And that's why the "skepticism" was mild, it almost always is with me unless the evidence is very, very strong. In which case it isn't really skepticism....) --Abd (talk) 16:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Some comments: I am a chemist and I say it's all chemistry. I have never used theory (physics of fusion) to critique cold fusion results. You are not reading the current reports with a trained and critical mind. You are a victim of your lack of understanding about what being declared a pariah field has done to the field. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I had no intention of claiming that all chemists rejected chemical explanations, but it's clear that Pons and Fleischmann, recognized specifically in the field of electrochemistry, and involved in long-term investigations of possible quantum electrodynamical effects blurring the barrier between chemistry and nuclear physics, did so, and so did many others. However, Kirk, you don't know my mind. At all. I'm not "trained," and good thing. It often allows me to see things that are missed by those who are; but don't think, from this, that I don't respect training, I do. But training, by definition, steeps us in the status quo. We need both kinds of analysis, but give the trained the reins, you create social ossification and an impossibility of change. Go too far in the other direction, you have chaos. If everyone were like me, the subways would not run, lots of things would not work. I'm not a victim. The field is indeed a pariah field. One editor here wrote that his anonymity here was crucial to him, because if it were known, there would go his career in science. This is simply a local anecdotal confirmation of what has often been reported. It does not seem to be true in China, nor, maybe, in Japan. Being a "pariah" field has definitely damaged it. My comments about the use of theory to contradict cold fusion were not aimed at Shanahan, but at the specific issue in the "theory" section, which isn't about you, Kirk, so don't take it that way.

Question is, is it a "pariah" field today, and, if so, is this about science or is it about sociology and politics?

This is the irony: the 2004 DOE review (like the 1989 review), suggested the focused funding of research, and publication of it in peer-reviewed journals. That's being done, though surely with some difficulty due to the "pariah" problem. The DOE does not, however, suggest research into fields that it or the reviewers consider junk science. By all means, Kirk, your POV is very welcome here, and your knowledge as well, but be careful, please conduct yourself as a professional consultant, which is the best of what you can be here.--Abd (talk) 17:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

"We need to find reliable sources on the nature of the dispute" - no such thing on the mainstream side (with the exception of my publications and those of W. B. Clarke), barely any on the proCF side - this is the effect of being declared a pariah field. It certainly is still a pariah field. In 2007 I presented a poster entitled "What's New in Cold Fusion" at the Gordon Research Conference on Hydrogen-Metal Systems. It was one of the most attended posters I have ever presented (maybe 10-20 people stopped to talk, normally my subjects are highly specialized and not of much interest to the general conference). The biggest job I had was convincing them that the FPHE was real. I had Szpak's IR video playing to show that. After that, most just wanted to know that I was presenting a conventional explanation, and that usually ended the discussion. They were not interested in knowing more. I was also told later that several behind the scenes inquiries were made to my co-workers as to whether or not I was "OK", i.e. was I a good or bad scientist. The field is definitely a pariah field. The only people who work and publish in it are 'odd' (and yes, I know that applies to me, but I have explained before that as a worker in the field I personally wanted to know if I should be worried about my experiments blowing up or irradiating me). That is the mainstream view. Many hold these views for the wrong reasons, but I can supply the right reasons to them, if they were interested, which they aren't. It is definitely about science, and the unwillingness of the CFers to conform to standard scientific practices and requirements. Their failure to do so, which can be detected without any detailed study of their work, clearly put them in the psuedoscientific arena. The DOE review statement about funding good proposals is stock, and means next to nothing. You will note the DOE did NOT suggest research into the area. They said good proposals might get funded, not that people should rush off and research CF.

With regards to my POV being welcome, actions speak louder than words. None of my suggestions for the article have been incorporated, with the exception that my work is referenced once, with no explanation of its impact. We need to get back to what the Wiki reader is looking for, presumably an explanation of what cold fusion is, and then, why there is a big controversy surrounding it. The current article barely addresses the _current_ issues, being mired in the view of the early 1990's, another side effect of having no RS for the mainstream view because none is published as the field is a pariah field. The only way to have a balanced article is to present the historical facts and both sides of the controversy fairly. But Wiki policy is Wikilawyered into preventing that. We need to go back to Sept. 17 and start over. Kirk shanahan (talk) 14:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) "We need to find reliable sources on the nature of the dispute" - no such thing on the mainstream side (with the exception of my publications and those of W. B. Clarke), barely any on the proCF side - this is the effect of being declared a pariah field. Yes. However, note that "pariah" and "pseudoscience" are not the same. Pariah fields are considered pseudoscience, typically, by a majority, but pseudoscientific fields don't have the level of support that cold fusion does among, say, DOE reviewers. The field includes, of course, work like yours, and this is precisely what you are reporting. Who is interested in clear criticism of a pariah field, don't we already know that it's all nonsense? Except that, of course, without criticism like yours, the judgment that it's nonsense is pretty shaky. I'll claim that my non-expert opinion is that it's shaky anyway, but, remember, my goal is always to find maximum agreement. I think, from the above, we can agree that the "pariah" designation harms research in the field, and understanding of it. You have outlined, above, the problem. Let me restate it.

The 2004 DOE review indicated that further research was appropriate, with publication in peer-reviewed journals. Now, there is publication in peer-reviewed journals, though allegedly it isn't in the most reputable. (I find it a bit puzzling that Naturwissenschaften isn't considered reputable, but let's drop that for the moment.)

There is ongoing publication in reliable source regarding research in this pariah field. While there is, in fact, continued publication of criticism of this research, none of it is overview, rather, there are specific criticisms, such as Kowalski's attempt to impeach the radiation evidence asserted by Spzak et al.

We have no recent reliable sources, on the level of peer-reviewed journals, which expresses the alleged scientific consensus that cold fusion is not taking place. We do have reviews and books, recently published, which suggest the opposite. I am not asserting that we should therefor put in the article that this alleged consensus has disappeared. I don't think it has. However, this requires that we present a more balanced view, as we would with any unresolved controversy. One side, so to speak, claims that there is no controversy, it's done and over with, cold fusion is dead, forget about it. The other, however, says, no, we now have evidence that is strong enough to assert with 99% confidence that cold fusion is taking place. (If I remember correctly, that's a claim in the Bayesian analysis reported at the 2008 ICCF.)

However, we also have, from over the years, a fair amount of reliable source review of the controversy, of the history of science aspect of this, and we have presented little of this in this article. This is why I suggest that we need two (at least) articles.

With regard to your POV being welcome, I was speaking for myself. It's very clear that there are editors who don't welcome it, just as it is clear that there are editors who are hostile to material that seems to support cold fusion. In my view, these are both dangers to the project. As to evidence of my intention, you complained about the removal of reference to your work. I restored it, promptly. Until then, I was unaware of it. I rescued the Calorimetry article, on which you had worked extensively, from the junkpile.

But please understand: Wikipedia process grinds very slowly, once serious controversy has appeared over an article. Waves of POV editors can see-saw back and forth, and this will continue until and unless a core of editors appears who are truly dedicated to NPOV, and who don't have a warped vision of what that means. (Some editors imagine that their personal opinion is, of course, "fair and balanced," when, as I continually assert, the only way we can be certain of NPOV is when we find complete consensus; the degree of our certainty is measured by the degree of consensus found. In organizations where unity is considered important, extraordinary care will sometimes be exercised to make sure that all points of view are considered and included to the maximum extent possible. Wikipedia probably will not go to that extent, but if it did, it would become so solidly NPOV that POV-motivated vandalism and edit warring would practically disappear. But when we are content with a mere majority of editors on one side or another, or even two to one, it can be very difficult to maintain stability with sound content.)

My view at the moment is that the article is defective in a number of ways, but it will take time to fix. See m:Eventualism. Fixing it by barging in with something "better," if it involves more than a very few changes at a time, is just about guaranteed to be useless and disruptive at this point. Right now, I'm working on building the community, and trying to be maximally welcoming to you is part of that. We should try to attract other experts, in fact, and one of the problems is that one of the experts has been banned. Instead of containing and confining and channeling his contributions into what is useful for us, they were rejected as "fringe" (is there something wrong with being "fringe" with a "fringe science"?), he was dismissed as a "kook." (If I did that, I'd be blocked in a flash, which says something about the situation.) His web site was disparaged as full of copyright violation, which allegation had no basis, etc. I'm dealing with all this, one little step at a time. Trying to push hard and fast, well, I'd be out of here quickly. As it is, I'm being quite successful, as long as I don't bite off more than I can chew or than the community can easily handle. One step at a time. Want a list of accomplishments? Well, I'll provide it by email to editors I trust to keep it confidential. I'm not stupid.

I disagree with your characterization of the 2004 DOE review, which is even clearer when the individual reviews are read. Definitely, research is recommended, suggesting targeted proposals with regard to certain open questions being specifically mentioned. That they did not recommend a general research program has been translated into some kind of dismissal of the field; that isn't what happened. The conclusion was precisely worded: the evidence is not conclusive. Many editors here seem to take that as an equivalent of "bunk." It's not. It means exactly what it says. That is, they meant that as to the situation when the review was performed. I'd say that the evidence now is more conclusive, but whether or not it reaches to the level of simple conclusive evidence isn't clear, and that would require far more careful and knowledgeable assessment than I'm capable of. Or that you are personally capable of, in my assessment. You can handle part of this, perhaps. We would need to, and I assume we will, look at details. Your criticisms seem to apply to some kinds of calorimetry or methods of assessing heat generation, and not to others. I don't see the application, at all, of your ideas to Arata's recent work, for example, and with regard to the Iwamura transmutation work, my guess is that you are an outsider, not an expert on the problems there, specifically. Welcome to the crowd. --Abd (talk) 20:18, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thermochimica Acta

I noticed a day ago that the reference to my 3rd paper had been deleted. I've tracked that down to an action by JzG on 30 Jan, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cold_fusion&diff=267300501&oldid=267278001 . No Talk page entry was made. The header on the revision notice was "POV and unreliable source". He also deleted Ed Storms ref as well, so I guess he thinks TA is an 'unreliable' journal. If so, then you all need to remove the otehr refs from that journal as well. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

No, that removal seems POV. I'll fix it, if those references are still relevant. JzG deleted a whole series of references with that edit, and discussion? Discussion is for wimps. Why bother discussing if you know you are right? I'll do one at at time, so if anyone objects, they can object specifically. Looks like Enric Naval already got one back. --Abd (talk) 18:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. I think one reference was supporting text that has since been removed, about theoretical work. Maybe it should come back, but, hey, I can't do everything.... Thanks, Kirk, for noticing that. --Abd (talk) 18:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Example of the hysteria in 1989

We have text in the article: One of the more prominent reports of success came from a group at the Georgia Institute of Technology, which observed neutron production.[22] The Georgia Tech group later retracted their announcement.[23]. The first reference is to: New York Times, April 14, 1989, and the second is to New York Times, April 24, 1989, with more detail, but the first link covers the retraction. The Georgia Tech announcement of neutron detection was on Monday, April 10, and the retraction was on Thursday, April 13. a scientific instrument that was used to measure neutrons, a key byproduct of nuclear fusion, apparently gave inflated readings because the liquid it was measuring became as hot as 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

This report actually was irrelevant. It was a "report of success," perhaps, but so transient that it shouldn't have affected anything. Normally, such an experiment would have been reported, if at all, as "failure to detect neutrons," because, before publication, the kinks would almost certainly have been worked out. It wasn't said how they figured it out. The second article cited states that the Georgia Tech announcement of neutrons was one of two "first confirmations." However, the original announcement by Pons and Fleischmann was on March 23. From what we now know, any attempt to replicate the work in less than three weeks would likely have failed; techniques to find rapid excess heat and radiation with alleged reasonable reliability were not developed until much later. It would not he surprising, then, that the other announcement, from Texas A&M, then, was also defective.

The second article reports that Texas A&M announcement was in the morning, Monday, April 10. Then, At a news conference the next day, Charles Martin, the Texas A&M chemist who led the research team, was very careful to say that their work had not established cold fusion. All the team was claiming was that it had found the heat being produced by the electrochemical process. Dr. Martin said the researchers had stayed up the previous night writing a journal report, which was sent off before the news conference.

Rush to publication, a foundation of bad science. This matter led me to Communicating science which examines this history in some depth and which may be a usable source for us. This is the kind of source that would be important for an article on the history of the affair. --Abd (talk) 19:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Would not "bad science" -- bad anything -- be precisely that which lacks foundation? Kevin Baas^talk 13:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly. There can be foundation for bad science. Problem is, it is not the Scientific method, but something else. Desire to be first to publish. Attachment to previously held opinions. Unwillingness to consider new ideas, or, alternatively, to provide a way for new ideas to be considered. (I'll come back to this.) Desire for funding. Competition, turf. Media oversimplification. Fuzzy concepts of consensus. Jumping to conclusions. Lack of communication. Etc.

A "way for new ideas to be considered" does not -- and cannot -- mean that everyone must constantly be open to considering new ideas on subjects generally considered closed. "Closed-mindedness" survives because it is usually efficient. It can be very frustrating, but it's also necessary, so those standing on the outside of a rigid "consensus" must learn to be patient, they are dealing with information filters that exist for very good reasons. Rather, it means that there are channels and ways for revisions of consensus to take place efficiently. It can be done. I won't detail how here, but I will point out that if scientists in general were more aware of the actual content of the 1989 and 2004 reviews (in spite of their alleged shortcomings), they would not be quite as generally dismissive of cold fusion as they are. There is real science to be done here. Elsewhere on this page, there is a discussion with Shanahan, I think it is worth following. --Abd (talk) 17:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Pehaps "motive", "source", or something like that - in any case, if one chooses to use the word "foundation", they must concede that it is a shallow one. Anyways, I get what you're saying, just playing w/words here. :) Kevin Baas^talk 21:03, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Fleischmann 2002 reference

Just noting that this reference was removed from the article, in case editors may find it useful either in developing this page or related pages:

• Fleischmann, Martin (2002), "Searching for the consequences of many-body effects in condensed phase systems", The 9th International Conference on Cold Fusion, Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (PDF), Tsinghua University, Beijing: Tsinghua University Press☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The edit was by JzG, the summary was: (This is not the context for which this whitelist request was granted. The site is known to be relibale. There is no evidence this is significant in this context.)

The whitelist request was for Martin Fleischmann. Now, is a granted whitelist request an approval of the specific usage? While it may be evidence of some legitimacy, it doesn't substitute for editorial consensus at the article itself. However, once it is whitelisted, it may be used elsewhere, the whitelisting still stands as some kind of general acceptance of legitimacy of the link, but obviously not of the usage in any particular article. Links to lenr-canr.org that existed prior to December 18 were removed by JzG without discussion, on that date, and then the site was blacklisted so that nobody could revert them back in. From his history, JzG will come up with reason after reason why his actions are justified, when they are challenged. "No evidence that this is significant in this context" is a new one. But the default here would be that there is significance, because of standing history. The paper has been listed here as part of the Bibliography for a long time. If it's necessary, I'll detail the exact history.

Nevertheless, the argument deserves response; however, because of the history, I'm reverting pending consensus. Editors should not remove long-standing accepted parts of this article, in the presence of objection, without discussion first. Again, from history, JzG is reacting to the use of a lenr-canr.org link, done here for convenience only. However, if he can't prevent the use of the link, his arguments on that not surviving careful examination, he will then go after the original paper, but the goal is clearly to prevent links to that web site. I wouldn't be saying this if not for long and deep study of JzG's involvement with this and related articles. He's quite welcome to discuss changes, but asserting them through reverts and removals without discussion, no. It's been tolerated too long.

Removal December 18, (Unlinking a polemical site inappropriate for references (and in some cases hosting copyright material in violation of copyright))

• "polemical" was found irrelevant in discussion (unless there is a more neutral site available for use).
• "inappropriate for references" was a red herring. The reference is the Tsinghua University publication, the site is merely used for a convenience copy.
• "hosting copyright material" has been a constant refrain from JzG, but no actual violation has ever been shown. Other experienced editors have reviewed this and it's been pointed out that lenr-canr.org is highly visible in the field. Search for a paper hosted there and it is often the first hit from Google. The reason behind the allegation is an assumption by JzG that Elsevier, for example, never grants permission. However, Elsevier are known to be vigorous in copyright enforcement, and the fact that lenr-canr.org is still functioning, having hosted these documents for years, is strong prima facie evidence that they do, as they claim, have permission from authors and publishers. They have a bibliography of perhaps three times as many sources as they host, and many of them are from publishers far less likely to be able to enforce copyright or even to notice a violation, yet they do not host these papers because, they have stated, they have not been able to get permission.

I will return to discuss the question of substance, after doing some research. --Abd (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

There was, in the article, back in December, when the link in question was removed, a reference to quantum electrodynamics vs quantum mechanics. This is actually a very important issue: the simpler quantum mechanics is an approximation that is useful in dealing with nuclear physics, but complex systems as exist in the condensed matter state are not accurately represented by it. The paper involved here is one where Fleischmann outlines the history of his investigation. It's worth reading. They were not just sitting around thinking, "Gee, I wonder what would happen if we electrolyze heavy water with a palladium electrode." They were not ignorant of the theoretical problems involved in the idea of cold fusion. They were looking for it based on a possibly more sophisticated analysis. They knew it was a long shot, that the more complex system would not necessarily show fusion, but they did consider it enough of a possibility to put years of work into it, funding it themselves. In any case, I have added this text back in, and have referenced it to the paper in question, which is an appropriate source since this is Fleischmann himself talking about what they were looking for and why. --Abd (talk) 19:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Abd! The reason for the whitelisting is irrelevant to our collective editorial decision as to whether to include the link on this page. Even if there were a valid reason not to include the link, that would be irrelevant to the question of whether to include the citation. Your edit is a reasonable one based on that source in my opinion and is relevant to this article, which addresses JzG's reason for deleting the citation. Information about their reasoning as to why they conducted the experiment in the first place seems to me to be of pretty basic importance to coverage of this topic. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Conference proceedings are not reliable sources. It should not be included. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Conference proceedings may not be reliable sources for scientific facts, but here this is not used to establish scientific facts, but to establish the motivations i.e. the state of mind of Fleischmann at the time of the original experiment. For that purpose, a published statement by the person themselves is quite adequate; there is no need for peer review for that purpose. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This assertion has been considered in detail elsewhere. The paper was written by Fleischmann and is being used as a source for what he and Pons thought. It is generally confirmed by other sources, but they are derivative from him. We can use additional sources if needed. Kirk, conference proceedings can be reliable sources under some conditions. This appears to be one of them. Conference proceedings are similar to self-published material; such material can be used when the author is notable, writing on a topic covered by his or her expertise. --Abd (talk) 20:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

One more point. Elsewhere, Kirk, don't you decry "wikilawyering"? Could you see that your objection could look like wikilawyering? Is there a problem with the absolute reliability of the text asserted on the basis of this source? Is this information valuable to the reader? Is it misleading? If so, how? Is there some misstatement about the relationship between quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics? That would be on point, in fact, but "wikilawyering" is taking a general rule and implying that it controls the situation, instead of dealing with the substance, the very purpose of the project. --Abd (talk) 20:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

See also Talk:Martin_Fleischmann#Status_of_link_in_article_after_this_discussion. That page is where there was very detailed examination of the reference and the link; nothing new, really, has been raised here. The only two edits JzG made in the last two days were removals of the whitelisted lenr-canr.org link from this article and the biography, using reverts without discussion or attempt to reach consensus, just the repetition of old arguments. --Abd (talk) 21:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the edit was appropriate, the correct way to make changes is WP:BRD. Had this model been followed, discussion should occur prior to remaking the same edit over an objection- there's no such page as WP:BRRD.

Secondly, in both of the above cases User:Abd seems to be arguing about the editor rather than the page. Allegations of bad faith for JzG, immediate accusation that Kirk was wikilawyering- neither of these things are appropriate for this venue.

Finally, a claim made in 2002 does not belong at the location that you placed it chronologically. As evidence that he held these opinions back in 1989, it is inadequate. why didn't he publish or mention this in 1989? Or the 1990s? A 13 year backdated rationale is not convincing. --Noren (talk) 07:27, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Noren and Abd got my point, although they don't seem to realize why I was making it. When I attempted to discuss the likelihood of 'heavy metal transmutation' being due to contamination concentration and attempted to support the position by referencing a Web page by Scott Little, I was lambasted by Pcarbon on the point that Little was not an 'expert'. When I pointed out that he had a publication in the field (enough to qualify him as an expert, given his other work), I was told that since the publication was in a Proceedings, it didn't count. There's an old saying, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I find Wiki to be extremely inconsistent in its application of policy, and I find the Wiki policies inadequate in this controversy. Bottom line is no proceedings I believe.

With regards to Noren's last point about the timing, I agree and I think I've said that once before. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:36, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Noren, I gave the history for a reason. The link was in the article, it wasn't a subject of debate. It was removed without discussion. I have reason to believe that editors tried to revert it then, but it was impossible, because it was immediately blacklisted by the editor who made the edit. I'm not going to go into the implications of that right now, because this is, indeed, not about JzG, but about the text and our immediate process. Properly, the default state here is that the reference is in the article, with the link. However, I didn't assert this link without discussion or warning. I did make the edit about quantum electrodynamics, to be sure. That brings us to the issue about 2002 vs 1989. I'm going to address this with an edit that attributes the claim about the thinking. This would address the substance of your objection, I believe.

Kirk, you don't understand the issue. Conference proceedings are similar to self-published papers. They can be used under some circumstances. This paper is Fleischmann describing his thinking in the period leading up to 1989. He's notable. He's an expert on the topic. It's reliable that he wrote this. I'm sorry that you felt you were "lambasted," but I'm puzzled. You were lambasted? Pcarbonn had no special authority, his argument would stand or not, it was up to the community. There isn't any "policy" on conference proceedings, to my knowledge, but there are notability guidelines and a preference for peer-reviewed publications and against self-published material. Read WP:SPS and WP:SELFPUB, they apply. A conference proceeding may be a notch up from self-published. I don't think they publish whatever crank paper is submitted (though some might think they do!), but papers are accepted or not, without extensive review. --Abd (talk) 17:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Something should be clear. The mention of quantum electrodynamical considerations as the basis for the research was in the article when the link was removed without discussion. What I've done is only to restore, roughly, what was there, and a link that was used. I have now addressed the issue of anachronism, but, please consider this: any reference about what they were doing when they discovered the effect is going to be retrospective. It wasn't published, at all, prior to 1989, it was, after all, secret, and this is describing what they had been doing for years at that time. This is an important piece of information about the history. It's now attributed, with a date. The removal of the paper from the bibliography has not been justified by Noren, he simply did it. That's reversion without discussion, based only on a technical claim that somehow I was wrong to put it back in, without giving any reason but process, I.e., supposedly I should have discussed it. But I did discuss it. Too much, some would say! I restored what was there before Noren's edits, addressing the objection about "anachronism." If it can be improved, please improve it. I think there may be other earlier sources on this, if people are offended by the delay, Fleischmann has written about this in more than one paper, but this was the most complete discussion of it I've seen. --Abd (talk) 17:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

13 years after the fact? C'mon Abd. There are RS for their thinking at the time, they don't get to come back 13 years later, after all sorts of speculative rationales have been offered by others (not to mention their own rationales from 1989 which did NOT mention this later one (correct me if I'm wrong)), and claim that this was their thinking. It's putting Fleischmann's later spin into what should be a strictly factual article, not to mention giving lots of weight in the wrong place. 3 editors have now removed it, so I'm pretty sure there isn't consensus for inclusion. Phil153 (talk) 18:09, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

There also is not consensus for exclusion, Phil. What it will take, perhaps, is detailed discussion and examination of each point, and possibly involving neutral editors. I don't see the description of their thinking as anything like what you are asserting, it's not spin, it is a simple and reasonable explanation of what they had in mind, and it isn't contradicted by the earlier sources. This should be a "purely factual article?" So what someone was looking for when they found something isn't in the realm of fact? Sure, we need testimony to establish it, but motivation is a fact established all the time in the legal system. What starts it is a legal principle: testimony is presumed true unless controverted. It is a fact that Fleischmann, in 2002, explained why they thought fusion might be possible. It's not speculation. Sure, maybe he made it up. But why? I don't see any motivation.

Phil, you assert, in your revert, that "there is already RS for what they thought." There is RS for some of what they thought, and what was in the article is far less informative, it makes it look like they were merely asserting some kind of pressure effect, which is highly unlikely to be the whole story. The 2002 explanation makes sense of it. It does not contradict it. And Fleischmann speaks to this point, exactly. You removed a verifiable fact from the article, Phil. Not good. The fact is "As reported by Fleischmann in 2002, ...." Do you deny this? How is it undue weight? It's not anachronistic, it's an attributed assertion about what preceded the research. So ... we get to examine this one in detail, apparently. Meanwhile, *what does this have to do with the removal of the paper from the bibliography?* It was there. Phil, you did not just remove the part about the prior thinking, you did a revert of the whole edit. --Abd (talk) 18:29, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The source (a conference proceeding), was there to support the text you added, and you put it in during the same edit, so I was indeed only removing the part about the prior thinking. You other points have been covered by myself and others. From your text below and this edit that established a long standing version, Paul V. Keller seems to agree that this doesn't belong either. That's 4 that don't think it or the source belongs in the article Phil153 (talk) 18:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) More of the history. This is the edit that removed the mention of quantum electrodynamics. There had been a discussion in Talk. Shanahan suggested language which is fairly close to what I've put in. Keller wrote, Dr. Shanahan is right that Fleischmann and Pons statement as to motivation made in 1989 is more reliable that the one Fleischmann gave 14 years later, particularly as their original hypothesis was proven wrong in the intervening period. I have made changes accordingly and attempted to improve the experimental description while I was at it. ~Paul V. Keller 02:59, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

What the article now has may be a combination of both reports. I haven't seen Legget. I'm a bit puzzled by "their original hypothesis was proven wrong in the intervening period." What hypothesis? The hypothesis mentioned in the present text hasn't been proven wrong. It's still controversial, to my knowledge. The only measure we have of any reliability as to current scientific consensus is the 2004 DOE report, which asserts no such "proof," it merely reports that low-energy nuclear reaction of the kind under consideration had not been "conclusively demonstrated." One reviewer thought it had. The general hypothesis reported here is of the nature of a hunch, that something might be different in the lattice than in a plasma. That, actually, isn't controversial, what remains controversial is the hypothesis that it is different enough to allow fusion. --Abd (talk) 18:17, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

You're missing the subtlety of Keller's point, which may be because you haven't read their statements in 1989. It's worth having a look at them and comparing to the later postdated rationales offered. Phil153 (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The paper is at http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanelectroche.pdf

It says very little about the theoretical background to their work. The paper from 2002 gives far more detail, detail which does not contradict what was said in 1989. For reference, the 2002 paper is at [27]. The considerations about quantum electrodynamics provided a general background, against which they then considered the specific case of deuterium in palladium, which is what they mention in the 1989 paper. The specific does not contradict the general. --Abd (talk) 18:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Phil, the "Early Work" section clearly indicates that claims involving unusual events in deuterium-saturated palladium long-precede the P&F experiments. It is perfectly reasonable for people knowledgeable in their field, with better measuring equipment at their disposal, to seek to investigate such claims. Sure, "fusion" had been mentioned before, and chemists who perhaps were not well-informed about nuclear physics might mistakenly think about interesting possibilities --but the measurements were what needed to be done before any such old claims could be taken seriously. And they did indeed have better equipment available. Do you have a problem with this description of P&F's rationale? V (talk) 21:08, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm looking for other references on this topic of Fleischmann and what he was looking for when he found what he believed was cold fusion. http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanbackground.pdf

In this paper presented at ICCF12, 2003, Fleischmann is even more specific. In the 1960s we started a series of research projects aimed at answering the Question, "Can we find illustrations in Chemistry (especially in Electrochemistry) of the need to invoke the Q.E.D. paradigm to explain the results obtained?" His continued discussion shows that the work he was doing was fundamental research, it was not aimed at finding cold fusion. It was aimed at discovering if Q.E.D., or field dynamics was needed to explain results in chemistry. Now, from my non-expert position, it would be surprising if it were not necessary to explain, at least, some minor effects, shifts in predicted values, etc. The question, really, is how significant the effects of the condensed matter state are, not whether there are any effects. (As an example, the Mossbauer effect exemplifies a change in nuclear behavior due to the nucleus being embedded in a crystal. To be sure, this involves lower energies and not nuclear transformations other than excitation/de-excitation). That this is the work Fleischmann was doing is plausible, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, should be accepted as his description without being impeached by claims of "spin" or distortion. Because of the lapse of time, certainly, attribution is appropriate; but this statement, if made in the 1989 article, would simply have added to the controversy without improving the basic experimental science. In the 1989 paper, his overall research project wasn't relevant and he deliberately avoided publicising it. There may be earlier work consistent with this claim. My the way, Shanahan might be gratified to notice that in this paper Fleischmann notes the problems involved in calibration of calorimeters when there is unequal distribution of heat generation, thus Fleischmann refers to the need for controls as distinct from simply measuring alleged anomalous heat. --Abd (talk) 22:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Abd, I think you posted something somewhere around here about P&F detecting a small amount of excess heat when ordinary hydrogen was used, proportionate to the natural occurrance of deuterium. If so, this would be about 1/6500 the amount of heat in a pure-heavy-water experiment. If accurate, this is bad news for Shanahan, two ways. First, A control experiment with ordinary water would be generating hydrogen and oxygen at the same rate as the heavy-water experiment. If CCS occurs for heavy water, with the two elements recombining, why doesn't the same amount of recombination and "error" show up in the plain-water experiment, after the same number of hours of run-time? Second, if the calorimeter is accurate such that 1/6500 amount of heat could still be detected in the control experiment, what is the basis for assuming it is not accurate when 6500 times as much deuterium is present? Suppose heavy water was mixed with ordinary water so that, in different control experiments the proportion was 1/2000, 1/600/ 1/200, 1/60, 1/20, 1/6 and 1/2? The calorimeter should detect proportionate increases (approximate triplings) in excess heat in each control, right? Such a sequence of experiments/measurements would totally demolish the CCS hypothesis. V (talk) 15:16, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Process note: I am holding firmly to an assumption that Shanahan, as an expert and a professional, will be totally pleased if research shows that his hypothesis was incorrect, just as a doctor would be pleased to find that his diagnosis of a particular disorder was wrong and the patient was healthy or at least not as seriously ill as thought because a hypothesis about the disorder turned out to be wrong. Shanahan's criticism appears to be cogent, when applied simply to calorimetry alone, and Fleischmann, as I note elsewhere, has alluded to the problem if not to Shanahan's work directly. It's my view that inadequate attention has been paid to controlled experiments, and in particular to control with hydrogen vs. deuterium. It's relatively easy to dismiss a conclusion based on a very complex procedure, calorimetry, alone. However, correlation with He4 production makes such evidence stronger; the use of controls adds, again, far more weight. It's still possible to assert that the subtle differences that exist between water and heavy water are responsible; but when Arata analyzes the gas in his gas-pressurized nanoparticle palladium, finds heat only with deuterium, not with hydrogen, variation in heat with differing alloys, no heat with an empty cell, and then, again, finds excess helium only in the cells with deuterium and heat generation.... this starts to become very, very serious replication and evidence. The "replication," here, isn't of electrolytical results, which are complex and difficult to reproduce, and exactly composition of the palladium electrodes turns out to be critical, but of loading palladium with deuterium and getting heat. And nuclear ash. I need to read the reports again, but my impression is that the negative reviewers in the 2004 DOE review did not pay sufficient attention to the range of verifications, and, indeed, seem to have considered that a negative: there were so many different kinds of demonstrations of experiments where the signature of nuclear reactions was claimed to be strong that the reviewers felt that no single one of them was "convincing."

I'd say that what is out there now, and with the ongoing work taking place around the world, we will know much more clearly how the scientific world is reacting to the more recent work and analysis, within a few years. Meanwhile, we have article decisions to make, here, let's make them carefully and with full respect to Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and not according to some POV, pro or con. My objection here has been to a contingent of editors who clearly assume that cold fusion is dead, rejected, only being pursued by fanatics and con artists and "kooks," and who have been willing to edit war to make sure that the article presents cold fusion in that way. And on the other side are those who would take the article too far in the other direction. Definitely the field has attracted some con artists, but ... that doesn't make it dead, only a little more confusing. --Abd (talk) 15:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

[28] 1998. Fleischmann paper on a similar theme: the breakdown of quantum mechanics in describing a condensed matter system. --Abd (talk) 22:29, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

[29] book slightly earlier than the 2002 paper which describes the goal of their research. It describes the "hidden agenda" very explicitly. The research was thus into fundamental physics, actually. They were not looking for "free energy." I'm finding this fascinating. --Abd (talk) 22:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

In 2000, a Fleischmann article was published in Accountability in Research. Here is a copy. [30]. This paper explores in detail the theoretical underpinnings of the work, specifically the inadequacy of classical quantum mechanics in describing the condenses matter state. It's quite clear that this is a deep and long-term interest of his. --Abd (talk) 22:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Phil153, you said, "There are RS for their thinking at the time"; would you please be more specific about what's available along those lines?

It would be really good if we had secondary sources commenting on the Fleischmann 2002 ref in terms of Fleischmann's thinking.

I prefer presenting together all the POVs about his thinking at the time. We can say something like "Fleischmann stated later that at this time he had been..."; that's a fact: he did in fact state that later, and that's consistent with WP:ASF: state facts about opinions. However, putting his 2002 publication later in the article is not unreasonable as well.

By the way, I'd just like to take this opportunity to talk about why I'm editing this page. I had heard about cold fusion on the news years ago and not thought about it much at all since then. Then I saw that there was contention (e.g. an Arbitration case) so I started to notice this page and have started learning a tiny bit about cold fusion, and find it interesting. I tend to lean towards inclusionism: I myself would like to see more information on Wikipedia about cold fusion—I wish those subpages hadn't been deleted so I could read them and learn some things—and I imagine there are probably other readers like me who would also like to see more material. I think readers will be interested to read Fleischmann's paper, and that if it's not included as a reference it would be good to put it as an external link or listed as "further reading". I want to see lots of facts included here: not just selected facts, but many facts, organized e.g. with subpages so that readers aren't overwhelmed. There are all sorts of questions: how are the calorimeters calibrated? What size is the apparatus? What sorts of time periods are involved? How does the excess heat compare to the total energy put in as electricity? etc. that I don't think are answered in this article. I realize there are others who lean towards deletionism and think it's better to have a short, simple article that many readers will want to read all of; using subpages is a way to satisfy both. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:48, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Fleischmann-Pons effect

This article focuses on "cold fusion." Low-temperature nuclear reactions, of which fusion is a theoretical example, are a hypothesis proposed to explain the Fleischmann-Pons effect. That's a redirect to this article (I created it). However, what's the "Fleischmann-Pons effect." What is the scientific consensus regarding it?

There are many more scientists who think the effect is real than think that it is caused by fusion.

There is a review paper that was presented at ICCF-14 (2008), http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CravensDtheenablin.pdf

Abstract:

One hundred sixty seven papers from 1989 to 2007 concerning the generation of heat from electrochemical cells were collected, listed, and digitally posted to a CD for reference, review and study. A review showed four criteria that were correlated to reports of successful experiments attempting replication of the Fleischmann-Pons effect. All published negative results can be traced to researchers not fulfilling one or more of these conditions. Statistical and Bayesian studies show that observation of the Fleischmann-Pons effect is correlated with the criteria and that production of “excess heat” is a real physical effect “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

From the paper:

In August 1989 Nathan Lewis’ group from Caltech published a negative paper Searches for

Low-temperature nuclear fusion of deuterium in palladium [10] in the mainstream science journal, Nature. In November 1989, D.E. Williams’ group at Harwell Laboratory published a negative paper Upper bounds on cold fusion in electrolytic cells [15] in Nature. Mainstream science writers and patent agents have referred to these papers for years when seeking to deny scientific legitimacy or patent protection for CMNS researchers. The failed papers have made a lasting impression since Nature refuses to publish more recent experimental results. The editors consider the matter settled: the Fleischmann-Pons Effect is not real.

By the time the Caltech and Harwell experiments were conducted, a few of the required

experimental factors were known from the Kainthla and Fleischmann-Pons papers. The lead investigators chose to follow their own protocol resulting in two failed experiments and a negative image for CMNS.

The 2004 DOE review reports this:

Evaluations by the reviewers ranged from: 1) evidence for excess power is compelling, to 2) there is no

convincing evidence that excess power is produced when integrated over the life of an experiment. The reviewers were split approximately evenly on this topic. Those reviewers who accepted the production of excess power typically suggest that the effect seen often, and under some understood conditions, is compelling. The reviewers who did not find the production of excess power convincing cite a number of issues including: excess power in the short term is not the same as net energy production over the entire of time of an experiment; all possible chemical and solid state causes of excess heat have not been investigated and eliminated as an explanation; and production of power over a period of time is a few percent of the external power applied and hence calibration and systematic effects could account for the purported net effect. Most reviewers, including those who accepted the evidence and those who did not, stated that the effects are not repeatable, the magnitude of the effect has not increased in over a decade of work, and that many of the reported experiments were not well documented.

Glass half-empty or half-full. There are editors who have been working on this article for a long time who treat cold fusion as something that was "disproven," an example of "pathological science." However, back away from that. Is the Fleischmann-Pons effect real, never mind what is causing it? I'm thinking that the "effect" refers to the production of heat due to the loading of palladium to high density with deuterium. There are quite a few different approaches to this that have been tried; not only the electrochemical approach of F & P, but the direct gas loading of a powdered palladium alloy with deuterium, no electrolysis involved, hence no large input of power (to electrolyze the deuterium), with sustained heat generation being shown (Arata's work).

Given the extensive bias against cold fusion that developed after 1989, which is well-documented, that half the eighteen reviewers in 2004 considered the F-P effect to be real is quite striking; it indicates to me that if not for the bias, that would probably have been a supermajority. (I haven't looked at the individual reviews, "half" might indeed mean 9 vs. 9.)

In any case, there is continual appearance of publication in reliable sources on this topic. Back to the purpose of this section: I think we need a section of this article, or an article, that focuses on the F-P effect itself, rather than on the hypotheses about it.

Then there is the interesting question of correlation of other experimental results with the F-P effect. Apparently, there are extensive reports of He4 generation correlated with excess heat. I.e., series of experiments is run. Some show excess heat, some do not, for, perhaps, reasons unknown. But helium is detected above background in the experiments where heat is found, not in those where it is not. Arata runs experiment with deuterium. Heat generation clear (Arata doesn't depend on calorimetry, his work is much simpler), helium detected well above background. Runs experiment with hydrogen. no heat and Helium not found.

This field does not resemble any other "fringe science" I'm aware of. The literature is massive. I've seen a bibliography showing publications in peer-reviewed journals, showing positive excess heat results (i.e, this total excludes negative reports such as the Nature publications that closed that door), with 50 different journals, 153 papers, 348 authors and co-authors, from 62 institutions. The document claims that "there are actually many more institutions involved in cold fusion than this. These numbers are more of an indication of how much peer-reviewed journal editors resist publishing than a comprehensive tally." By comparison, and to explain why the compiler of the bibliography considers that "resistance" may be involved, the lenr-canr.org bibliography shows about 3000 technical papers; but most of them are, I think, conference proceedings and other alternate publications, some of which seem high quality, and some not. --Abd (talk) 03:09, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The publication patterns in the field of Cold Fusion have a great similarity to the publication patterns of Polywater, including key features described elsewhere as characteristic of failed information epidemics, including the publication of seminal papers followed by rapid growth and then decline of both the numbers of authors of papers and of journal publication frequency. For a reliable source on the topic, see "Indicators of failed information epidemics in the scientific journal literature: A publication analysis of Polywater and Cold Nuclear Fusion", E. Ackermann, Scientometrics 66, 451-466 (2006). --Noren (talk) 04:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Kevin Baas points out the problem with the Polywater analogy, or, what has been more notably asserted, the N ray one. Fifteen years after the N-ray flap, there weren't fifty percent of expert reviewers considering that there was something real being observed. The experiments weren't getting stronger. However, thanks for the source, that's very interesting and may be useful.

(list of sources moved to subsection below) --Enric Naval (talk) 01:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

After long review, we've discovered that the acceleration patterns of a cheetah and a car are quite similiar. We conclue, therefore, that a cheetah actually is a car. Kevin Baas^talk 13:08, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

"The cheetah has spots! No other cat has spots! This is clear evidence of my theory that a cheetah is not really a cat!" "Nope, other cats have spots, for example the leopard. Here's a reliable source to that effect." "He thinks that a leopard is a cheetah!" --Noren (talk) 13:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, a more proper analogy might have been something like "... since a car has an internal combustion engine, we conclude that so does a cheetah." but i went for simplicity and humor over accuracy. Looks like it did the trick. Kevin Baas^talk 19:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Polywater was (quickly) fringe science. Reproductions were difficult but did take place. Sure, the analogy is a good one, to a point. Beyond that point it fails. Later work with cold fusion improved the reproducibility, and more accurate measurements, more precise conditions, all improved reproducibility and clarity of results.

There is an interesting powerpoint presentation on this at Bad Science, which ends up using Polywater and Cold fusion as poster boys. Page 16 of the presentation shows a chart of publications per year on the topic. Polywater did not get serious notice until 1966-68. It hit Science in 1969. Research publication peaked and fell off, and by 1974, there was very little publication. It is hard to interpret the chart. A similarity is mass media involvement. Our article on Polywater is pretty bad, with little technical detail and without the key references. There was a cogent negative paper by Rousseau, published a year and a half later in Science, which explained the experimental results with reasonable power. Because there remained some possibility of error in the negative results, debate did not immediately cease; our article claims, however, that when glassware was more thoroughly cleaned, the polywater results disappeared. Again, the source of the "effect" was identified with reasonable certainty.

The presentation, however, in examining Cold fusion, starts with the assumption that there are only two pathways to fusion. There are three known and accepted for hot fusion, plus muon-catalyzed fusion which takes place at low temperatures. Slide 31 asserts that neutrons and protons are released in cold fusion. There is some question over neutrons, but protons aren't reported, and neutrons are reported at levels so low that clearly, if what is happening is fusion, it isn't a pathway that normally generates fast neutrons. The author of the presentation has not taken the time to review the actual papers and state of the science, but is relying, apparently, on media presentation (the very thing decried) and superficial review, at best.

Slide 32 is "The Signs of Fusion." It shows Excess Heat, Neutrons, Tritium, Helium-3, and Protons. These are, of course, the characteristics of the predominant reaction pathways in hot fusion. However, there is another pathway that is known and accepted, but in hot fusion, it only occurs in small abundance: Deuterium fusion to Helium-4, with an emitted gamma ray. Cold fusion isn't hot fusion, that ought to be obvious. It might involve the third pathway, usually, but then there is the gamma ray, which is a pure release of energy; it's penetrating radiation. However, if the energy could be, as one example, coupled through some Q.E.D. effect to the crystal, that energy release would become, simply, heat. Good thing, too, or else we'd have been seeing the dead graduate student effect....

The presentation reports the media hysteria, and massive attempts at confirmation based on limited information. Then, however, it reports the Confirmations. Listed there is the Georgia Tech finding of neutrons. That information was released by press conference and retracted several days later as being due to limited information. Some later cold fusion work, with much more cautious work and with more sensitive detectors, have found neutrons, but the Georgia Tech work didn't have excess heat, if I'm correct, and therefore neutrons would not have been expected. Now, why is a simple experimental error included in this presentation? It's pretty obvious: the reviewer is convinced that it was bogus science, and including an experimental error, of a kind that would not ordinarily have attracted any attention, helps make that point. The slide gives six confirmations, the sixth is "Bob's Discount House of Knowledge."

The presentation then reviews the Compton peak problem with Fleischmann's original gamma radiation report (that would have indicated neutrons), and that is an aspect of Fleischmann's work that was never confirmed, I'm not sure how Fleischmann responded, and I'm not aware of other reports of that radiation, so I assume this criticism is cogent.

They note some retractions, and then show the Harwell work, referring to it as "the most extensive set of cold fusion tests in the world." Harwell published in November, 1989. They may indeed have been the most extensive individual set of tests at that time. However, as the analysis mentioned above ( http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CravensDtheenablin.pdf ) shows, and while they may have been "working with advice from Fleischmann," they did not follow the protocol (and to be fair, some aspects of the protocol, necessary conditions for the effect to be seen, may not have been known at that time, the protocol that works only gradually came to be known through many failures and successes). The basic protocol was known, for anyone following work in the field, by the mid-1990s. The Chinese paper mentioned above shows an analysis of something on the order of 10,000 experimental runs, which would be, I'm sure, far more extensive than the Harwell work, and it shows increase in positive results in recent years.

Other negative results are shown, such as failure to detect radiation expected from classical fusion and now known not to be present with the Fleischman-Pons effect, or at least not at levels that would be easily detectable. (There are some cogent and fairly recent claims of neutron detection using methods that are effectively more sensitive, but that's another story.)

Then one of the characteristics of Bad Science is described: researchers working in isolation. That is not the case with cold fusion, witness the regular conferences, plus continued publication, up to the present, in peer-reviewed journals outside the specific "fringe" field, and vast numbers of research reports as conference papers. Some idea of the level of publication is cited above. The reasons for the early negative findings are fairly well established. And then there is the 2004 DOE report, which is, quite simply, inconsistent with this judgment of Bad Science. It shows the existence of a genuine scientific controversy.

The polywater example is, I believe, notable, as is the N ray example, but they should be presented in the History article that I've been proposing, beyond, possibly, a attributed note that Cold fusion has been so compared. The slide show discussed above isn't RS, but it is, for us, a clear example of how misconceptions about this research have been promoted and taught for years. It's not isolated. Cold fusion is Bad Science, end of topic, and, please, don't confuse me with the latest research. --Abd (talk) 17:12, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

polywater comparison, sources, when, how and why

So we have this source comparing polywater to cold fusion: "Critical Issues in Biomedical Science: A Guide for Biochemistry and Molecular & Cell Biology Graduate", Leland L. Smith [31]

Comparison also made by:

• Henry H. Bauer [32], which gives another source:
• Rousseau, D.L.: 1992, ‘Cases studies in pathological science’, American Scientist, 80 (January-February), 54-63.
• Deconstruction and research, Journal of Phase Equilibria and Diffusion [33] also puts the two on the same article
• A newspaper from Seattle [34]
• David Goodman, on a mailing list [35]
• A Harvar Bussiness Press book cites Taubes and adds some analysis of its own[36]
• NY Times? [37]
• The Undergrowth of Science: Deception, Self-Deception and Human

Frailty by Walter Gratzer. Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press, review

• Resonance journal?[38]

So, multiple independient reliabel and non-reliable sources making the same statement, sorry im in a hurry to finish writing this --Enric Naval (talk) 19:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

That's correct, as I mentioned, we have usable sources on this, though they are not generally of the nature of unbiased analyses, so they should be attributed. This is not science, it is notable opinion about science, and should be presented as such. There are also, I believe, apparently neutral sources which report the accusations and analyze them. --Abd (talk) 00:37, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure enough, those sources describe the same thing:

“ cold fusion got the denomination of pathological science after being compared to polywater by some guy from Toronto and "(if cold fusion is given the category of scientific death, it) passes into the history of failed scientific claims, and joins N-rays, polywater, and ESP" and compares it with Irving Langmuir's definition of pathological science[39] 'Undead science', Bart Simon, 2002, Rutgers University Press. ”

“ "For most natural scientists now, the case for cold fusion is closed and the veredict unequivocal: 'pathological science'. Irving Langmuir's space for scientific fantasies was retrieved and put to cartographic use in dennouncing the claim and in castigating its pitchmen, Pons and Fleischmann, as the episode quickly entered the annals of science next to other illusions: N-rays, polywater and martian canals. It was hardly coincidence (...) that Physics Today chose to reprint Langmuir's 1953 talk in its October 1989 issue." (footnote 3 on page 184 gives another 4 books using comparisons from Langmuir, who talked about "sick" science, including N-rays, mitogenetic rays and ESP [40], before polywater was "discovered") Cultural Boundaries of Science, Thomas F. Gieryn, 1999, University of Chicago Press ”

“ This book analyzes how rethoric and humor were used to ridiculize cold fusion in "the short history of this controversy" [41] Science, reason, and rhetoric, Henry Krips, J. E. McGuire, Trevor Melia, 1995, Univ of Pittsburgh Press. ”

“ Entirely discredited, the notion of cold fusion today denotes an infamous episode of sloppy science that chemists, especially, would prefer to forget Draw the lightning down, Michael B. Schiffer, Kacy L. Hollenback, Carrie L. Bell, 2003, University of California Press ”

So, what the reliable sources say is that cold fusion is discredited, that the controversy is over, that the attempts to compare it to polywater/N-rays/ESP/etc. were sucessfull and killed the reputation of cold fusion (in about six months?), etc.

Mind you, this is not a description of the field itself, it's a description how it was painted by some and how the idea caught, and how it's still considered by scientists the same thing as back then in 1989 after the dust settled (a discredited science). --Enric Naval (talk) 01:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

is the controvesy really over? sources

(cut from section above because of topic change --Enric Naval (talk) 09:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC))

It's really going to be necessary to read the complete sources, and not just extracted sentences. For example, the article on rhetoric and humor is about how rhetorical devices were used effectively to discredit Fleischmann and Pons. This article supports the view that the rejection wasn't "scientific," but was political in nature. Consider Note 4 on page 174: Interestingly, Lewis' main empirical claim, that Pons and Fleischmann had not stirred their cells and had mistaken thermal disequilibrium for heat excesses, was soon countered by Pons and Fleischmann, who showed that the deuterium bubbles provided sufficient stirring. Lewis had, it seems, based his conclusions on a series of experiments in which he had built much larger cells than Pons and Fleischmann had actually used. Like Koonin's claims over radon, Lewis' claims over lack of stirring are not definitive.

The author is considering the effect of rhetoric, which is a political device, designed to influence people and not to resolve controversy in a scientific way, through further research or, sometimes, definitive analysis. --Abd (talk) 21:12, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It explains how Lewis and Koonin used humour on their presentation to sway the audience on their side and accuse P. and F. of breaking scientific rules (see start of page 173, and pages 170-174). This doesn't change the fact that the audience was swayed, that's it, that the controversy is over and that cold fusion now stands as pathological science. See:

“ "On the one hand, many experts say that cold fusion is dead, but on the other hand we can always find scientists who will disagree. Latour has left us with the knotty problem of figuring out how many dissenting experts it takes to keep a controversy alive." Undead Science, pag 11 [42] ”

I think this is enough material to write up something on the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:25, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure. By the way, I have the book on order (Undead Science) and a few others, such as Storms (2007). No question but that there is material for the article. But be careful about describing what happened in 1989 as a present scientific consensus; the judgment of "pathological science" is very clearly in contradiction to the 2004 DOE report, which is the most recent source we have as a broad review. "The controversy is over" is so patently false, Enric, that I'm wondering where you are coming from. There are reliable secondary sources, recent, that stand directly in contradiction to this. There is controversy. Get over it. Or did I misread you?

Because a roomful of scientists, influenced by crowd mentality just as can be everyone else, join in ridiculing a thing does not mean that controversy is over. Controversy continued with N-rays for some years, but with rapid decline. There was a conclusive refutation. The F-P effect was never refuted; it was impeached, but we have RS that the impeachment was defective. The 2004 DOE report itself seems a bit confused, the Chinese study shows a steady increasing in replication reliability. In any case, the 2004 DOE report has The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review.

Honesty, Enric, does this sound like "the controversy is over"? Or like "pathological science."?

WP:PSCI, a section of WP:NPOV, provides four classifications for questionable sciences. Which one applies here, if any?

In an Arbitration Committee case, which may be read in full here, the committee created distinctions among the following:

• Obvious pseudoscience: "Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more [justification]."

• Generally considered pseudoscience: "Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience."

The ArbCom ruled that the following should generally not be characterized as pseudoscience:

• Questionable science: "Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized."

• Alternative theoretical formulations: "Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process."

It could be argued that "cold fusion" is "generally considered pseudoscience," but only if one refers to the general "scientific community," but not to those who have reviewed it in detail. Quite a number of skeptics and critics have shifted their positions. Storms, if I'm correct, first published as a critic. I think the book will tell his story. The best example we have of how the informed scientific community thinks of the field is the 2004 DOE review. That review takes us up to the third or fourth category, which are not pseudoscience. "Pathological science" refers to poor experimental practice and unwarranted conclusions, and "pathological science" as a term has been applied to the skepticism about cold fusion as well as to overenthusiastic and premature acceptance of it. --Abd (talk) 01:58, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

DOE 2004 says nothing about the field being accepted or about any controversys existing or not. Use sources that actually deal with the topic:

"Seventeen years after the announcement [of cold fusion] the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme." Biberian 2007

"Most chemists would rather forget all about cold fusion. (...), only a small core of researchers has kept the idea from fading away entirely. (...) Acceptance by the scientific community is still the main target for cold fusion advocates [success in publishing in peer reviewed journals seems imminent, but not in replication or appearing at major conferences] (...) But will the flare-up of cold fusion excitement last?" Van Noorden 2007

"Nonetheless, a network of dedicated cold-fusionists still toils away in a vineyard that looks pretty barren to almost everyone else" Wired March 2009 [43]

"Nobody [proved it correct]. The laws of physics left cold fusion dead in the water. Nearly. A hardy band of believers refuses to let the dream die and, two decades on, continues to work on the phenomenon, now renamed as low-energy nuclear reactions." The Guardian, March 2009 [44]

"So far it hasn't been replicated to satisfy either the scientific community or the Department of Energy, leaving this type of fusion's future out in the cold for now." Scientific American, March 2009 [45]

"Attempts to replicate their experiments failed, but a number of researchers insist that cold fusion is possible. (...) The American Chemical Society has organised sessions surrounding the research at its meetings before, suggesting that the field would otherwise have no suitable forum for debate. (...) In a bid to avoid the negative connotations of a largely discredited approach [researchers now use the term LENR" BBC, March 2009 [46]

"But other scientists could not reproduce their results, and the whole field of research declined. A stalwart cadre of scientists persisted, however (...)'" American Chemical Society, March 2009 [47]

See? It's still not accepted, it's discredited, there is a small resurgence of interest on the topic, it's not clear if it's a real revival or just a perceived flare up or a temporal thing, and there is only a die-hard core of scientists still pursuing it.

P.D.: it seems that the CR-39 experiment is taken more seriously, according to the New Scientist [48] --Enric Naval (talk) 15:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I would like Abd to address why these secondary sources don't leave clear that the CF field was discredited and only a few scientists remained in it. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, except for "still considered." Maybe. What scientists? The latest evidence I know of that would address this, and that quite imperfectly, is the 2004 DOE review. That review did not consider low energy nuclear reactions a "discredited science." It took a middle position. The reviewers were evenly divided on the reality of excess heat. A majority considered the evidence for fusion to be not conclusive. What the sources above tell is a story of rejection outside the normal scientific process, but which affected, and continues to affect, the scientific process, and we have reliable source on this analysis.

I think I know how to address this. I'm going to start a version of this article in my user space, under rules which I will establish there. The goal is to develop a complete article. No reliable source will be excluded on arguments of "balance," because to judge balance, we need an overview of the field, and we don't get that overview without completeness. There is so much source on this topic that I expect the draft will fragment into subpages corresponding to detailed sections in the draft.

I did a little ad hoc "original research" here. I asked some ordinary but scientifically knowledgeable people, knowledgeable enough to know about cold fusion. My small sample: "Too bad nobody could reproduce it." That's an error, an error generated by the massive bypass of normal scientific process. Some reproductions are difficult. A negative result doesn't prove much except failure of one experimenter/experiment. When some effect is difficult to reproduce, but it is real, what will happen is that researchers will eventually discover, usually, through experiment and communication, what conditions are necessary, and they will learn to increase the reliability of reproduction, sometimes to the point of complete reliability.

The argument of lack of reproduction continued to be made long after it wasn't true. Now, certainly one can challenge the reproductions as being errors of some kind. Shanahan has challenged certain calorimetry results, if I can summarize, as being due to some kind of systematic error. However, it should be realized that there are confirmations of the basic effect that don't depend on calorimetry. Each one of these may, again, have some possible alternate explanation: Iwamura's work could be contamination by sulfur, and I haven't gone into that in detail. It should be possible, though, to disentangle these with more experimentation, and most of these criticisms do not apply to controlled experiments, they become much more complicated, for example, in attempting to explain excess heat and helium with deuterium as the loaded gas and no such results with hydrogen.

In 2004, the review panel considered the science to be near the tipping point, i.e., the basic effect was accepted by half the reviewers (that is, heat generation). There is now more published work, with what looks to me like stronger evidence on the disputed points. Describing the field as "discredited" is reasonably accurate as to the situation after the 1989 review, whether or not that review justified it. Likewise the publication in Nature was considered definitive as a rejection, even though it was actually no more than a failed set of experiments by a reputable research group that, given what are now known to be the necessary criteria to observe excess heat and helium and other evidence of nuclear reactions, did not satisfy the criteria, so, in hindsight, the experiments were successful in verifying the necessary criteria.

The process we have been following to try to improve this article could be expected to improve it somewhat with the passage of time, but with enormous inefficiency, and the rate of improvement may be low enough that it never reaches what a normal encyclopedia with normal editorial process, but with the kind of freedom we have in terms of space (once subarticles are considered), would reach in fairly short order. As an example of the problem, besides the existence of highly attached editors to one POV or another, we have the issue of balance. How do we determine balance if we don't know the actual balance of what is in reliable source? That's why we need to work on a draft where balance issues are excluded. Before implementing the draft, if that is ever decided, the article would go through a balancing phase which did not eliminate any reliably sourced material, but would use various techniques to eliminate redundancy and insure that a multiplicity of weak sources doesn't overwhelm a lesser number of higher quality sources.

All editors are welcome to participate. The draft is at User:Abd/Cold fusion. I was thinking that I'd copy this article there, but I've decided instead to start with a tabula rasa, probably organizing sections before filling them with content. There is a subpage I started with an intention of examining sources, but I started out with too much detail, there are so many sources that gross overall categorization is needed first. Sources will be divided into categories:

1. Peer-reviewed reviews of the field or aspects of it
2. peer-reviewed experimental reports,
3. peer-reviewed theoretical papers
4. media reports in independent reliable source
5. media reports in specialized media (which may or many not be considered reliable but which should be notable in the field)
6. conference papers from notable conferences
7. self-published or other irregularly published material.

The draft article should initially include all salient facts found in the first four categories, with appropriate attribution for what is controversial or unconfirmed.

I prefer that, at the beginning, the article also include material notable within the field from the last three categories. In the end, though, material from these three categories is more likely to not find its way back into mainspace; the final decision, of course, will be made by consensus of those working on it.

We are, working in user space, totally free to set aside, temporarily, issues of balance, which often boil down to what material is going to be included in what must be, many think, a brief article. The draft article, however, will potentially be the basis for more than one article; where there is reliable source on some subtopic, it may not be excluded from the project because it allegedly imbalances an article. This is a classic fringe science or pseudoscience problem.

One more note: I've put this in my user space for the moment, but there is no demand that it stay there. What I'm doing is not exclusive, does not bind anyone, and does not preclude others doing the same. Those who do not wish to participate remain completely free to object to whatever article emerges from this process, and the move to mainspace will be a matter of consensus here, not there. To put it simply, the draft in my user space advises me on how to proceed, as well as anyone else choosing to be so advised. I welcome cooperative contributions, and I consider the POV of editors to be irrelevant. POV-pushers, welcome, just, please, recognize the customs of the place. That includes those pushing an anti-fringe POV, or a fringe POV, or any other POV, or those who imagine that their own POV is NPOV, I want to make sure that what reliably sourced facts these editors would want to be included, are included, before we then move to a finishing and balancing process. --Abd (talk) 20:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Muon-catalysed fusion

I suggest a section on muon-catalysed fusion. The book by F. Close ("Too Hot to Handle") has a section on muon-catalysed fusion and treats it as a type of cold fusion. (I don't know what other sources do.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 21:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The section would be a brief description and comparison with other asserted forms of cold fusion; the section would reference the mail article, Muon-catalyzed fusion.

Our article doesn't give a decent definition of cold fusion. This is what we have: postulated nuclear fusion process of unknown mechanism offered to explain a group of disputed experimental results first reported by electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.

That's not wrong, but note that this excludes much of the field of Condensed matter nuclear science, which article was forcibly merged here by a now-banned editor, enforced by an administrator.

The problem is that there are political issues over the naming. One of the major (and vague) arguments against "cold fusion" is that it's allegedly impossible, because of the Coulomb barrier, except at high temperatures. Muon-catalyzed fusion is a clear counterexample to this. Our article, Stephen Jones claims that Jones was the first to use the term "cold fusion," referring to muon-catalyzed fusion. Later, it was his desire to distance himself from the Fleischmann and Pons work, so the name was deprecated. Clearly, though, it's fusion taking place at low temperatures, through the mediation of a muon. One of the theories advanced to account for alleged deuterium fusion in palladium is screening by electrons rather than by muons. The behavior of electrons in a lattice can be different from that in a plasma or in free space. --Abd (talk) 21:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that muon-catalyzed fusion should have its own article, for a number of reasons. But I also think it should be covered by this article, in summary style, which would then cover all forms of fusion that take place at temperatures inadequate to overcome the Coulomb barrier directly.

However, "cold fusion" is a popular term. The term for the general phenomenon is "low energy nuclear reactions," or "chemically assisted nuclear reactions (thus lenr-canr), and the field is now referred to as Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. In the scheme of things, overall, we'd have an article on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, which would cover the whole field, with possible subarticles on specific examples. (Muon-catalyzed fusion, I'm not sure if it would fall under CMNS, but I think the actual work is done in condensed matter, high temperatures could reduce the reaction rate, I think. However, CMNS is generally based, in theory, on the more accurate Quantum Electrodynamics, necessary to model the condensed matter environment, and that analysis isn't necessary for muon-catalyzed fusion, if I'm correct, which can be understood with the more approximate Quantum Mechanics.) Cold fusion would become an article on the "cold fusion affair," the very interesting history of what led up to the 1989 announcement, the furor, the political intrigue, the rush and haste to confirm, with scientific norms pushed aside, the mass condemnation and assumption of "no replication" when clearly there hadn't been time to reproduce, the entrenchment of rejection, the harm done to scientific inquiry by the "pariah science" label, the ongoing research efforts and their political vicissitudes, the chicanery and fraud, and the ongoing criticism and its basis (i.e., present research rejected based on twenty-year-old negative results?), etc. --Abd (talk) 21:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

There is already a hatnote at the top of the article directing readers to the muon article. (If I understand well, "cold fusion" was a short-lived name that is no longer in use, so that would be enough. Details can be given at the muon article.) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:04, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

There are two issues: the name (i.e., usage) and the substance, i.e., "cold fusion" implies fusion at low temperatures, and muon-catalyzed fusion is just that. Suppose that it turns out that there is some other fundamental particle which had escaped notice, or some similar effect, that functions like muons in catalyzing fission at low temperatures, but only in a condensed matter environment. Or suppose that electrons are the particle involved in the P-F effect. Why would only one of these be called 'cold fusion' and not the other? The name is "no longer in use," quite clearly, for political reasons. Because muon-catalyzed fusion is of a nature such as to make it, almost certainly, not utilizable for commercial power generation, it was easily set aside and treated differently. By the way, it is also quite possible that deuterium fusion through palladium loading is likewise not usable, though the jury is out on that and remain out. If it works, there is no intrinsic reason why it couldn't be used. The Arata approach has already been used to generate power, sustained, at low levels, in a demonstration, running a Stirling engine. (This is not a claim that there was net energy payback; though my seat-of-the-pants judgment of the overall energy balance of the experiment is that there has been.) 7 g. of palladium catalyst, deuterium gas loaded into it to saturation at high pressure, there is heating there initially due to friction and other effects. (Palladium gets the hots for hydrogen, I think.) (I'm not sure I've understood this.) Overall calorimetry wasn't done; what was done was to study energy flow, i.e., the experimental cell, a pressure vessel, was contained within another vessel, an isolation cell. See the charts in Arata's recent work, showing temperature differential between ambient, the isolation cell, and the experimental cell. Steady generation of heat, very clearly, some residual effect that doesn't decline with time. (Some of the initial heating is considered to be fusion by Arata, at a higher rate. Other work, such as that of Iwamura, considered flow of deuterium through the lattice to be important; Arata is reporting a phenomenon at lower levels that sustains. This is a low-level "heat after death" phenomenon. How much of Arata has been confirmed, and to what extent is Arata confirming earlier work?

Why the extended discussion? Well, cold fusion caused the flap it did and generated the response it did because of the energy generation potential, which certainly isn't commercially realized yet. I haven't been able to figure out of Blacklight Power is a genuine research project, commercial project, or sophisticated con. (And, again, I think there is RS on them.)

One of the major arguments against cold fusion, commonly advanced, is, well, if it's real, how come there have been no commercial applications? However, Fleischmann claims to have believed that, early on, commercial applications would take a Manhattan-scale research project, which didn't happen. The experiment looked simple, when it was poorly understood, i.e., before it was understood how sensitive it is to exact conditions. Many different conditions are now known under which such reactions are reported; part of what that large-scale project would be doing is studying how to optimize the effect. Obviously, as something that only happens occasionally, with the theory being little-understood, it's not terribly useful. What's interesting about the Arata work is that it seems to be capable of operating continuously. He calls the cells "reactors." If the work is valid, a few degrees of steady heating from 7g of palladium that is not consumed to any significant degree, the deuterium is consumed but still at a tiny rate (generating helium), could be scaled up. How efficient it would be, though, would depend on the behavior at higher temperatures. My guess, though: it will work. --Abd (talk) 05:35, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

This is all your own opinion. Please provide sources showing common usage of "cold fusion" to describe something other than the phenomena described by Pons and Fleischmann and the stuff spawning from it. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:33, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Enric, you totally miss the point. Sure, "Cold fusion" in popular usage ("common usage")," refers to the P-F work and efforts to duplicate it or otherwise understand it. However, one research investigation leads to more. "Cold fusion" refers to alleged deuterium fusion. There are now other reports indicating fusion and fission reactions, catalyzed in the condensed matter state. Iwamura is only one source. It's difficult to classify Iwamura's work under "cold fusion," but it certainly is low-energy nuclear reactions, condensed matter nuclear reactions. Iwamura's work isn't covered by the popular term. But, sure, it arose out of investigations inspired by Fleischmann's work. Further, there is a whole story to be told, available in reliable secondary source, about the reaction to Fleischmann's work, the allegations back and forth, the social story, which is largely absent from Wikipedia at the moment, perhaps because the antifringe crowd tried desperately to confine this article to "science."

Is Cold fusion a science article? If so, why does it bear the name of a popular conception? What did the 2004 DOE report call the field? Here, we have what we have considered a reliable source, but we use a different name. Why?

Hint: They called it Low Energy Nuclear Reactions.

Further, there is a lot of work on the Fleischmann-Pons effect. Excess heat. The papers don't mention fusion. Are they about cold fusion? On what basis would you claim that they are? You are aware, I presume, that in 2004 half the DOE reviewers considered evidence for the F-P effect to be "compelling." The other half held out, pointing out possible defects in experimental design. My opinion is that we should have an article on the F-P effect, which would cover that specific field, and research and analysis and review of it. A science article. Cold fusion would then summarize that article as a section with reference to the main article on that narrower topic. Etc. One of the reasons we have had and are having such difficulty is that we have been stuffing multiple topics into a single article. Sure, they are related. But some of the topics are apples and oranges. Science history is a different topic than science itself, it includes discussion of the people involved, what they did, how they responded, what was in the popular media, and so forth. --Abd (talk) 01:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

We organize articles by topic, as determined by how reliable sources subdivide human knowledge. Muon-catalyzation has been checked and rejected as a possible explanation; basically, they are not stable and it would require a huge influx of cosmic rays cascading down to generate enough natural muons to have an effect. Blacklight Power is less a "genuine research project" and more a ... well, the sources are cited in the article. They might be worth mentioning as part of the modern movement, but I am not sure without checking exactly how tangential their relationship is. Also, essentially no one else thinks hydrinos exist. Aaaand I will just sign off with a plea for nice solid secondary sources before we start reporting anything other than "some proponents proclaim". - Eldereft (cont.) 16:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Eldereft, perhaps you misunderstood my proposal. I wasn't proposing discussing muon-catalysed fusion as a possible explanation for the Fleischmann-Pons effect. My proposal is to make a section of this article which is a summary of the muon-catalysed fusion article, per WP:SUMMARY. Yes, we organize by topic: muon-catalysed fusion is a form of cold fusion, or at least is a form of low-energy nuclear reaction, and note that low-energy nuclear reaction redirects to this page. Close's book considers it a form of cold fusion. We also organize articles per due weight; if books about cold fusion generally give a certain amount of space to muon-catalysed fusion, then we need to give it similar weight. I'd appreciate it if people who have access to other books on cold fusion would state whether they mention muon-catalysed fusion and how much space they devote to it. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:36, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Cold fusion theory, possible electron-catalyzed fusion

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0901/0901.2411.pdf Papers on arxiv may sometimes be used, depends. See Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#arXiv_preprints_and_conference_abstracts

Sinha, K.P. and A. Meulenberg, A model for enhanced fusion reaction in a solid matrix of metal deuterides.

Our study shows that the cross-section for fusion improves considerably if d-d pairs are located in linear (one-dimensional) chainlets or line defects. Such non-equilibrium defects can exist only in a solid matrix. Further, solids harbor lattice vibrational modes (quanta, phonons) whose longitudinal-optical modes interact strongly with electrons and ions. One such interaction, resulting in potential inversion, causes localization of electron pairs on deuterons. Thus, we have attraction of D+ D- pairs and strong screening of the nuclear repulsion due to these local electron pairs (local charged bosons: acronym, lochons). This attraction and strong coupling permits low-energy deuterons to approach close enough to alter the standard equations used to define nuclear-interaction cross-sections. These altered equations not only predict that low-energy-nuclear reactions (LENR) of D+ D- (and H+ H-) pairs are possible, they predict that they are probable.

I'm putting this here because there has been some discussion of the idea that electrons may be functioning similarly to how muons function in muon-catalyzed fusion. This is a recent paper, presented at ICCF-14, the International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, Washington, DC, 2008, uploaded to arXiv, January, 2009.

The authors claim to predict observed fusion rates and phenomena from this theory, using standard physics models.:

It is a goal of this paper to provide an understandable, standard-physics basis (under special conditions) for the extensive body of results presently available from LENR.1

It will be interesting to watch for whether or not there is any response to this from those who know those "standard physics models" and can judge if the models are accurately applied to the peculiar environment of highly loaded palladium or the like. I'm not holding my breath, but sooner or later this kind of response will be needed from those outside the narrow field. I'll say, though, that theory starts looking good when it can predict the numbers. It can then become falsifiable.--Abd (talk) 16:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

See also: http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0603213 and http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.0595v1.

I wonder about this explanation being good enough for the typical results (lots of heat instead of gammas or neutrons). Perhaps later. For now, just having a reasonably good theoretical way to overcome the Coulomb barrier might cause a few of the detractors to think that maybe CF isn't quite so impossible or miraculous, after all. Of course, maybe the detractors can point out a flaw or two in it, instead (just the fusion-initiation part, please! --since that is all this hypothesis is about).... V (talk) 17:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

• BBC coverage: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7959183.stm - as usual it notes that this is a pariah field and quotes a reputable scientist saying why most people won't go near it with a bargepole. I see that we seem once again to be trying to "fix" the real world by changing Wikipedia, and the real world remains determinedly sceptical (note the quote: "The American Chemical Society has organised sessions surrounding the research at its meetings before, suggesting that the field would otherwise have no suitable forum for debate."). No surprises there, then. Guy (Help!) 19:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to interject a point I made elsewhere, about the Chemists' Club tending to look out for their own, even as the Physicists' Club turns its collective nose up. I just want to see what happens when the physicists stop ignoring the DATA that the chemists are gathering.... V (talk) 14:09, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the citation, Guy. The article is a really good example of what goes on. I'm going to start a section on it, to look at it. You are right, no surprises, much of it is the same thing that has been said for twenty years, and it continues to be said even though anyone who actually reads the research in peer-reviewed journals, and the 2004 DOE report, wouldn't say it. Who is "trying to fix the real world by changing Wikipedia?" Got anyone in mind? You said "we." Does this mean you were talking about yourself? --Abd (talk) 20:02, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

"anyone who actually reads the research in peer-reviewed journals, and the 2004 DOE report, wouldn't say it." I have read the research in peer-reviewed journals, and I still think the field is pathological science. Olorinish (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Right. But you don't tell us why, you simply assert your own opinion as if it were authoritative. We will be, I predict, looking at each relevant detail. See, what happens, is that people reject an idea based on an overall impression, but don't really attend to the details. This is how incorrect ideas get entrenched, they never get examined in detail. When one does that, what might have been firmly held opinions sometimes fall apart, and people change their positions. Without that careful process, people simply oppose each other based on their general impressions, and consensus can't be found. Take it apart, and consensus can end up with something quite different that what was expected. Take a look at the process of deciding to add the link to lenr-canr.org to Martin Fleischmann. It was impossible until the issues were deconstructed and examined in detail. Yet it seems to be stable there now. Coming soon to an article near you.

By the way, your judgment of Cold fusion as pathological science isn't supported by any recent reliable source, nor, in fact, by any substantial review by a panel such as one of the DOE review panels, aside from what are clearly just quotations of other sources or repetitions of their conclusions without any new examination. The DOE results are quite inconsistent with a judgment of "pathological science." --Abd (talk) 20:25, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's some News Just In: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-roomtemperature-fusion-in-from-the-cold.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news --The funny part is the editor of the New Energy Times being skeptical. V (talk) 19:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

So they've taken last year's e-paper to a conference to get it published? Nothing to see here, move along please.LeadSongDog (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

LSD, you seem to be missing the point; the news is that the mainstream is starting to pay a little more attention than previously, not the data that is getting looked at. V (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. And by "mainstream" did Abd mean the BBC or New Scientist?LeadSongDog (talk) 21:38, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

No, you don't see. Science is neither top-down-only nor bottom-up-only, in terms of how people become informed. It is both. Middle-level publishers like New Scientist or the BBC will get their data from both places. People at the top may ignore the bottom, but they won't necessarily completely ignore the middle. So, because of the extent that the data is now getting spread widely by the middle, SOME of the people at the top might notice and become interested enough to investigate more closely (say by reading a SpringerLink article that they might not otherwise have known about), whereas before they could dismiss everything (and thus be ignorant of developments) because they considered all the publishers of the data to be "bottom-level" and ignorable. This is sort-of what Abd talked about elsewhere on this page about the dike springing a leak, or something to that effect. V (talk) 22:13, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

LSD, what are you talking about? The paper this section was started about was presented at a conference, yes, but also uploaded to arXiv, which does have standards. The arXiv acceptance is a notch above conference publication. However, this has nothing to do with the New Scientist article that V pointed to. As to skepticism, there is lots of skeptical criticism in the LENR community. I've been looking into the Arata work, and the most pointed commentary is coming from our old friend, Jed Rothwell. The basic work is probably accurate (i.e, there is indeed heat generation), Rothwell points out prior work and confirmation, but the research is frustratingly short on detail, such as calibration, which should be fairly easy with the setup they have (what steady heat dissipation in the cell does it take to maintain that temperature differential), or other important details are missing. Rothwell reads Japanese, too. --Abd (talk) 22:32, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The point about Krivit being "skeptical," above, may have been missed by the author of the New Scientist piece. Krivit is really just being careful. The experimental results are a very strong indicator of a nuclear process. To pin this down as "fusion," at this point, remains unconfirmed, though if, as it looks, we are taking deuterium and getting helium out, it sure looks like fusion. The neutrons are actually occurring at quite low levels (though above background, for sure; the neutrons are spatially correlated with the cathode, and they don't get them with hydrogen in place of deuterium). There are quite a number of different hypotheses asserted for what might be going on, and some don't involve "simple" fusion reactions. But if deuterium is going in one side of the black box, and helium is coming out the other, there has been fusion, in the end. Krivit's real point is to look at the experimental evidence and don't focus on the theory that might explain them. The first thing to do is to consider the experiment. If this were not work that has already been largely confirmed, it would be one thing. What's new here is the neutrons.

The New Scientist piece, though, is head and shoulders above the rest of the media response to the ACS National Meeting. The writer seems to have actually done some research and interviewing, more than, say, calling up one skeptical physicist. He mentions controls. --Abd (talk) 02:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The whole abbreviation of LeadSongDog is messing me up. The image of someone talking to LSD is rather comical. Kevin Baas^talk 15:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

BBC News article on ACS cold fusion session.

[49]

Cold fusion, first announced 20 years ago on Monday, was claimed to be a boundless source of clean energy by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.

Fleischmann and Pons announced a set of experimental results, on a topic that many considered could possibly imply a revolution in energy generation. However, Fleischmann himself was working on basic theoretical issues having to do with the relationship between quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, and research into the possibility of deuterium fusion in a palladium lattice was really just an example that took over. What F and P actually claimed was generation of anomalous heat and detection of neutrons. If I've got it right, the hype was generated by the media. I just noticed that we don't seem to have any citation of the original articles on the announcement, an oversight, I'm sure.

Look at [50], the report May 3, 1989, about the famous disparagement of Fleischmann's work at the American Physical Society meeting. Fleischmann and Pons are described as having claimed "nuclear fusion in a jar of water at room temperature." That was, itself, misleading. "Jar of water?" No, in a palladium lattice loaded with deuterium gas at very high effective pressure, roughly as high as the deuterium would be if it were a solid (which doesn't happen except at very high pressures or very low temperatures). But presenting it as a "jar of water" makes it sound kooky, and this was quite typical as the rejection mounted. This article does mention "Hopes that a new kind of nuclear fusion might give the world an unlimited source of cheap energy." However, that's not attributed to anyone.

Attempts to replicate their experiments failed, but a number of researchers insist that cold fusion is possible.

An example of how to mislead with truth: just tell part of it, implying what is false. Sure, "attempts failed." Many attempts failed, some reported, some not, I'm sure. However, when one is dealing with an effect that, it ought to have been recognized from the beginning, must be rare and unusual, requiring special conditions, or else it would have been discovered before, it might not be just a matter of that jar of water. It might not even be a matter of doing electrolysis using a palladium cathode in heavy water. And, indeed, it wasn't. Elsewhere on this page I point to the Bayesian analysis of a set of failed and successful attempts to replicate the anomalous heat effect, presented in 2008 at ICCF14. The failed experiments did not follow Fleischmann's protocol, which hadn't been published yet, and, even later, attempts to reproduce often varied the experimental conditions in ways that turn out to have a predictable effect: no heat. The paper is worth reading. I've seen a list of successful reproductions of the anomalous heat effect, published in peer-reviewed journals. 153 papers. Many more presented at conferences. So, yes, attempts failed, but, once it was understood how to do it, most efforts succeeded, the replication rate has become high.

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CravensDtheenablin.pdf

Look at Table 2 on p. 4. Bayesian criteria were developed to test protocol compliance. I won't deal with the details of this kind of analysis, but it's cogent (and there is also a potential problem, though it looks to me like it doesn't apply here).

And, yes, a number of researchers insist that it's possible. Is it just "a number of researchers," and are they basing that on theory, after all, according to the implication of the first phrase, they haven't actually replicated the experiment? So what the article presents is a picture of isolated theorists hanging on to a failed experiment that nobody could reproduce. Way to go, BBC.

But then they do a little better:

The American Chemical Society has organised sessions surrounding the research at its meetings before, suggesting that the field would otherwise have no suitable forum for debate. In a bid to avoid the negative connotations of a largely discredited approach, research in the field now appears under the umbrella of "low-energy nuclear reactions", or LENR. Gopal Coimbatore, ACS program chair for an LENR session at the 2007 national meeting, said that "with the world facing an energy crisis, it is worth exploring all possibilities". Who suggested? Who taught the reporter how to write? Lost performative, a debate trick, in fact. It's a way to make a suggestion while not taking responsibility for it.

Question: Does Gopal Coimbatore think that cold fusion is a possibility? The statement implies it.

As to "avoid," this is about motivation. Okay, who is motivated? The fact is that there is no settled explanation of the excess heat. Maybe it isn't fusion, maybe it's something else, but this is what we know from the 2004 DOE review: The reviewers were evenly split on the question of excess heat, half of them finding evidence for it "compelling." Okay, 18 reviewers, so, roughly, 9 found evidence for excess heat compelling, 9 were not convinced. Then they state that "Two-thirds of the reviewers commenting on Charge Element 1 did not feel the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reactions, one found the evidence convincing, and the remainder indicated they were somewhat convinced." I really should do a summary of the actual reviews, which are available on newenergytimes.com, but if we have six reviewers at least "somewhat convinced" that LENR is real, and if we assume that the more dedicated skeptics also don't accept the excess heat, we'd have two-thirds of those who accept excess heat being somewhat convinced, at least, that the origin is nuclear.

And they seem to have universally agreed that further research was called for, and claims here that this was just bureaucratic boilerplate are not supported by looking at the actual reviews. It was an active recommendation by the reviewers.

There were early critiques of the Pons-Fleischmann experiment, and it's accepted, I think, that they were wrong about the neutrons (though neutrons are reported using other techniques in later experiments; I think at lower levels). However, the critiques that were most broadly accepted and considered convincing about experimental failure, turned out to be flawed themselves, and the Fleischmann report of excess heat hasn't been, according to a number of neutral sources, successfully impeached. But those who, for understandable theoretical reasons, strongly against the very idea of LENR, are quite likely to look at excess heat with a jaundiced eye. I really should do that review of the reviewer reports. There is nothing wrong with skepticism, and nothing wrong with pointing out possible sources of experimental error. But there is something wrong with widespread assumptions that, because someone has pointed out a possible error, an experiment has therefore been impeached. Some of the early replications, by the way, were also in error.

Frank Close, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oxford, says that the far greater problem with cold fusion claims is that results from any given study have never been independently verified - a problem that plagued that first announcement.

Again, it's highly misleading. This is appeal to authority, and what's the authority? A professor of theoretical physics, a field which Fleischmann was directly challenging with his research program, I imagine the reporter called him up, having no clue about the issues. Was it about turf, chemistry vs. physics? No, it was actually about physics: quantum mechanics, an approximation, vs. the more accurate model, quantum electrodynamics. QM is much simpler to apply; Fleischmann theorized that in condensed matter, it is sometimes necessary to use the more sophisticated -- and mathematically difficult -- quantum electrodynamics. He was looking for examples of situations where QM would be inadequate to explain what is observed by experiment. He didn't expect, he reported later, to find fusion, he thought it was a long shot. Specifically, he thought that fusion would occur, but the reaction rate would be too low to detect. Still, any finding of fusion would be of high interest. He was not trying to fix the energy crisis. He would have been quite happy with a barely detectable rate, not usable for energy generation, like the cold muon-catalyzed fusion that is known to work. He got more than he expected.

There are lots of unverified studies, which is partly a consequence of the funding problem and the general rejection problem. However, there are also verifications. For example, deuterium loading into palladium black has been verified to generate the effects. The SPAWAR codeposition work has been verified. How much of this verification has been published in peer-reviewed journals? Some of it. In a sense, any work with condensed matter showing low-energy nuclear reactions is a kind of verification, though, obviously, specific experiment verifications are quite desirable. The BBC did a terrible job with this article, basically the reporter should have known that the field was controversial, and taken care to check out the nature of the controversy, avoiding reporting only one side of it. We can do better, can't we? Using reliable sources and reviews, with balance.

Close's dismissive comments were more extensively reported. Why Close? Okay, pick a random "theoretical physicist." Remember, there is no accepted theory to explain cold fusion. What's this random physicist going to think? Likely, he knows little or nothing about the field beyond what was widely reported in 1989, and his entire training for his entire career has implied that it's impossible, though theory doesn't actually show cold fusion as being impossible -- and we know of an example of it that is accepted. The people to ask would be scientists who have actually studied the field, and there are plenty of them. In China, papers on cold fusion are being published in peer-reviewed journals by experts on hot fusion. The barriers apparently aren't as strong there.

It's a good example of pathological science, all right, it's actually a very, very old problem, where theory trumps experiment. It's quite a story to be told, we have reliable sources on it, and we should be telling it, now that there is some hope that the "fringe wars" are over. Let's get to work! --Abd (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

But there is a theory, called quantum mechanics, that has proven itself that rules out cold fusion under the standard circumstances (i.e. deuterium in palladium). Despite the fact that we cannot exactly "solve" a many body problem in quantum mechanics, we can still make estimates and see if there is room for an enhanced fusion rate. Even at this very qualitative level of looking at the problem, one can easily see that it cannot happen.

You have mentioned Mossbauer effect earlier, but this is actually somehing that is easily explained theoretically. It is closely related to the so-called Debye Waller factor see e.g. here that gives the probability of recoilless scattering. In fact Debye and Waller had already more or less arrived this result before quantum mechanics was properly formulated in the 1920s.

Superconductivity is another triumph of theoretical physics that involves subtle effects in a many body system. Now, high temperature superconductivity has not been explained yet, but theoretically it is not a problem to imagine at the qualitative level how you can have supercoductivity at liquid nitrogen temperatures. Indeed, there are models which are not very inaccurate which predict superconductivity at temperatures of 1000 K. Of course these models are not good models to describe superconductivity, but a priori such models do not make outrageous assumptions.

The problem with cold fusion is that you cannot get there, even when making mildly unrealistic assumptions. Count Iblis (talk) 21:55, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Count Iblis, are you sure about that last statement? http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0901/0901.2411.pdf V (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Count Iblis, did you read the paper cited in the section above, Talk:Cold_fusion#Cold_fusion_theory.2C_possible_electron-catalyzed_fusion? Have you read Fleischmann's papers on what he was looking for? Hint: it was not cold fusion, as such, that was just a possible example. He was, he's reported numerous times, pursuing the difference between quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics or quantum field theory. Quantum mechanics has indeed proved itself as an approximation. If you have the scientific muscle to examine the theory paper critically, by all means, do so. Now, as to the claim of "cannot get there," this certainly is commonly said, and it is obviously false. You can get there with muons. What other situations are possible? How would you know?

And one more point. The first and most basic issue with cold fusion is whether or not reports of excess heat are correct. Is there excess heat? Then we can look at reports of radiation, say, or other nuclear ash. Then we can look at reports that correlate the two. Is it fusion? How would we know? Maybe it's something else, and that's the point that Krivit is making as described by V in the section above.

Media notice.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/090323-cold-fusion.html

discussed above some:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7959183.stm

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-roomtemperature-fusion-in-from-the-cold.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

In fact, google search: [51]

Pretty hot for something cold, eh? --Abd (talk) 23:05, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Navy scientist announces possible cold fusion reactions But evidence also could indicate another type of nuclear reaction, she cautions Houston Chronicle --Abd (talk) 23:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Cold Fusion' Rebirth? New Evidence For Existence Of Controversial Energy Source

ScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2009) — Researchers are reporting compelling new scientific evidence for the existence of low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR), the process once called "cold fusion" that may promise a new source of energy. One group of scientists, for instance, describes what it terms the first clear visual evidence that LENR devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists view as tell-tale signs that nuclear reactions are occurring. [52]

Ahem. For some time now, I've been pointing to the neutrons found by the SPAWAR group as remarkable evidence, but I haven't attempted to put it in the article because of a lack of secondary sources. Today it rained, and it poured. I do remember that science isn't run by newspapers, but .... Wikipedia sometimes is. We have reliable source here for a whole series of facts and claims that would have been difficult to put in before now, given the contentious environment and the marginal notability. Don't worry, I'm not going to rush. --Abd (talk) 23:14, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Abd, please get a grip and leave the gushing at the door. It just shows your tendentiousness, especially when combined with your inappropriate and undeniable meatpuppetry for the banned JedRothwell and his website. And yes, please escalate that, I can provide dozens of diffs proving my claims and getting you banned from this topic. Posts about the sources and improving the article are great, though. Edit summaries like lost cause? My sympathies, terms like ahem, today it rained, and it poured, don't worry just show that you have a strange delusion that this thing is a battle, which it isn't and never was for most of the editors here, except against tendentiousness and putting in more than what the sources, WP:REDFLAG and WP:FRINGE allows. Leave it at the door and we'll all get along better, and you'll get more support for your POV.

As for the sources, with the new reporting in secondary sources today, the neutron stuff has definitely reached the threshold for inclusion in the article. A short and very carefully qualified mention in the lead is justfied (IMO), and more detail at "further developments". I'm not sure how we could expand "experimental results" though, it already covers all the claims in a good summary form. And the claims are numerous, including many contradictory ones.

BTW, the BBC article says: One wholly new approach will be explained by researchers from Hokkaido University, who have seen unexplained heat production in a chamber filled with compressed hydrogen and a chemical called phenanthrene.. Worth keeping an eye on for more information out of this conference. Phil153 (talk) 23:52, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

My, my, Phil. How can I assist you? "Today it rained, and it poured" demonstrates "battle"? "My sympathies" demonstrates "battle"? "Lost cause" might possibly represent some idea that someone has a cause in mind, so should I be more specific? No battle here? ArbComm apparently thought otherwise, WP:BATTLE has been explicitly cited. There is a struggle here, indeed. A struggle to establish consensus. It can take a lot of work. Are you in favor of that, Phil? If so, welcome, roll up your sleeves, we have a lot of work to do. If not, well, then I ask again, how can I assist you? --Abd (talk) 03:23, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

There is consensus for the current version of the article. You've been a one man band (aided by the occassional SPA) working against that consensus, and for the inclusion and unblacklisting of lenr-canr. The only battle here was brought by Pcarbonn, who was banned by Arbcom, and then restarted by you to include sources against WP:FRINGE, WP:REDFLAG and two Arbcom determinations that Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia that should provide articles in line with mainstream thought. Also, people aren't that stupid, Abd. Honesty in both spirit and letter is the best policy because no one is ever as smart as they want to believe they are.

Anyway, it's been said and I apologize for the interruption. Phil153 (talk) 04:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no consensus for the current version. What has happened is that there has been edit warring to maintain a version, or at least stonewalling. I don't edit war, so it can look like there is consensus when there is not, and many other editors have thrown up their hands in despair. Having said that, I've been thinking of suggesting that some of the POV tags come out. As to one-man-band, sure. A band that only plays in Talk. (But it isn't just one man, in fact, I follow WP:DR, which requires expanding discussion as needed, I just don't rush into it. Who requested whitelisting of the lenr-canr.org link? Hint: it was not me.) As to lenr-canr.org, that may all become moot. The web site is notable, as is New Energy Times. There will be articles on them, coming soon to a project near you. I'm very aware of the ArbComm rulings, and they are far friendlier to so-called fringe science than the group of editors sitting on this article have been. I work slowly and carefully, Phil, with plenty of discussion. Some thing too much, but then, they, themselves "discuss" by asserting edits or reversions with inadequate basis. I let them play for a while, I'm an eventualist. What sources have I placed in the article that violate the guidelines? The first things I did here was to insert material from the 2004 DOE report. Does that violated the guidelines?

I can't say if I'm smarter or less smart than I think I am, but I'm smarter than you think I am. Because I've known I was above the 99th percentile since I was in high school, I've never had a problem with needing to believe I was smart. I'm smart. Get over it. That doesn't give me superior rights as an editor. Indeed, honesty is the best policy, but some people don't appreciate honesty in others, and they imagine that they are honest and others aren't. You wouldn't be one of those, would you, Phil? --Abd (talk) 19:08, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The comment about intelligence wasn't about how smart anyone is, and it wasn't directed at your intelligence. It was about game theory and the limits of perceptiveness. I have no idea how smart you are or how much intellectual wisdom you have, and it's not relevant to anything. I think many people who edit this page and other science articles are probably 99th percentile in math/science intelligence, so it has no relevance to the cogency of viewpoints. Phil153 (talk) 02:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Cold fusion experimentally confirmed

EE Times

Interesting thing about these reports: they are typical of media reports, even the ones in the science-related media: they show a shallow knowledge of the very research they are describing. We have been discussing the neutron findings here for months; the SPAWAR group has found plentiful ionizing radiation, probably alpha particles; the neutrons were found almost by accident, on the back side of the CR-39 chips, where arguments about dendrites causing damage to the plastic don't apply. The media reports don't show any awareness of the work, duplication of the work, criticisms of the work, etc.

Other scientists were unable to duplicate the 1989 results, thereby discrediting the work. I just don't know how they manage to keep repeating that. Apparently, if a hasty review in 1989, ignoring reproductions that did already exist, concludes that the work could not be reproduced, way over a hundred papers in peer-reviewed publications, plus many more presented to conferences, don't exist. It's truly weird. The media should ask someone who actually knows about the subject to proof their work! (They don't normally do that, it's supposed to hamper neutrality, which, I suppose, it might.) Anyway, these reports aren't valuable for the science, they are valuable for the context, the notability of the SPAWAR research and other efforts that are being reported.)

Cold fusion - back with a bang?

20 years on, prefers to be called Low Energy Nuclear Reaction

techradar.com

Three separate groups of researchers - including one group from the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Centre (SPAWAR) - are reporting "compelling" new evidence for the existence of cold fusion.

Gee, I thought so too, when they reported this stuff quite a while ago. However, there isn't a lot of confirmation yet, only some aspects have been confirmed. That is, the work is striking, and, if confirmed, compelling indeed. Some aspects of this, are really confirming prior work. Radiation and other nuclear products have been found before. I think the Italians did a lot of work in a cave, underground, to get away from cosmic ray background, detecting neutrons. The articles don't mention that neutrons are probably only an occasional product, that most of the reactions taking place apparently don't generate neutrons, but rather alpha particles and maybe heat through coupling to the lattice. And it is not over until those outside the relatively narrow body of researchers in the field -- even though there are apparently hundreds of them -- start smelling the coffee and manage to confirm. The experimental details are very important. What is really happening here, to confirm what V wrote above, is that the media is noticing: hey, wait a minute, the consensus has been for years that this field was dead, pathological science, as far as we've been told. And here comes these Navy researchers (you know, that much of fringe fanatics) with credible research results, getting increasingly difficult to just pooh-pooh. Something broke through the barriers. Now comes the real work. Mosier-Boss and others did it right. They published in a peer-reviewed journal, they didn't announce at a press conference, they didn't insist on theoretical explanations, they just said, hey, this is what we found. And what they found, if confirmed, is a smoking gun. Same is true for some of the other work, in fact, it was really only a matter of time until the veil of rejection was pierced. It's still not over, the curtain could possibly descend again if Mosier-Boss et al screwed up in some way. But they have been a very careful research group, steadily building a publication history, one step at a time. It is claimed that their approach is easily verified. So ... is it? Kowalski, pretty much an amateur, verified the heat (even though he criticized some conclusions about the "radiation") --Abd (talk) 03:53, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The plot thickens. Now we know where the media is getting this news. Press release. I shoulda known! American Chemical Society press release

Many of the news articles are practically verbatim from this. Who is Michael Bernstein? --Abd (talk) 03:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Michael Bernstein is the contact for all the ACS releases seen at [53]. Apparently he is with the ACS Office of Public Affairs.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/acslive has clips possibly live, I'm listening now. --Abd (talk) 04:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a mess trying to figure out what's going on, because the mainstream just doesn't take this stuff seriously and so replications or disproofs by credible researchers are lacking. I agree the reporting isn't great. I think the article should have something along the lines of "In March 2009, early press reports noted that some researchers have claimed reliable detection of neutrons in a cold fusion cell, possibly indicating a nuclear reaction." (we should discuss this IMO)

It's interesting to note that some news sources have posted fresh articles on cold fusion in the last day that aren't about the new research. They might be useful for sources See:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/03/dayintech_0323

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/23/energy-research-science

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=five-big-alt-energy-letdowns-ideas-2009-03-18

Phil153 (talk) 04:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional sources. "Early press reports" is really bizarre, actually, the report that caused the big splash yesterday wasn't new, we'd been discussing it here, it was published last year. But, yes, the press reports are early, and still fairly heavy with misinformation, but, Phil, the weight of that misinformation remains on the rejection side. Further, context to understand the Mosier-Boss results is frequently missing. Neutrons were expected, in large numbers, but were not found except at (controversial) low levels, hence the missing dead-graduate-student effect. Mosier-Boss reported finding neutrons, with pretty strong evidence, using a very different detection technique, CR-39, which integrates exposure. The neutrons come in bursts (I think that's also been reported before) which means that high instantaneous levels average out to very low levels. The reports imply that she simply found neutrons, without discussing the levels. Basically, the predominant reaction, estimated based on excess heat, doesn't produce neutrons, that's very, very clear and not controversial. Theory would predict gamma radiation, then, but that also is not found except at low levels. However, if there is little neutron and very low gamma, what's happening? What, again, the media isn't reporting is that Mosier-Boss has been finding, for years, evidence of fairly strong alpha radiation. That's helium nuclei at high energy. Further, the reports are many that helium is found in the cells after heat has been generated, and not in cells that didn't generate heat. Many seem to have forgotten that the only failed experiment is one where the data wasn't collected and reported.... Helium is found in amounts correlated not only with heat detection, but in amounts to be expected from D2 + D2 = He4 based on the measured energy converted into heat.

I listened to the press conference last night. It was bizarre. Most of the questioners clearly hadn't done their homework. Some were quite familiar with what had happened in 1989, and then there was one question that took the cake: "Why are you holding this press conference? The problem in 1989 was science by press conference."

The problem in 1989 was new science announced by press conference. This is no longer new science, and the particular announcement yesterday that generated so much press was simply an ACS press release that described the papers being presented. The information being presented was already published last year, and continued a series of peer-reviewed papers from the SPAWAR group spanning 20 years, at about one paper per year. I'd say that it was about time a press conference that the press would actually notice was held! At the press meeting, the difference in reaction between chemists and physicists was discussed. It was suggested that people buy the review of cold fusion work recently published by the ACS, and it was mentioned that volume 2 is being prepared.

Now, are chemists "scientists"? Who is more qualified to report the results of experiments in chemistry.

Mosier-Boss and others were quite careful to note that this might not be fusion. There are alternative nuclear explanations. But what is very clearly being reported is this: excess heat, with massive confirmation from many hundreds of researchers, radiation, also confirmed, and helium-4 at levels commensurate with the heat generated, also confirmed by many research groups. I'll add the controls: hydrogen in place of deuterium, no heat, and no radiation, and no Helium-4. Is it fusion? Who knows? But it sure looks like it. --Abd (talk) 14:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not "bizarre", it's letting the reader know that the press reports are early and mainstream reply is lacking. It's entirely appropriate for an encyclopedia to use such terms. Have a look at other breaking news article where things are uncertain. Phil153 (talk) 02:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The Wired report is interesting. It was presented today, but the headline is March 23, 1989: Cold Fusion Gets Cold Shoulder, and it is almost entirely about the very early situation, with this tacked on at the end:

After it couldn't replicate the earlier results, the University of Utah discontinued cold-fusion research in 1991 and allowed its cold-fusion patents to lapse in 1998. Pons and Fleischmann left for for the south of France in 1992 to continue research for a Toyota subsidiary. But even Japan's government stopped funding cold-fusion research in 1997.

Nonetheless, a network of dedicated cold-fusionists still toils away in a vineyard that looks pretty barren to almost everyone else.

Nothing about yesterday's news or the recent work, beyond "network of dedicated cold-fusionists" and the barren vineyard. So why was this article put up? Beats me. It's a fascinating demonstration of bad journalism. --Abd (talk) 14:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The article was put up (like the others), because it's the 20th anniversary of the cold fusion announcement. Obviously. Phil153 (talk) 02:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Cold fusion raises its head above the parapet again

20 years after bringing ignominy and academic exile to its founding scientists, the idea of free energy at room temperature is making a comeback The Guardian

Arggh. Well, I've known since I was in high school that if I read a newspaper account on a topic where I had knowledge, it was almost always wrong about something, and quite often wrong about much. One day, I'd like to do something about that. It's possible, you know.

The headline. Who has the "idea of free energy"? That isn't being said at the conference. In fact, there is quite a bit of opinion among cold fusion researchers that it might never be commercially useful to the extent that "free energy" would be an appropriate term. Consider: with 7 g of palladium black and a little deuterium gas, less than a gram, I think, you could have a little capsule that will, if Arata's work is not mistaken and I'm reading it correctly, maintain, for a long time a temperature perhaps 4 degrees C above ambient. If it's insulated. While I think the math works out to more energy than you could get from any possible chemical reaction (because this is sustained) Palladium is running over $200 per ounce, so that represents roughly $50 worth of palladium. However, the price of palladium is low right now because of the recession in the auto industry, which is the main consumer of palladium for catalytic converters. It was running at about $900 per ounce at the peak. If usage of palladium on a mass scale develops, it will almost certainly rise to the former peak or higher. So $200 worth of palladium, forget the processing cost to palladium black. To get a small amount of heat. Sure, engineering may be able to greatly increase the efficiency and power output. That little cell would probably still work at temperatures boiling water, but a lot more palladium may be needed. Fleischmann said, long ago, that it would take a Manhattan-scale project to make this commercially viable. And who is going to make that kind of investment if the science is not established?

What is "making a comeback" is the science. It should have come back long ago, if the mainstream journals hadn't stuck their head in their quantum mechanics. This is a story waiting to be told here, there is plenty of reliable source on it, this is not just the claim of a small band of disgruntled crackpot graybeards. (And for those tempted to make some comment, my gruntle is in fine shape, thank you very much.)

The results were announced today at a meeting of the American Chemical Society to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the first enthusiastic – and ultimately doomed – claims for cold fusion at the University of Utah.

But wait a minute? The whole story is about the field still being alive. "Ultimately doomed?" Definitely discredited and ridiculed in the short term, but if we look at reliable source over the last five or ten years, not. This is a great example of institutional and public inertia; I've seen it happen elsewhere, I know of another major field of research where, a bit more than five years ago, the research and publication tide shifted and ideas that were considered "consensus" were challenged, in fact, they were basically demolished, but ... still, that consensus is repeated over and over in the media, as if nothing happened. Ironically, the best book on this subject was written by Gary Taubes, well-known for his debunking of Cold fusion in the nineties, in his recent book, Good Calories, Bad Calories.

As researchers rushed to harness cold fusion for themselves, it became clear there was more than a little problem. No one could get it to work. What had been touted as one of the greatest discoveries of the century fell to pieces. The field of cold fusion lost almost all of its funding and is now so tainted by the farce that scientists have been forced to rename it. It is now called "low-energy nuclear reactions".

Hmmmm. "Scientists" call the field LENR. Any implications for us? "No one could get it to work." What was never true. It took time to get it to work, it wasn't nearly as easy as the groups that rushed to attempt replication thought. It was still difficult after Fleischmann's publication. Over twenty years, methods were found that are reliably replicable, and Mosier-Boss is using one of these methods, but my guess is that it is still tricky, there are lots of ways to spoil the reaction. Still, replication rates, according to the Chinese paper I've cited above, are tending recently toward 100%. It may still turn out to be "one of the greatest discoveries of the century." Or it may turn out to be a scientific curiosity, like muon-catalyzed cold fusion. Or ... it seems unlikely now, to me, having spent the last two months reading up on this, but nothing should be ruled out in science. Maybe it's a really good example of how you can find something if you look for it, no matter whether it exists or not. On the other hand, the scientific method was designed to address this problem; but what happened with cold fusion is that the scientific method was set aside in favor of polemic and press conferences and ridicule and entrenched contempt for people who were simply doing basic experimental research and reporting the results.

The 1989 DOE report is widely cited as sounding the death knell for cold fusion, but that report never did dismiss it as "junk science," merely as "not conclusively demonstrated." It's hard to overstate the gap between those two framings of their findings.

The scientists passed an electric current through the solution and used a plastic detector to pick up neutrons being emitted from the beaker. At the end of the experiment, they found what they believe are three track marks caused by particles released as neutrons smashed into the detector. Mosier-Boss believes the neutrons were thrown out of fusion reactions in the device.

I can see the reactions. I've been reading comments in the newspapers, and this text, I'm sure, will attract this: "Three track marks, is that all? Background cosmic radiation will produce more than that!" But, of course, it's not three track marks, it is quite a number of "triple-track" marks, tracks found in a close pattern indicating a characteristic proton recoil reaction from the influence of a fast neutron. The text shows that the writer didn't have the foggiest. --Abd (talk) 19:41, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The Guardian writer commented there about his writing of the piece. The comment explains his lack of depth:

I only wrote a brief piece on this SPAWAR research to flag it up to people who might be interested. My view on fringe science like this is the old cliche, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and in my personal opinion, this work does not fulfill that criteria. If it had, I would have gone into far more detail...and I'm sure so would everyone else! Let me know though: should we just not cover this stuff? I firmly believe we should, as long as it's in an appropriate manner (i.e. a short online piece vs splashing it across the front pages). There seem to be some people who think we shouldn't cover it, but that to me seems a little miserable. Surely it's interesting the US are still funding research on this, and it's nice to at least be aware of their latest findings or non-findings...

Basically, it seems that this writer looked, like everyone else, at the press release, didn't do any deeper research but depended on his prior knowledge, isn't aware of the extent to which the SPAWAR research is just one more reasonably clear confirmation out of many, etc. But at least he recognizes that there is something worth writing about. Other sources have gone into more detail, and my guess is that there will be some pieces, after there is time to do some study, with greater depth. And, yes, someone wrote that they were not impressed by three tracks! Someone else pointed out that this was the triple track signature of neutron interaction. I'm just trying to figure out why excess heat correlated with He-4 production and neutrons and other radiation isn't "extraordinary evidence."? Sure it out to be confirmed to death, but converting that old "extraordinary claims" quotation into some kind of law that can be used to assume that nothing new can be learned unless it punches us in the nose is little short of bizarre. It's definitely not science. --Abd (talk) 01:35, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's an online tech-news site that is also reporting the ACS press release: http://thefutureofthings.com/headline/6742/new-cold-fusion-evidence-reignites-debate.html V (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Additions to "further developments"

I edited the latest insertion by Abd [54]. I cleaned up the following:

• Delinking of all the redlinks
• Writing for proper weight
• Added more sources instead of press releases
• Removed irrelevant information

Abd, I know you're excited and believe that cold fusion is on the verge of being vindicated (I'm not sure you're aware of previous flashes in the pan), but there's no reason to redlink all the things you think will have articles if it does become vindicated. There's also no need to insert irrelevant and poorly weighted histories. This is just a press release, this is still a fringe field, and the claims are still not accepted or even close to being accepted by the mainstream. We're an encyclopedia, not News of the World. Phil153 (talk) 02:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I also undid another edit from Abd [55]. I can only describe this edit as whitewashing. (and sorry for using this strong language, but, well, it's what I would think from any similar edit that I found in any other article) --Enric Naval (talk) 18:07, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

That's borderline, Enric. Anyway, suit yourself. Here is what I did:

Technology", in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion. At the conference, researchers with the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) reported detection of neutrons in a cold fusion cell using a CR-39 detector, a result published months earlier in the peer-reviewed journal Naturwissenschaft. The findings were described by the researchers as "very significant", but mainstream confirmation of the results is lacking.

I removed the "very significant" comment because it is the researchers talking about their own work. Significance is indeed established by the media response, but the citation given is inadequate to support that, and I would much rather see, if we are going to have text about significance, have it be sourced from independent statements. They do exist. As to "mainstream confirmation of the results is lacking," that was not supported by the source, and is apparently synthesis. (I.e., "I'm not aware of mainstream confirmation, therefore we can say there is no mainstream confirmation." However, around here, whatever confirmation of cold fusion is published, it is apparently, by definition, not mainstream. Naturewissenschaften is pretty mainstream, that they have published the SPAWAR work is a kind of "mainstream confirmation," but this is all attempt to create an alleged POV balance through synthesis. I put in what was solid from the sources, nothing more, and definitely less than was possible (my original edit to this section had much more information.)

Enric Naval then made this edit:

The findings were described by the researchers as "very significant", although it was criticized because it doesn't explain how could fusion could happen in the described conditions. Krivit pointed out that the results could be caused by some other unknown nuclear process.

Since the report isn't about cold fusion, but about the detection of neutrons, and proposed hypotheses about the cause of those neutrons are not central, and because the criticism isn't shown to be informed, the source is a wire service, which is problematic for WP:RS. The Krivit comment is true. Krivit, if you read what's available of his comments, considers the work very significant and is really only trying to distinguish between the core of the report (Neutrons!) from the speculations and hypotheses, on which one must know much more (about the context and the continued experimental work) to have a cogent opinion.

So, I edited it again, to:

The findings were described by the researchers as "very significant". Steven Krivit of New Energy Times noted that the results could be caused by some unknown nuclear process other than fusion.

As far as I'm concerned, the "very significant" fluff could be taken out. If it wasn't significant, we wouldn't allow it in the article! The "criticized" was passive and not attributed.

Then, I addressed other issues in the report with [56]:

I simplified the caption of the triple-track image.

I replaced reported detection of neutrons in a cold fusion cell using a CR-39 detector... with reported detection of neutrons in a palladium/deuterium co-deposition cell, finding characteristic triple tracks in a CR-39 detector....

This is much more informative and specific. If you look at the CR-39 article, you will see classic triple-track pitting from neutrons. What is a "cold fusion cell"? Remember, some of us don't believe there is any such thing as cold fusion. But I presume that most of us do believe that there are cells where palladium and deuterium are co-deposited onto the cathode, and this has been done since the 1990s, it is one of the simplest and most reliable methods of setting up the Fleischmann-Pons effect. The paper doesn't mention "cold fusion cell." The press release doesn't mention a "cold fusion cell." Krivit is saying that it might not be fusion. He's right: there are other low-energy nuclear reactions that have been proposed. In fact, if "cold fusion" is the cause of the heat, that is, if there is some predominant reaction that generates the heat, that reaction isn't the cause of the neutrons, at least not directly, because there are far too few neutrons to be more than some unusual byproduct. It's connected, whatever it is, but how connected I'm not sure.

I also took out reference to Naturwissenschaften as a "life sciences journal," which was clearly placed there to impeach the credibility of the journal with respect to articles on a field that crosses over chemistry and physics. But that's a gross misunderstanding of the journal, derived from some weird way that Springer classifies the journal on-line. If you look at the mission statement of the journal, which I've cited elsewhere, it's very clear that this is quite like Nature, it's a general natural sciences journal, which expressly solicits articles on crossover topics, and physics and chemistry are included.

This was reverted by Enric Naval with (Undid revision 279799778 by Abd (talk) oh good god)

Indeed. Enric then reverted again with (revert too, of course it's a criticism, read the source, he is explaining all that is wrong with the paper)

First of all, what's the source and who is being talked about? This is the text that Enric replaced: The findings were described by the researchers as "very significant", although it was criticized because it doesn't explain how could fusion could happen in the described conditions

Passive voice, unattributed criticism, please, no. Further, as Krivit points out, the paper is reporting significant experimental results, and whether it is explained or not is really beside the point. These aren't physicists, they are chemists, and chemistry is what they did, though they used one tool from nuclear physics, CR-39. They report, previously, in these cells, excess heat and copious short-range ionizing radiation. In this report, they show the presence of small numbers of energetic neutrons. So, the "criticism" is that they don't provide an "explanation." But some very bright physicists have been working on this problem for 20 years and there is no consensus on explanation. Before explanation comes experiment and data, and it's been pointed out many times in reliable source that if it's demanded that theory come first before we will look at the data, this is the "death of science," I think it's been called.

However, in fact, the paper does present mechanisms, and refers to prior theoretical work; however, this isn't central to the paper.

The "criticized" here is apparently referring to the Agence France-Presse report. In that report, we have this:

Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss's published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.

"It fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons," he told the Houston Chronicle.

"The whole point of fusion is, you're bringing things of like charge together. As we all know, like things repel, and you have to overcome that repulsion somehow."

There are two criticisms here: one is that no theoretical basis is provided. But that's obvious, in fact. This isn't a paper on theoretical physics. The criticism boils down to "This looks like cold fusion, which is impossible, because [of the Coulomb barrier]."

The other criticism would be cogent, if it were accurate. I.e., And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons. It's bogus objection. This was the source of my comment somewhere that we should extend a little assumption of competence to these people, the paper was, after all, published in a major journal with tight peer review.

Neutrons are a characteristic sign of nuclear reactions. You get them from fusion or fission. So, what sources would there be? Cosmic rays can produce fission and fusion reactions, and certain alpha emitters can cause fusion-fission reactions in a target. Is it a reasonable hypothesis that the neutrons are from cosmic radiation or from natural radioactivity in the apparatus?

The hypothesis is easy to test, actually. I think it might be about time that editors here read the paper. This was published in a peer-reviewed journal, what is there trumps what is in the media about it, as well as comments by a physicist who might just be responding to a reporter's phone call without studying the research. Had this physicist ever heard of the SPAWAR work before? The paper itself is at http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library2/2008/2008BossTripleTracks.pdf

Please look at the left-hand column of p. 136. There is extensive discussion of alternate possibilities for the radiation (which includes the ionizing radiation reported previously).

After reporting prior work from other researchers finding radiation, they describe this:

After etching, it has been observed that the density of tracks on the CR-39 detector is greatest where the cathode had been in contact with the detector (Mosier-Boss et al. 2007). This indicates that the source of the tracks is the Pd that had been plated on the cathode. The distribution of the tracks along the length of the cathode is inhomogeneous suggesting that some Pd sites are more active than others. Results of these experiments also showed that the production of charged particles occurred in bursts. Control experiments indicated that the tracks were not due to radioactive contamination of the cell components; nor were they due to impingement of D2 bubbles on the surface of the CR-39 detector; nor where they the result of chemical attack by D2, O2, or Cl2 (Mosier-Boss et al. 2007). These experiments also indicated that LiCl is not essential for the production of energetic particles and that the density of tracks significantly decreases, by at least three orders of magnitude, when H2O is substituted for D2O. Since the natural abundance of deuterium in light water is 0.015%, it is possible that the tracks observed in the light water experiments could actually be due to Pd–D interactions. Microscopic examination of the CR-39 detectors used in Pd–D electrolysis has been done in areas where the density of tracks is less. In these areas, what appear to be triple tracks are observed interspersed among the solitary tracks. The number of these triple tracks is very low—on the order of a ten or less per detector and are only observed in heavy water experiments. These triple tracks have been observed in every Pd–D co-deposition experiment that has been conducted using Ag, Au, or Pt cathodes in both the presence and absence of an external electric or magnetic field. When Ni screen is used as the cathode, tracks and triple tracks are only observed when an external electric or magnetic field is applied. Triple tracks are indicative of a reaction resulting in the formation of three particles of equal mass and energy. In this communication, the origins of these triple tracks are investigated.

This is the conclusion of the paper:

The mechanism by which DD and DT fusion reactions can occur in Pd is not yet understood; nevertheless, theories are currently under development. However, since no tracks, single or triple, were obtained when CuCl2 was used in place of PdCl2, it can be concluded that the deuterium must be inside a metal lattice for these reactions to occur and not simply adsorbed on the surface of the metal. This implies that the metal lattice facilitates these reactions indicating that nuclear phenomena can be influenced by the atomic and electronic environment.

Now, is "in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons." in any way a cogent criticism of the paper? It appears that they excluded everything they could think of. If this physicist can think of something else as a reasonable possibility, why, I'm sure he could write a communication to Naturwissenschaften. Meanwhile it should be understood that we have peer-reviewed reliable source, the paper itself. We have the press release by ACS, and we have massive press notice, and, so far, nothing seriously notable as criticism except yesterday's lunch, i.e., all the old criticisms recycled as if nothing new had been found. Take a look at the early criticisms, how important neutrons were considered. There is a very interesting comment in The Economist today:

Certainly there would appear to be something strange going on. But even if Dr Boss’s results really are evidence of high-energy neutrons, many physicists will continue to deny that cold fusion could be real. That is because there is no theoretical explanation for electrochemical cold fusion within the existing laws of physics.

So: "Physicist denies that cold fusion could be real. Dog bites man. The Pope is Catholic." Sure, this article must note the existing "consensus," which is not a scientific consensus but a social and political phenomenon. That consensus wasn't confirmed by the 2004 DOE report, it was not ever a real scientific consensus, but a kind of mass hysteria (the initial rush to confirm or refute) combined with natural skepticism. The skepticism was quite appropriate, and it remains appropriate, but at a certain point, healthy science will start to look at experimental data. From what I've been seeing, the data has actually been strong for more than a decade, indicating LENR, and the inertia and frozen assumptions from twenty years ago is quite adequate to explain the skeptical half to two-thirds of the DOE panel. We have to remember that those panels were convened, not to make scientific determinations, but funding determinations. It remains unclear whether or not there are serious energy generation possibilities from cold fusion. The conditions are extraordinarily sensitive, and the heat generated low compared to the expense of the preparation and intrinsic cost of the materials. Sure, it's possible that it could be scaled up, but ... Fleischmann wrote that commercializing cold fusion would take a Manhattan-level project, i.e., truly massive investment. I still find the 2004 DOE conclusions reasonable, but it should be noted that the "mainstream journals" haven't responded to the suggestions of the DOE, though, in reality, that's not the case with all mainstream journals, Naturewissenschaften is not a fringe journal. Nor is, in fact, Frontiers of Physics in China. Or the Japanese physics journals that Arata has been publishing in. Etc. --Abd (talk) 02:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I will be reviewing the edits made in the last day further, in line with what I've discussed here, and, of course, all comments are welcome. Except, please don't waste space with tl;dr. Just dr if it is tl. --Abd (talk) 02:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Mosier-Boss SPAWAR paper on neutrons.

Naturwissenschaften, Volume 96, Number 1 / January, 2009, Pamela A. Mosier-Boss, Stanislaw Szpak, Frank E. Gordon and Lawrence P. G. Forsley, [http://www.springerlink.com/content/022501181p3h764l/ Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd–D Co-deposition: evidence of energetic neutrons

Abstract: Since the announcement by Fleischmann and Pons that the excess enthalpy generated in the negatively polarized Pd–D-D2O system was attributable to nuclear reactions occurring inside the Pd lattice, there have been reports of other manifestations of nuclear activities in this system. In particular, there have been reports of tritium and helium-4 production; emission of energetic particles, gamma or X-rays, and neutrons; as well as the transmutation of elements. In this communication, the results of Pd–D co-deposition experiments conducted with the cathode in close contact with CR-39, a solid-state nuclear etch detector, are reported. Among the solitary tracks due to individual energetic particles, triple tracks are observed. Microscopic examination of the bottom of the triple track pit shows that the three lobes of the track are splitting apart from a center point. The presence of three α-particle tracks outgoing from a single point is diagnostic of the 12C(n,n′)3α carbon breakup reaction and suggests that DT reactions that produce ≥9.6 MeV neutrons are occurring inside the Pd lattice. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the production of energetic (≥9.6 MeV) neutrons in the Pd–D system.

review of this in New Scientist:[57]. Nice image: [58].

I think the significance of this paper has been missed in the media reports. Neutrons are not a common product of whatever is going on within the palladium lattice. He-4 production is reported by a multiple reports as being commensurate with excess heat measured. Earlier efforts to find neutrons either failed to find them, or the levels found were very low, approaching background or noise levels. Mosier-Boss's work confirms that the level is very low but it is present. What this means is that the normal or most common pathway involved in the reactions doesn't produce neutrons. I think Mosier-Boss proposes deuterium/tritium fusion for the neutrons. This is a side effect. Whatever is happening inside the lattice isn't just one simple reaction, lots of very messy stuff is happening in there, apparently. One of the researchers at the press conference yesterday described his first experience trying electrolysis with palladium foils; in the end, there were signs of mini-explosions and local melting having taken place in those foils, plus evidence of nuclear transformations. It's almost as if a new world has been opened up: one of the criticisms at the 2004 DOE conference was that there wasn't just one effect being proposed, there were many. Too much new stuff, it's confusing. Some find this result, some find that, it's very easy to suppose that it is simply all nonsense, after all, doesn't nature behave itself? --Abd (talk) 02:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

What this means is that the normal or most common pathway involved in the reactions doesn't produce neutrons.

You're assuming way too much. Surely you can see this?

The fact remains that much of the "evidence" is directly contradictory. That's one the huge black marks on the field that both you and Jed(BA in Japanese) seem not to appreciate - instead, true believers usually wave away contradiction with increasingly unlikely rationales, and everything is seen as "real" and positive. People who actually work with nuclei and know them intimately, such as nuclear physicists and chemists, understand that many of the results are laughable and certain to be wrong. Even in the unlikely event that some cold fusion mechnaism is confirmed, I think you'll find that most of the results are error.

Of all the possible outcomes that involve something real for cold fusion, by FAR the most likely is that some process is producing low levels of neutrons, and the rest is total BS. Phil153 (talk) 03:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

"much of the evidence is directly contradictory" --I'm assuming you mean self-contradictory. Please provide 3 examples. V (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Phil, I hope he doesn't mean self-contradictory, as that would be reflect poorly on his intellect. Empirical evidence cannot contradict itself, it always contradicts OTHER empirical evidence (and at that it only seems to) or none at all. Not even on the quantum physics scale can nature contradict itself. At best, it can be ambiguous. "Self-contradiction" can only happen when the thing contradicting is made out of multiple, smaller things, which individually contradict each other. For instance, a person making two different statements that are logically related but incommensurate is contradicting them-self. But evidence as such can never even truly contradict other evidence (nonetheless itself), because nature is always consistent. Only interpretations of the evidence can.

Also, where you say "contradictory", I see no contradiction, I see incompleteness. Perhaps it's the thing where one person says the tree is brown and another green, when actually it's brown on one side and green on the other. In computer programming, when you have an organizational problem, you add a level of indirection. You seem to be subtracting a level of indirection to create an organizational problem where there is none.

You say "Of all the possible outcomes that involve something real for cold fusion, by FAR the most likely...". I would say rather that right now there isn't any "most likely outcome". (And regardless we are only dealing w/the a priori probabilities.) We do not have enough information. That is, the information entropy and the KL-divergence are fairly high right now. We really don't know very much about how nuclear stuff behaves in condensed matter, a state that physically and mathematically is way different from a plasma. We also have things happening that don't fit what we expect (from nuclear plasma physics, at least). See I take a world view that takes information theory as a first principle, so to speak, in contrast to what one might call a more "cartesian" world view. And that says (among other things) that the most likely outcome is that our model will be updated somehow but until that happens -- by definition -- all outcomes (updates) are equally likely. (though "equally likely" is somewhat of a deceptive term because there is always a prior, i.e. a metric to the space of probabilities, even so-called "flat" ones.) In any case, my standpoint is "We don't know, but I would certainly like to find out." Perhaps I'm a little tougher to satisfy. In any case, I think it's a far better stance than prematurely jumping to a conclusion and vociferously decrying all others only to run the risk of being grossly mistaken in the end. Kevin Baas^talk 15:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Kevin, while evidence gathered in a single experiment cannot contradict itself, the phrase "much of the evidence", when fairly obviously referring to the whole body of work, can indeed include experiments with contradicting results --the star witness for that were all those CF failures after the 1989 announcement. However, to clairify what I meant, I would like to point out that I was specifically trying to prevent comparisons between CF data and standard theory. We already know about those contradictions, of course --and they are not relevant unless theory is supposed to trump data. So, I want to know more about which "directly contradictory" experiments Phil is talking about. V (talk) 16:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth I had originally confused yours and Phil's dialogue together (i.e. erred in attribution). (I'm not feeling well so my mental acuity is somewhat diminished.) Then in going back in correcting this error I had done so incompletely. No offense meant and I'm clear on what you meant now. Sorry. Kevin Baas^talk 16:55, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The prior SPAWAR work shows high levels of radiation. Phil153, you are making assumptions about "true believers." Nobody knows "nuclei" intimately. Period. In particular, we don't know how nuclear behavior is different in the condensed matter state as distinct from the plasma state, partly because it is extraordinarily difficult to study. Basic nuclear science was developed and studied with interactions where individual nuclei interacted, which takes high energy when they are in isolation, and the math is much simpler. We already know that when they are not in isolation, different things can happen; muon-catalyzed fusion and the Mossbauer effect are examples. Above, there is a paper giving a plausible -- to this nonspecialist -- theoretical explanation for condensed matter nuclear reactions at low temperatures. There are other hypotheses; these are being generated by physicists, Phil, and, in particular, nuclear physicists. Some process is producing low levels of neutrons. That's right. My conclusion also. What kind of process produces neutrons, Phil? Please do remember the controls. Lots of criticism of the present work is based on some strange assumption that there are no controls.

However, the hypothesis that the predominant reaction is D2 + D2 -> He4 plus energy, with the energy being expressed with high energy alpha radiation due to Mossbauer-effect-like coupling, even though it goes substantially further than the Mossbauer effect in terms of how much coupling must take place, is consistent with both the measured excess heat and measurement of He4. Prior work on neutrons showed either no neutrons or low levels, difficult to distinguish from noise, except for experiments where measurement error was either found or was a reasonable assumption. Mosier-Boss simply found a way to detect neutrons at very low levels, because the detector is integrating by nature, whereas prior efforts measured short-time-scale radiation levels.

So what we are seeing, in fact, putting it all together, is evidence of a whole class of reactions, with different pathways and different products. There is a pathway that generates neutrons. What is that? It might well not be fusion, but, Phil, it would be, practically by definition, a low energy nuclear reaction. (Though there is some possibility that local conditions create hot fusion conditions on a very small scale, similar to the claims about bubble fusion.)

But how did it happen that Mosier-Boss found neutrons? They were looking for them, Phil, because they had already found excess heat, alpha radiation, and He-4 (which is the same as alpha radiation after it has lost its energy to heat, which is what ionizing radiation does). They look at the heat and the levels of He-4 found and they match. Phil, what will happen, I predict, is that we are going to go into each detail for each issue and find community consensus on it. Be careful how tightly you stick yourself into some position. I am not predicting what the consensus will be, I will simply present what evidence we have. In such a discussion, because it's not in the article, we are not limited to what is clearly RS; however, there is plenty of RS on this topic. We will also use subpages or user pages for this, at least for preliminary work.

Now that people know how to find the neutrons, I'm going to predict that there will be efforts to correlate the neutrons found with the tritium pathways, i.e., by comparing neutron levels with levels of tritium found, which were always too low to be considered proof. But correlations of weak evidences, repeated over substantial numbers of experiments, can actually be quite powerful. Many of the objections raised against prior work on the basis of low repeatability ignored the consideration of controls.

Abd, the tritium thing isn't so easy because the T+D reaction is a significantly higher-probability reaction than the D+D reaction. So, any tritium that gets produced is likely to be almost immediately consumed, with only neutrons and He4 to indicate that that pathway happened. And the He4 is problematic because of the oddball D+D->⁴He direct reaction (the extent to which it occurs that is greater than 1-in-a-million is the extent to which it interferes with measuring ⁴He produced by D+T fusion). I'd like to see more data about high-energy protons. ³He should get produced as often as tritium, and may not be consumed quite as quickly (fusion with a deuteron means 2 protons repelling 1, instead of 1 repelling 1 when tritium fuses with a deuteron), but when it does fuse, a proton shoots out instead of a neutron. And when it doesn't fuse, ³He should accumulate to a detectable level. In fact, because I forgot about the electron-shell issue while writing the preceding, it is possible that there are very very few energetic protons; any ³He produced might immediately grab 2 electrons from the palladium conduction band and become unavailable for fusing by low-speed deuterons. That is, the electron shell of helium would prevent any loose electrons from being able to shield the nuclei, when one approaches the other. ("electron catalyzed fusion"). I think I've mentioned before that the electron shells need to be out of the way, for CF to happen.... The net result of the preceding OR is that, thanks to the 50/50 split of ³H/³He production, neutrons measured should be correlated with a measurement of ³He. V (talk) 16:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I confess to making a silly error (have had other things on mind today). When D+D->T, we also get a high-energy proton. I don't expect the T to last long enough to accumulate to significance. When D+D->³He, that is when we get a high-energy neutron. OF COURSE a neutron count could be correlated to a measurement of ³He! Duhhh... V (talk) 19:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

And now for silly error #2: confusing 4 different reactions (my mind really was mostly thinking about other stuff yesterday!) Anyway, to try to set straight the above mess, the relevant reactions are: D+D->T+p, D+D->³He+n, D+T->⁴He+n, and D+³He->⁴He+p. To the extent that the first two happen at all in the CF environment, we should be able to observe a 50/50 split of production of modest-energy protons and neutrons. We can reasonably expect the tritium (T) to be consumed as described above and for ³He to accumulate as described in my shell-in-the-way explanation below. Neutrons released from the D+T reaction are significantly higher-energy than neutrons released from the reaction that creates ³He. Anyway, if we have a 50/50 production split of T and ³He, and if all the T is consumed and yields high-energy neutrons, then there should indeed be a fairly close correlation between high-energy neutrons and ³He. Whew! V (talk) 13:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, V. We don't know, really, what is going on in there, so we don't know how to apply fusion cross-section information from other areas. He4 is known to be the predominant reaction product in these experiments, no matter how "problematic" it might be, theoretically. And that is why there are only low levels of neutrons, they are happening, almost certainly, because something else sometimes happens. Actually, V, I think you just contradicted yourself. The electrons aren't "out of the way" if it's electron-catalyzed fusion, which is indeed one hypothesis that is reasonable among others, they are very much there. In the lattice, though, they aren't attached specifically to the nuclei, they are present in a very different way, and the theory is that they may then be able to serve as matchmakers.

Not a contradiction, but apparently my assumption was incorrect regarding its understandabilty. Start with the background that if two whole atoms are involved, their nuclei can't interact easily because the electron shells repel each other and keep the nuclei too far apart (the shells are in the way). Jump forward to an opposite situation in which neither nucleus has an electron shell; one or more loose electrons could come along and shield them from each other, so they might get close enough to fuse, slightly similar to muon catalysis. Now back up to the intermediate situation where one of those nuclei has an electron shell. The shell repels other electrons. Therefore if a bare nucleus penetrates that shell, no low-energy loose electron can accompany it, to shield the two nuclei from each other. Since it is reasonable to expect that any He3 nucleus, once formed, will immediately grab 2 loose electrons from the palladium conduction band and put them into orbit (http://www.standnes.no/chemix/periodictable/electronegativity-chart.htm --H and Pd are the same, but think about the electronegativity of doubly-ionized helium!), the logical consequence is: Even if it just grabbed 1 electron, the resulting shell ("in the way"!) means that nucleus is no longer available for electron-catalyzed fusion. OK? V (talk) 18:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

There was a prior report in New Scientist on the same work as is involved in the current report, but before the information about neutrons had been published. http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/101ns_001.htm. SPAWAR has long been reporting strong ionizing, but non-penetrating, radiation from those cells, at copious levels. The present report should be read in conjunction with the prior work. Radiation detection isn't new, what is new is neutrons shown to be associated with the cathode. This research is, in a way, being presented for political effect. One of the biggest objections to cold fusion, from the beginning, has been the missing neutrons. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for it, but it involves hypothesizing new reaction pathways or mechanisms. What Mosier-Boss has done is to show that, yes, there are neutrons, so that old objection disappears; there is now evidence that there is fusion at a very low level. When neutrons were found by Georgia Tech, it was immediately big news. Unfortunately, they not only didn't actually detect neutrons, there had been an unexpected problem with the detector, and they probably also weren't getting cold fusion, either. Practically nobody knew how to find the effect then. Subsequent failures to detect neutrons were thought to have sealed the coffin. However, we now know that there were, indeed, neutrons, but at quite low levels. Some of the early results, dismissed because of the very low levels, may actually have been real, i.e., caused by neutrons from cold fusion in a minor pathway (under the conditions), but the evidence wasn't conclusive or even close. That, in turn, explains why some researchers were tantalized, seeing results they couldn't duplicate. Scaramuzzi writes about the history, how early results kept him looking, even though he later concluded that these early results were in error. But Fleischmann's excess heat wasn't an error, he'd been careful about it; only his neutron measurements were truly problematic. --Abd (talk) 17:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It's really a remarkable situation in science, I know of no analogy that actually holds. How many international conferences, with papers published by major universities, were held regarding polywater or N-rays? The effects of wishful thinking as an explanation, often given, is a hypothesis. Is it falsifiable? Taken to an extreme, no, it isn't. At a certain point, however, that hypothesis breaks down. It appears from what I'm finding in the vast literature on this topic that it was falsified by 1990 or 1991, i.e., by then it was clear that something anomalous was happening, and that LENR were a reasonable hypothesis. But by that time the mainstream wasn't following the research, it had already concluded "junk science," and mainstream scientists are busy, they don't have time to follow what they believe are junk science claims, known to be false.

Except the evidence that they were basing a judgment of "false" on wasn't scientific evidence to that effect, except considered in isolation. I.e., the published claim that Fleischmann hadn't stirred his cells and that the experimenter attempting confirmation found an appearance of excess heat, which disappeared when cells were stirred, did not at all show that Fleischmann's work was in error; rather it set up a new and reasonable -- and falsifiable -- hypothesis about the source of the heat observations. And it was shown to be false, but by that time few outside the field were listening.

I have come to the opinion that there is fusion happening. But I arrived here, early in January, neutral on that topic, or actually slightly biased against it. See, I was very familiar with Fleischmann's work in 1989, and followed what was happening as closely as I could, given that I had no access to a university library. Nevertheless, like nearly everyone else except those involved with the research and who had seen anomalies themselves, I developed a sense of "too bad, it would have been great." I was aware, over the years, that there was continuing work, and, indeed, I attributed this to be probably the die-hard phenomenon. I was totally unaware that replication efforts were succeeding with increased frequency as the researchers learned how to set up the special conditions, because it didn't get media attention, and, in fact, through this period we see the popular press repeating over and over, when it did cover the topic at all, repeating the error about lack of replication. It took Fleischmann and Pons years to get their technique to a point that the university believed that it must be announced, they were not ready to publish or announce. So along come hordes of physicists trying to quickly duplicate what had taken expert chemists years to do, and when they didn't succeed, in a very short time, we know what happened.

Yes. Pathological science. The whole story, as is available in reliable source, must be told, not just half of it. The issue of balance has been used quite inappropriately to exclude masses of material found in reliable source; in order to avoid balance issues, the classic solution is subarticles. The article on the overall topic maintains weight balance, but subtopics each have their own balance depending on the exact subtopic. For example, what methods of calorimetry are used, what are the problems associated with each, how do these apply to cold fusion research, what do we have from reliable source on this? The cold fusion article cannot possibly bear the weight of this. Hence an article was created Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments. I presume you know what happened. But, I predict, we will get that article back, or something like it. The article was userfied to User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments so that it can be seen and information from it taken back to this article. Was that a POV fork as claimed? How? The main editor was Shanahan, which was a problem, sure, because he is COI. But we could have fixed that problem. It's only a POV fork if it is not NPOV, or if it is used to preferentially exclude information needed for this article's balance; however, that is addressed with proper summary.

There were editors working on this article who had strong POVs, some of who were quite knowledgeable, and it was quite unfortunate that they have been (from both "sides,") banned, because what we need is not the exclusion of POV, but the creation of NPOV text, which we can only recognize through consensus. A claim of consensus based on stability, when, clearly, reversion is being used to keep reliably-sourced information out on the undue weight argument, is a false claim. It's not stable, it requires constant maintenance by a faction, against what may be a smaller faction here, but which then effectively trolls for POV editing from the outside world, when people with some knowledge of the topic (including researchers involved with it) recognize the imbalance of the article. That will still exist no matter what, to some degree, but when we have actually found consensus, the active editors will be united in maintaining the article against whatever would upset the consensus, and it will be much easier. --Abd (talk) 14:15, 25 March 2009 (UTC

Discussion discussion

The above discussion is so far into WP:OR and specifically WP:SYNTH that it's embarassing. Please redact.LeadSongDog come howl 22:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

OR and SYNTH on the level I engaged in, where reasonably verifiable by review of the sources, and representing proposed consensus or approach to consensus though discussion, is permitted on Talk pages if reasonably related to what can ultimately go in the article. I'm not going to redact. And there is much more there that is directly related to how we will proceed to find consensus on the article. So ... suit yourself, LSD. Turn on the coffeemaker, tune in to the community and the sources, or drop out. If you don't want to read what I write, fine, you are not obligated. When it turns into edits, you will have lost no rights, unless the community -- njot just me -- made a decision without your participation, and even then you can -- respectfully -- challenge it. Turn on the coffeemaker, tune in to the community and the sources, discuss, or drop out.--Abd (talk) 00:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Again you say this, but policy and consensus does not agree with you, Abd. You need to accept that. The very top of this talk page says, in a template that's all over Wikipedia: This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. I don't think the above could be described as anything but using this as a forum for general discussion of the subject. I'm a violator on this as well, and I don't think it's right to tell people who raise this issue and ask you to redact to basically buzz off if they don't like it. Phil153 (talk) 00:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The proof is in the pudding, Phil. Want to take it before the community? That's where consensus is found, no single one of us or small group has the right to claim to represent consensus when there is disagreement. I couldn't stop you if I wanted to. But WP:NOTAFORUM, interpreted as some interpret it, makes finding genuine consensus difficult, so, maybe it's time to confront that. Ready for it? You think something is inappropriate for a Talk page, to the point where the incivility or disruption of taking it out is outweighed by the distraction of leaving it in, you know what to do, but I can't predict my own response in advance, nor that of the community. Well, maybe I can. Depends on what you do! You think my behavior inappropriate, I presume you can read dispute resolution guidelines.--Abd (talk) 00:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not me that's complaining, since I do it too, mostly in response to your off topic adventures. I'm merely supporting the validity of LeadSongDog's (and other's) complaints. Your assertion that there is disruption or incivility by enforcing WP:NOTFORUM, when accepted policy explicitly says that such comments may be removed by anyone, is not helpful. Nor is your assertion that complainants should basically buzz off if they don't like it, or that you won't reconsider your actions short of dispute resolution. If someone told me that I was writing hundreds of kilobytes of comments insufficiently related to improving the article, I'd respect their request. Phil153 (talk) 01:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

That would be nice of you. I'm not you, and I don't think that my comments are insufficiently related. Phil, you have overlooked that WP:DR starts with direct communication, then very gradually escalates. I know what I'm doing, Phil, and the sooner you realize that possibility, the easier it will be. Removing someone's comments is almost intrinsically disruptive or uncivil, which doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. I noted the balance. My participation has almost always brought forth the kind of complaint that arose here, for many years. I've been tossed from mailing lists by moderators, but whenever there has actually been a discussion among list participants, the conclusion was that it was related and valuable. The fact that some people don't think so points, more properly, to a suggestion that they not read it. Reading Talk isn't obligatory. If I make some long, allegedly or actually rambling statement, that includes, say, a justification for an article edit, and I make the edit, you can still revert it as if I hadn't made that statement. However, if someone else (not me) then reverts you and refers to the statement and discussion, you might then have some obligation to read it before reverting again. --Abd (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

If you knew what you were doing you would have already succeeded in your campaign to get lenr-canr unblacklisted. Good faith is gold. Your above reply is basically "I'm 100% right, the 3+ people complaining and requesting are wrong/less intelligent/haven't had time to read it, end of story". Not a helpful approach to anything, let alone a collaborative editing environment. Phil153 (talk) 06:30, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this page has turned into a gushing FORUM full of OR and SYNTH. It would be much better if editors brought their ideas here in a clear and concise manor. If a sentence or citation is so complex or controversial that it need to be defended with a 5,000 byte statement...that spirals into 50,000+ byte two party dialogue concerning esoterica...that no one else wants to wade through...and everyone forgets what the original point was. Well it doesn't serve the talk page goals.--OMCV (talk) 01:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

OMCV, would you care to explain how people can decide-by-consesus what should or should not go into an article, without discussing it? Without bringing up information that supports each view (include/don't-include), regarding each item? V (talk) 13:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The WP:NOTAFORUM policy is clear that discussion on article Talk pages is to be for the purpose of improving the article. I do not discussion cold fusion here except for that purpose. When I wish to have a discussion with an individual editor, I use user Talk or email. However, when I wish to bring up a topic that I consider has bearing on the article, and wish to both inform and solicit comment from editors interested in the article, for the purpose of preparing to form or review actual edits, I do it on article Talk. There is no other place to do this, though we could create one in WP space, or create a mailing list. One approach to the problem of a burgeoning Talk page is refactoring. I've started using, in some places, collapse boxes with discussions, giving some summary of the discussion at the top or after the box, describing the discussion as it bears on the article. It's work, but it can be worthwhile. Imagine how useful our Talk archives would be if they were refactored according to topic. That's actually suggested, but it is hardly ever done. If the policy and its application is not clear, and if disagreement on this remains, my suggestion about WP:DR was not defiant, it was a real suggestion that could generate value for the project. The policy, properly, leaves broad discretion in the hands of editors working on an article. And then there is always WP:IAR, Rule Number One, which we sometimes forget, but which should always be remembered whenever someone tries to claim that a matter is definitively decided and closed because of a policy or guideline. Consensus is how we decide the scope and application of guidelines and policies, until and unless we are operating at the level of ArbComm or the WMF, which decide by vote or delegated authority.--Abd (talk) 14:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What about putting some collapse boxes in the main article (could lead to less need for subarticles)? That complete lisct of references you talk about below might also be a good candidate for a collapse box. The reader could expand anything the reader finds interesting. V (talk) 15:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Haven't seen it done, but it might be possible, or it may be deprecated. It's kind of six of one and a half-dozen of the other. Subarticles aren't a problem, as long as we have editorial consensus and we make sure that the subarticles aren't POV forks. I think we can handle that.

Off-topic quick comment: Collapsing article text to reduce the need for subarticles? Please don't, there are very good reasons not to do that, but I'm not going to argue them here, make a suggestion at WT:MOS where people familiar with this stuff can explain it better. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't see a clue in the MOS, and "reasons not to do that" might not apply in some situation. If an editor thinks it should be done somewhere, I see no guideline against it, but ... accepting the edit or proposal is up to the other editors; I'd suggest arguing, if there is to be any arguing, from our purpose and principles and a that point getting advice from other experienced editors makes perfect sense. The problem with "making a suggestion at WT:MOS" without having an example where some editors think it should be done is that you may get an answer that isn't grounded in the particular needs of the article. On the other hand, subarticles may be better. There is then focused discussion on the subtopic on the Talk page for that subarticle. My own opinion is, without having participated in or followed old debate on it, that certain kinds of subarticles that truly are subtopics, not simply related topics, should be done through file hierarchy; which then clearly shows that the subarticle "belongs" to the main article. But that's way ahead of what's needed right now. --Abd (talk) 23:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll just make one point: adding collapsable boxes does not change the size of the article. A 100KB article will still be a 100KB article even with boxes. Nah, I'm not going to argue this here, not the proper forum. You can make a sandbox or something to show an example. Also, scratch WT:MOS; read WP:SIZE instead and make a suggestion on its talk page. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

If it is better to have sub-articles than collapse boxes, that's fine with me. However, I do think a collapse box might be appropriate for something like a long long reference list. V (talk) 14:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I agree that this is possible, V. Enric, the issue isn't article size as in memory space, but rather clarity an usability for the reader. Absolutely, don't argue this here. It's one thing to toss out an idea just to explore possible implications for the article, quite another to try shoot it down based on pure speculation. If an example appears where it would be appropriate, we can try it. If anyone objects, well, we can consider that too. (Note that there could be accessibility issues, there are people reading Wikipedia with devices that might not render collapse boxes properly, etc. But trying to anticipate all this in advance, bad idea. The purpose of bringing it up here is simply to explore various ways we can present the article. Collapse boxes make a great deal of sense in refactoring talk pages. --Abd (talk) 21:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Variations on "pathological science"

I know this is off-topic, but for the purpose of comparison, due to all the discussion above about pathological science, I'd like to point out that here is an outfit that made some claims a couple years ago about having discovered a perpetual-motion device, and then invited people to study it. They are now inviting companies to license it.... http://www.steorn.com The steorn Wikipedia article indicates they still haven't revealed to the public details about how it works. IF it works, of course. The CF field is a model of Good Science, not pathological science, in comparison, because HOW its results are obtained are fully explained. (WHY those results happen is another issue altogether.) V (talk) 17:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Off-topic --Enric Naval (talk) 06:21, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Blatantly "impossible," and they know it. I'd say that if they have, in fact, found something, they may be going about it exactly right, not in terms of science, but in terms of how to make a ton of money and bypass the skepticism. They might even make the money if it's bogus, but that would take some awfully stupid engineering companies, I wouldn't bet on it. More likely, there is an energy-conserving explanation that is, simply, not obvious, and more focused work on it, and especially with efforts to scale it up, will reveal it. On the other hand, if one of those engineering companies does manage to scale it up and they start manufacturing usable power sources ... we will have to revise some long-standing concepts, much deeper than those involved with cold fusion (which doesn't violate conservation of energy in spite of some media sniping to that effect.) Basically, at this point, nothing to see here, move along. V, you are correct, the CF field is real science. The report above is based on what is claimed to be a reproducible experiment (they loan out the apparatus and engineers were invited to take it apart, etc., but some of those reviewing it seemed to express the idea that "we don't know why it works, but it works." That's an observation, but since we don't know what "it" is, beyond what little can be derived from the video (Looks like there is some rotational energy involved, and they talk about the interaction between gravitational and magnetic fields, but the level of motion they are getting could be caused by some *very* subtle effects. I made a radio when I was something like ten or twelve that was powered by ... radio. There are sources of energy floating about. Normal vibration of the earth, for example, can be turned into useful power on a very small scale. For all practical purposes, this isn't science, it's only one element of science, an observation, and since it is secret in details, it isn't "human knowledge," our topic, which is, by definition, shared knowledge. --Abd (talk) 00:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

• Noticed an interesting press release at EurekAlert: 'Cold fusion' rebirth? New evidence for existence of controversial energy source. It's just a presentation at the ACS, but something to watch out for. II | (t - c) 18:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

A little late to the party, II, but welcome. We've been discussing this very press release and the media fallout above. It is not merely a presentation at the ACS conference, the substance was published in Naturwissenschaften in January, I think. so, peer-reviewed and notable because of all the press attention, a useful combination. The press reports are typically awful, repeating stuff that quite simply isn't true, (as to 1989, "but nobody was able to replicate it," which is a rather stupid statement for any reporter who actually looks into the topic, what with 150 papers or so published in peer-reviewed journals over the last twenty years that show excess heat when palladium is packed with deuterium, radiation, Helium-4, etc, but a little of the coverage has been reasonably good. --Abd (talk) 00:18, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Collapse for readability. The CR-39 paper is already mentioned at Cold_fusion#2009_reports, and includes an image of the triple tracks. Collapsed discussion includes an explanation of the phenomena. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:21, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm not joining any party. I don't know enough to comment much, but I do think the article should be mentioned in the body of the article. II | (t - c) 00:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC) Aw, c'mon. "Party" means fun, not factional affiliation. Overlooked guideline: WP:FUN. I'm serious. If editing Wikipedia isn't fun, it's doomed, because it will only be edited, then, by POV-pushers, COI editors, or random ignorant anonymous editors -- for whom making a small contribution, or vandalizing, is fun. Sure, there are a few who might be called highly motivated NPOV editors, but there are more who think themselves such but are actually POV-pushers, and the former kind (true NPOV believers, who believe in it more than they believe in their own opinions) tend to burn out, there comes a point where it just isn't emotionally worth it to push the boulder back up the hill. --Abd (talk) 15:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC) It is. See Cold_fusion#2009_reports, at least that's where it is now. With an image of one triple track. FYI, it's not being noticed much in the media, but the image we have below the triple-track is from prior work of Mosier-Boss. Basically, they found, and published some years ago, high levels of ionizing radiation, probably alpha radiation, low-penetration, using the same technique: CR-39 chips placed next to the cathode. That radiation can't penetrate the chip, it only affects the surface. They found the neutrons when they examined the other side of these chips. The cathode side of the chips is heavily damaged, when they run the experiment as long as they do when they find the neutrons, you can see it is altered (a milky appearance) with the naked eye. My guess is that they find the neutron tracks at all depths from the back, but they wouldn't be visible in the region that is affected by the alpha radiation. In any case, contrary, again, to what some have said, the previous co-deposition CR-39 work has replicated, though I'm not sure about the neutron findings. The technique of co-deposition is much simpler and more reliable than the bulk-palladium electrolysis methods. Given that the work had already been published (we had been discussing it here, for example), what really happened this week is that the ACS didn't just schedule a session to appease a few members. They expanded the session to four days from a previous one, and they issued a press release that emphasized the importance of the work, to the media. It got attention, which is what has been missing for a long time, notice of voluminous of experimental work, much publication in peer-reviewed journals, but almost entirely outside the U.S. Conferences and books, building up a whole field off the radar of the general scientific community, not because they were secretive, but because that general community had its mind firmly made up, especially the bulk of nuclear physicists. But, see, the experimental work here involves chemistry. Who is the expert here? (Some of the researchers, though, are physicists, for example, a Chinese review paper I cite above on this page is by a nuclear physicist who also published on the topic something like 15 years ago, but with a classical physics-type confirmation that something anomalous was going on.) --Abd (talk) 01:13, 26 March 2009 (UTC) OK, glad to hear that the paper is covered. Your post had too much information. Here is not the place to educate me on cold fusion... II | (t - c) 03:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC) Well, you stated that you believed the article "should be included." I discussed why I agreed. It is indeed significant, but mostly for political reasons. Neutrons were expected, and they were hard to find, they didn't exist at the expected levels. That is probably the number one reason that cold fusion was widely rejected. It's obvious that whatever is going on in the lattice doesn't usually generate neutrons. A huge body of research was generated to study what does occur. But what is taking place there is very complex, and more than one kind of low-energy reaction apparently takes place. It's the old story of the elephant and the blind men. A group of them encounter an elephant; they can't see it, but they each are able to feel parts of it. So one reports it is like a tree, another reports it's like a snake, another reports it's like a vine. Etc. The reports are discounted and rejected, because, obviously, they are reporting different things, if there were really one thing there, they would be confirming each other in details. This problem was raised in the 2004 DOE review. --Abd (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Anachronism

Ref 53 (Di Giulio et al) is dated May 2002, yet is being used to back up a list of journals that the text implies recently published cold fusion papers. Something needs to change: either a more recent source or rework of the text to remove the implied recent publication. Best option would be to simply provide cites for the most recent CF paper in each journal listed and state the year parenthetically in the text.LeadSongDog come howl 13:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I have a list of peer-reviewed publications that should make it easy to do that. While this borders on original research, it's the kind that can be acceptable if it is rigorously verifiable, which it should be. Hmmm... subarticle time. Basically, if the information is presented in such a way as to be complete, it will take up too much space, yet it is verifiable and of interest. Actually, the list I have is just of publications showing excess heat. I'd really like to make it a complete list of peer-reviewed publications on the topic. The problem with an incomplete list is that it can be alleged to be cherry-picked. On the other hand, the complete list is enormous. I think there is a way to deal with this. We need the list, even if it is only in Talk space. However, if we have a list article, we can then summarize it here.

One of the arguments presented with the N ray analogy about cold fusion is declining publication. Is it declining? Or is it increasing? The list I have doesn't cover China at all, which is active in this area, with nuclear physicists doing much of the research. --Abd (talk) 14:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

(Hey, hey, no original research by counting publications, ok? Also, those comparisons were done in 1989 or a few years later at most. They need to be qualified for chronology when included in the article. Whether the comparisons still stand nowadays is a different matter.) --Enric Naval (talk) 23:59, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree about chronology. In this field, it is crucial to know when something was published, not only the content, because, obviously, the field has radically shifted over the last twenty years. Early failures to confirm were quite simply little more than that. For example, one "failure" was a finding that neutrons were way below the level needed to support the interpretation that the predominant reaction pathway involved neutron emission. This was a "failure to confirm" one specific finding of Fleischmann, and it isn't controversial, except when generalized to be considered a general rejection (which it was, by many, since neutrons were considered crucial if it was fusion). Other attempts to replicate the excess heat were, in hindsight, doomed to failure. It was a very difficult experiment, not likely to be replicated by research groups that were not fully informed as to the original conditions -- which took F and P years to develop -- so what those experiments established was exactly this: the conditions are marginal and difficult to predict. However, it became known by the mid-90s how to do it, and there is a serious lack of research refuting what's been published about that. By this time, however, the "critics" had essentially abandoned the field, only returning to make what can often be seen as ignorant comments based on their prior knowledge and not the new evidence. We saw that this week, where critics made comments, reported in the media, that showed they had not read the research, but were simply presuming, from shallow press reports, what it would be.

We can count publications. Whether or not we can report that, or how we report it, in the article, is a separate matter. That is exactly the kind of OR that is allowed in Talk. Look, if some bozo says that there has been no replication of the F-P work, and even though the very report being described in the article is a form of replication, it's quite relevant for us to refer to a list of peer-reviewed publications that we or someone else has compiled, and we can review that list and pick it apart if we need to. If there are, for example, 150 p-r publications on that list, and we can see that it is mostly accurate, at least, it shouldn't be difficult to find consensus on some statement placed in apposition to a claim of no confirmation, that "There are, however, over N publications showing confirmation of excess heat in the palladium deuteride environment." We should have some independent source on it, but it need not be particularly reliable *if the list is there and readers can count the items.*

As I've mentioned, we could create an article, List of palladium deuteride excess heat experimental reports. The article would be a list of peer-reviewed publications, (or would include other publications from reliable source), and it would show separately, experimental reports of failure to confirm, success at confirmation, plus peer-reviewed criticisms of the experiments. By definition, if this list is complete, it is NPOV. And then we can report numbers and dates as a baseline as a summary of the list. Simple to do, and I plan to do it. Help is appreciated, especially from critics. It's damn hard to find those negative papers, beyond the very early ones. --Abd (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Die Naturwissenschaften isn't properly described as a "Life Sciences" journal.

[59], I took it out. This has been raised before, the SPAWAR results, published there, were discounted previously based on a claim that they were being published in a journal that wouldn't have adequate resources to review the work. At that time, I pointed out that the journal is a publication of the Max Planck Institut, and that it is, like Nature (journal), a general journal covering the natural sciences. [60]: Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature - is Springer’s flagship multidisciplinary science journal covering all aspect of the natural sciences. The journal is dedicated to the fast publication of high-quality research following rigorous peer-review process and publishes a whole array of work that reflects the contemporary developments across the broad field of the natural sciences. Particularly welcomed are contributions that bridge between traditionally isolated areas and attempt to increase the conceptual understanding of systems and processes that demand an interdisciplinary approach. However, this does not exclude the publication of high-quality topical articles, which will continue to be the core of the journal.

Chemically assisted nuclear reactions (CANR) is a field which crosses the boundary between chemistry and nuclear physics. The journal is actually an ideal place to publish such research. --Abd (talk) 14:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

About those missing gamma rays, a question.

From the article in the section on "theoretical incompatiblities."

The γ-rays of the ⁴He pathway are not observed. This type of radiation is not stopped by electrode or electrolyte materials, making it necessary to postulate that the 24 MeV excess energy is transferred in the form of heat into the host metal lattice prior to the intermediary's decay. The speed of the decay process together with the inter-atomic spacing in a metallic crystal makes such a transfer inexplicable in terms of conventional understandings of momentum and energy transfer.

D+D fusion results in a helium nucleus. Energetic helium nuclei are nothing other than the alpha radiation found in the earlier SPAWAR work, and also reported in the recent Naturwissenschaften paper. However, if I'm correct, conservation of momentum requires that the vector sum of momenta of the reaction products equal that present before the reaction. In other words, we don't get an energetic alpha particle without getting something in the opposite direction. This may be why some theories are proposing that the mechanism involves 4D, not 2D. The product would be two energetic alpha particles carrying away the energy released by fusion; because these interact with the lattice and other materials, the energy is converted to heat. Anybody know of reliable source on this approach to solving the problem of the missing gammas? If I'm correct, what we get from standard DD fusion is an energetic alpha particle in one direction and a gamma in the other. And we don't get significant amounts of gammas. (Apparently, the SPAWAR group has detected gammas or X-rays also. Prior groups found radiation evidence on X-ray film.) --Abd (talk) 03:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That's the "third miracle". The only hypothesis I know of that answers all the miracles was not RS-published and is this one: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cold_Fusion_Hypothesis It presumes electron-catalyzed fusion as the answer to the first miracle, and it notes than unlike muon catalysis with its lone muon, there are lots of electrons available in solid metal, to participate in the reaction. Instead of talking about "quantum tunneling" it points out that as fusion begins the two nuclei are some distance apart and that they are able to exchange "virtual pions", some of which will be electrically charged. Any electron that is in-between the two nuclei, enabling the start of fusion, can interact with those pions via the electromagnetic force, acquire energy, and be ejected. (In muon catalysis, note that the muon is 206 times closer to a proton than is an orbiting electron; the electrical attraction is 206² or 42436 times stronger --possibly doubled because of the nearby proton in the other nucleus-- yet the muon (206 times as massive as an electron) can often acquire enough energy to shoot away from the reaction site, to some place where it can catalyze another fusion.) As soon as the electron leaves the scene, the twin charges of the protons in the two nuclei can attract another electron from the conduction band of the solid metal; the point of greatest electrostatic attraction is in-between the two nuclei. To some extent other electrons are already there, thanks to their "cloudiness" per Quantum Mechanics. Any significantly-present electron can then interact with the virtual pions, acquire some energy, and also be ejected. If enough electrons get involved that way, before the nuclei merge, then the total energy removed from the reaction could suffice to prevent a just-formed ⁴He nucleus from needing to break into, say, tritium and a proton, thus answering the second miracle, regarding reaction percentages. The third miracle is simultaneously answered because of all those electrons that carried away energy (no gamma needed). When the metal is very very thin, such as during a co-deposition experiment, not enough electrons are available as just described, so more-often the result of the fusion is tritium-and-proton or ³He-and-neutron (and an occasional gamma or X-ray of rather less energy than 23.8Mev could be associated with ⁴He, depending on how much energy actually got carried away first by the available electrons). V (talk) 14:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the third miracle. However, the gamma problem assumes isolated nuclei. It also assumes that DD fusion is what is happening. There might be some other pathway. The classic proposal to solve the gamma problem is to postulate that somehow the recoil energy is coupled to the lattice. But if, instead, it is transferred to an energetic ionizing particle (electron, perhaps), this particle, then, would mostly transfer the energy to the lattice or otherwise to the immediate environment. What the Mosier-Boss would brings into relief is that there is more than one kind of reaction taking place. It's quite well established that neutrons aren't present in quantities sufficient to explain the excess heat; the neutrons found are significant, very significant, in fact, but far, far below what would have been expected. Note that even a tiny amount of radiation generated by the electrolysis or other catalytic action is quite as revolutionary with respect to theory as full-blown, clearly positive-net-energy-generating fusion would be.

We definitely need to work on the theory sections. There are lots of theories that have been advanced to explain possible low-energy nuclear reactions. Too many, in fact, cold fusion researchers have lamented. Mosier-Boss have estimated the energy of the neutrons, which gives a clue. It's a bit like what we have seen in this week's media reports, which repeated over and over that the excess heat wasn't replicated, when, in fact, it's been replicated many times. (Replication isn't the end of the question, because perhaps there is some systematic error, but it is one thing to say that the experiment couldn't be repeated, and another to claim that the interpretations haven't been proven.) And then we see objections on the basis that no theory has been advanced to explain the results. Besides that being the cart driving the horse, it's also misleading: there are many theories that have been advanced, some by highly competent theoreticians. But because the experimental results weren't considered solid, few bothered, apparently, to review and critique these theoretical explanations and, from the "mainstream side," to design experiments to test the hypotheses. So part of our review process here will be listing the theories that have been advanced, particularly those in reliable source. Lack of response to a publication doesn't establish that it isn't usable as reliable source, though it does require caution about weight, which is mostly about how the research is presented. --Abd (talk) 21:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

"one quick response from a physicist who looks like he didn't read the paper"

That's the reason given to remove Paul Padley's assesment from the article [61]. However, Krivit's opinion was not removed from the article. The Agence France-Presse source clearly quotes both guys (giving one opinion from each "side"?), so, either we quote both or we quote none. (heh, the New Scientist source cites Johan Frenje, who appears to be a better source. At the end I left it at:

The report results suggest that energetic neutrons have been emitted, but don't explain what process was causing them.

using both sources as reference. --Enric Naval (talk) 05:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

It's thoroughly ridiculous that Abd is removing the sourced opinion of a well regarded mainstream physicist on important claims, and replacing it with the speculative opinion of a fringe journalist who lacks even science credentials. Phil153 (talk) 07:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

1. He may be a well-regarded mainstream physicist, I don't know. He's someone convenient to the newspaper to ask, he was not a "reviewer of the paper," which would usually refer to someone involved with peer review, or someone who has had more than a few hours -- if that -- to consider it; as far as we know, he was called and the opinion was off-the-cuff based on what the reporter told him. The opinion tells us nothing that would not be expected from your random physicist.
2. I don't have a problem with properly framed reference to his comment ... but this comment will be forgotten by several months from now. Quite simply, there is no cogent criticism there, which is easily seen by actually reading the paper. Done that yet, Phil?
3. I didn't replace it with the opinion of Krivit. He may not have science credentials, but he's an expert in the field, is published and widely known, used as a source in peer-reviewed journals, as I recall -- we'll see when I put up the NET article. That was put in as a "criticism," Phil, but misrepresented as such. It was actually a defense if you read it.
4. Enric's compromise looks good to me. The report also doesn't explain how cold fusion will solve the energy crisis, and which way the stock market will go, but .... if other editors want that in there, fine with me for the moment. Though the paper does explain what might be causing the neutrons, though it doesn't explain the possible fundamental physics. Uh, read it? Krivit's "criticism" was claiming that this was "speculation." Can't win for losing. --Abd (talk) 11:22, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the current text (with refs converted to links, ref text in the brackets):

On 22-25 March 2009, the American Chemical Society held a four-day symposium on "New Energy Technology", in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion. At the conference, researchers with the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) reported detection of neutrons in a cold fusion cell using a CR-39 detector,[ACS Press Release 'Cold fusion' rebirth? New evidence for existence of controversial energy source] a result published months earlier in Die Naturwissenschaften. [ http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-neutron-tracks-revive-hopes-for-cold-fusion.html Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion (New Scientist}] The report results suggest that energetic neutrons have been emitted, but don't explain what process was causing them.[New Scientist, ibid]Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough (AFP) Steven Krivit, editor of the cold fusion magazine New Energy Times, pointed out that the results could be caused by some nuclear process other than the one suggested by the authors, deuterium-tritium fusion.[AFP, ibid].

I see the following problems with it; I've made edits based on this and they have been reverted, some of them more than once. I would appreciate discussion of each point, for which I've created subsections below. --Abd (talk) 03:24, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Re the ACS press release, it would be more productive to discuss the actual release, rather than Eurekalert's cut-down version of it. The author of the release is elsewhere described: "Mark T. Sampson holds a B.S. in biology from Washington & Lee University in Lexington,Virginia, and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. A member of the National Association of Science Writers, he currently resides in Alexandria, Virginia." Please note that the release is prospective, describing presentations to be made at a later date than that which it bears. We really need documentation of what was presented in order to avoid writing "On 23 March 2009 the ACS announced that Boss et al planned to present during a conference that ...." Of course WP:NOT#NEWS pertains.LeadSongDog come howl 05:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

cold fusion cell

"Cold fusion cell" is a nonscientific, nonspecific term. Do "cold fusion cells" exist? The process inside the cells is unknown, with only inferences, speculations, or theories, there is no consensus on it among the general scientific community. The cells are called palladium-deuterium co-deposition cells. Read the paper! palladium-deuterium codeposition describes what the cells are with reasonable accuracy. Take a generic "cold fusion cell," which could be taken to mean any cell of any kind where there is an attempt to observe nuclear processes, and it might or might not show neutrons. It might or might not show excess heat. "Cold fusion cell" is not used in the peer-reviewed source, nor is it supported by the references. It's synthesis, which might be acceptable to some degree, but it is far better if we use scientifically precise and neutral language. If we aren't going to describe the cell more precisely and accurately and neutrally, we should just eliminate the reference to the cell itself.

Surely the AFP source says very clearly "low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices", the New Scientist source talks about cold fusion and nuclear reactions, and only mentions LENR in this context: "Like many in the field, he prefers to categorise the work as evidence of 'low energy nuclear reactions', and says it can be explained without relying on nuclear fusion.".

So, according to the sources, "cold fusion cell" is a perfectly correct and sourced name for the device used in the CR-39 experiment, it's not synthesis at all, and you are making OR to support other name. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

CR-39

I've wikified this several times and it's been reverted out. Weird. Sloppy editing at best. The CR-39 article has some good photos of the plastic used as a radiation detector, showing both the single pitting obtained from ionizing radiation and the triple tracks resulting from energetic neutrons.

The report results suggest ...

Results don't make suggestions, people do. There is a strong tendency here to WP:WEASEL and the usage of the passive. It's true that the study reports evidence -- strong evidence, actually -- of the emission of energetic neutrons (report results? how about experimental results suggest? report suggests? -- but those are all still with lost performative. How about cutting to the chase? Why does anybody care about "energetic neutrons"? We care because they are a signature of some kinds of fusion reactions, because it seems very difficult to explain these results without some kind of fusion taking place in there, which even could be hot fusion, given the controls and observations. Neutrons aren't detected when the cells are run with water instead of heavy water.

By the way, the paper actually suggests that the neutrons are produced when

The report is being widely recognized as possible evidence of low-energy nuclear reactions.

If that's the sentence -- and the "wide recognition" refers to very substantial media coverage, -- then the Krivit remark becomes redundant, actually. Some media sources seem to have thought that Krivit was criticizing the experiment. He wasn't, I'm certain of that. He was criticizing the suggestions of the study authors that the imputed energy of the neutrons suggested D-T fusion, and not to say that that this is wrong, but that this is only one among many possible or theorized low energy nuclear reactions. Krivit strongly supports the SPAWAR work.

but don't explain what process was causing them.

The paper should be read:

http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library2/2008/2008BossTripleTracks.pdf

The paper explains as much as is possible what could be causing the neutrons, and refers to theoretical work that has been done.

detailed discussion

The SPAWAR group is an experimental group, reporting observations and measurements in controlled experiments. Lack of explanation of results is not a criticism of an experimental report at all. Like most experimental reports, the authors speculate or note what the results they found suggest, and they do that, and more than that could actually be inappropriate in a paper like this. They are making what is, politically, a very important report, because lack of neutrons was one of the killer arguments in 1989. Some media reports are calling the SPAWAR work a "rediscovery of cold fusion." It's really preposterous. This group has been working on cold fusion since, I think, 1990. They've been publishing results all along. Their work has been shared, for years, with the other cold fusion researchers; detection of radiation with CR-39 in palladium deuteride experiments didn't originate with them. What they did was to look more closely at the chips, apparently. Instead of looking at the heavily pitted areas close to the electrode, they looked in lightly pitted areas and on the other side of the chip (away from the cathode), that's when they found the triple tracks. So what they "discovered" was neutrons, not cold fusion, which was discovered in the years preceding 1989 by Fleischmann and Pons (with some possible earlier reports, plus, of course, muon-catalyzed fusion). Cold fusion researchers had mostly given up looking for neutrons, because they are actually moot in terms of explaining the excess heat. The heat is being produced, quite clearly, by reactions that don't involve neutron emission; what the SPAWAR group found has to be a result of a process that usually proceeds in some other way. What's missing from this report and from most of the media reports is that the same group, and others, have been reporting ionizing radiation for years, radiation that is also evidence of nuclear reactions, but at far higher levels. Given that helium is also being found, in quantities correlated well with what would be expected from the measured heat, it's pretty obvious: there is fusion taking place, by whatever pathway; the helium isn't there when there is no excess heat. The "don't explain" comment is in direct contradiction to what is in the next sentence, though, in fact, the phrase "deuterium-tritium fusion" wasn't mentioned by Krivit, but Krivit's comments don't make sense without stating what the authors of the paper propose as the nuclear process causing the emission of neutrons. "what process was causing them" is referring to the neutrons. The paper suggests that they are caused by D-T fusion, which will produce neutrons of the right energy. But "process" could refer to the mechanism or conditions that allow fusion to take place, in spite of the Coulomb barrier. The flap arose because of the ACS press release; and then the media was present at a press conference. The ACS seminar, though, was merely a presentation and opportunity to ask questions regarding the previously published work, and here is a copy: http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library2/2008/2008BossTripleTracks.pdf If a physicist is going to criticize the work, don't you think he should read it? I don't see any sign of that in his comments. The comments in the original source : Today's announcement is based partly on research published by Mosier-Boss' group last year in the journal Naturwissenschaften. In this sense, she has not repeated the mistake of Pons and Fleischmann, who announced their findings before they had been tested by the peer-review process and published in a scientific journal. But that does not mean the results indicate cold fusion, said Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss' published work. "Fusion could produce the effect they see, but there's no plausible explanation of how fusion could occur in these conditions," Padley said. "The whole point of fusion is, you're bringing things of like charge together. As we all know, like things repel, and you have to overcome that repulsion somehow." The problem with Mosier-Boss' work, he said, is that it fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons. "Nobody in the physics community would believe a discovery without such a quantitative analysis," he said. If such experiments did produce fusion reactions, they would generate highly energetic neutrons as a byproduct. These are what Mosier-Boss says her San Diego-based group has found. "If you have fusion going on, then you have to have neutrons," she said. "But we do not know if fusion is actually occurring. It could be some other nuclear reaction." What Padley said is simply a continuation of prior opinion without any reflection of the new findings. His objection is purely based on theory, with one exception: if it were plausible that the neutrons were coming from source other than a nuclear reaction (which might not be "fusion," and his theoretical argument is against fusion, not against any and every possible nuclear reaction), then he'd have a major point: but it is, quite simply, false to say "the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons. That is, sources other than nuclear reactions. Not necessarily "fusion." But Padley seems to have fusion in mind. Above, in Talk:Cold_fusion#Additions_to_.22further_developments.22, I quote where the paper does exactly that, i.e., rule out other sources. Is every possible other source excluded? No, just the ones they could think of. I suggested above that Mr. Padley might propose some in a communication to Naturwissenschaften, if he can think of any.

While we have reliable source that Mr. Padley said this, the disconnect between his comments and the actual paper are too great: this is a physicist, asked to comment by a newspaper, having had little time (quite possibly), vs a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal. That's undue weight. Padley said nothing that hasn't been said hundreds of times before. What the paper is evidence of is low-energy nuclear reactions, though it's possible that the neutrons are being produced by hot fusion (if cold fusion takes place, it may create energetic nuclear species, such as a triton, which would then normally fuse to produce helium plus a neutron.) The point isn't any particular theory to explain what is happening, but that the evidence is strong for nuclear reactions. It could take years, decades, to figure out what is actually going on in the Pd-D system.

I will edit the article consistently with what I've written here. Please incorporate and accept what you can, and please discuss the remainder in detail. --Abd (talk) 03:24, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You are doing a bunch of OR to "prove" that Padley didnt' read the paper. Do you have any secondary source saying that they explained what process what causing the neutrons? --Enric Naval (talk) 06:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Coverage of Mosier-Boss paper by Wissenschaft-online

[62], in German. I've read the google translation and it looks like this report has a bit deeper coverage and more balanced criticism. And the article also repeats a number of common errors, and the better criticism still seems to neglect the care exercised in the experiment to rule out the cause of the neutron detection from other sources, including natural background. If this were just one experiment, one piece of plastic, the experiment would be quite vulnerable to that explanation, but it's not, the paper covers a series of experiments, including various controls. For example, no deuterium, but hydrogen, no triple tracks. --Abd (talk) 16:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

What are you proposing we do with this source, as relates to article improvement? Phil153 (talk) 06:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)