Talk:Cold fusion

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

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

Proposed changes to Helium, heavy elements, and neutrons

The first paragraph of this section is not well researched.

It begins by talking about the branching ratio's of D-D fusion and the neutrons that result from the n + tritium reaction. These neutrons are around 3 MeV in energy. The work of Mosier-Boss et al. cited in the second part of the paragraph is concerned with high energy neutrons that produce triple tracks. The energy of neutrons that produce triple-tracks in CR-39 are above 9MeV. Neutrons of this energy are characteristic of a secondary D + T reaction. The Mosier-Boss group's most recent publication quantifies the neutron energies and flux in their experiment by calibrating their results with a conventional D-T neutron source and presents strong experimental evidence of high energy neutrons close to the energy of those from the D-T reaction.

Oopsies above should read n+Helium3 sorryCrawdaddy74 (talk) 03:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I propose that we change the section to reflect more accurately the experimental observations of the cited paper and include the group's latest publication quantifying their neutron energies. As I am new to Wikipedia I am having trouble figuring out the formatting of references, it would be great if someone else could do the edit.

I can try to make the changes myself but would love to calm the misgivings of any other editor who might revert the changes out of hand before I put in the effort. Crawdaddy74 (talk) 02:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This is the paragraph to which I refer.

"Known instances of nuclear reactions, aside from producing energy, also produce nucleons and particles on ballistic trajectories which are readily observable. In support of their claim that nuclear reactions took place in their electrolytic cells, Fleischmann and Pons reported a neutron flux of 4,000 neutrons per second, as well as detections of tritium. The classical branching ratio for previously known fusion reactions that produce tritium would predict, with 1 watt of power, the production of 1012 neutrons per second, levels that would have been fatal to the researchers.[108] In 2009, Mosier-Boss et al. reported what they called the first scientific report of highly energetic neutrons, using CR-39 plastic radiation detectors,[109][110] but the claims can not be validated without a quantitative analysis of neutrons.[76][78]"

I propose to change it to:

"Initial experiments aimed at detecting the tell tail products of nuclear fusion, high energy neutrons, protons, and alpha particles, initiated after the Pons and Fleischmann announcement were inconclusive or gave negative results (see PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS Vol/Issue: 63 (18), Date: 1989, Pages: 1926-1929). Beginning in 2002, a research group headed by Pamela Mosier-Boss began to report qualitative observations of high energy particles using CR-39 detectors. In 2009 the group reported the observation of high energy neutrons which they claimed resulted from deuterium-tritium fusion in their electrolytic cells [109], criticisms of the qualitative nature of the results were leveled [76], and the group has attempted to address them with a more quantitative analysis (see Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 51, 20901 (2010)).

How's that for an improvement? Let me know what you think. Please discuss this edit before it is made instead of reverting it after the fact as the guidelines at the top of the discussion page advise.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 07:14, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Can someone help me figure out how to add these references? The help pages seem to be a little too basic to let me figure out how to link a reference and add it to the bibliography. Along those lines there appears to be an error in the reference list as of Enric Naval's addition of a new reference 2.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 19:21, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Initial experiments aimed at detecting the tell tail products of nuclear fusion, high energy neutrons, protons, and alpha particles, initiated after the Pons and Fleischmann announcement were inconclusive or gave negative results . Beginning in 2002, a research group headed by Pamela Mosier-Boss began to report qualitative observations of high energy particles using CR-39 detectors. In 2009 the group reported the observation of high energy neutrons which they claimed resulted from deuterium-tritium fusion in their electrolytic cells , criticisms of the qualitative nature of the results were leveled , and the group has attempted to address them with a more quantitative analysis

• Mosier-Boss, Pamela A.; Dea, J.Y.; Forsley, L.P.G.; Morey, M.S.; Tinsley, J.R.; Hurley, J.P.; Gordon, F.E. (2010), "Comparison of Pd/D co-deposition and DT neutron generated triple tracks observed in CR-39 detectors", Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., 51: 20901, doi:10.1051/epjap/2010087

• Price, P.B.; Barwick, S.W.; Porter, J. D (1989), "Search for energetic-charged-particle emission from deuterated Ti and Pd foils", Phys. Rev. Lett., 63 (18): 1926–1929, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.63.1926

My first edit is ready! Crawdaddy74 (talk) 05:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Ugg sorry about my refs being displayed in your topic there EN...Crawdaddy74 (talk) 07:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The only Mosier-boss paper that appears in sources is the 2009 paper, and only because it was announced in the 20th anniversary of CF. The new text tries to analyze and give relative weight to papers that have not been analyzed and given relative weight --> original research from primary sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

removed x-rays

The X-ray part only had primary sources. Looking a secondary sources, I found no mention of any X-ray detected by Fleischmann. As in no mention at all, only mentions to a "X-ray laser fiasco" by Hagelstein a few years before. Either Fleischmann didn't claim to detect X-rays, or it was a very little important claim when compared with his claims of helium, tritium and gamma rays. It doesn't appear either in DOE 1989, Not sure about DOE 2004 because archive.org is failing.

I replaced it with a cite from Bart Simon's book.

Though lacking gamma-ray detection, Fleishmann and Pons reported x-ray signals which failed to be independently replicated. Subsequent proponents continue to insist that x-rays are detected from their cold fusion cells.

• Wang, D.; Chen, S.; Li, Y.; Wang, M.; Fu, Y. (1995), "Research and progress of nuclear fusion phenomenon at normal temperature", Trends in Nuclear Physics, vol. 12, pp. 31–2 (in Chinese)

--Enric Naval (talk) 23:45, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

(Cold_fusion#Calorimetry_errors is also packed full with primary sources, but I don't recall right now any secondary source that can replace them. I'm going to leave it alone until I have looked at more sources.) --Enric Naval (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Nice job. Is there anyway you could give me hand with the edit I proposed above... I am still having trouble with figuring out the reference thing.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 02:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

And these two sentences look like dumping grounds for primary sources (sorry for the crude analogy):

Subsequent researchers who advocate for cold fusion report similar results.[92][93][94][95][96][97]

This type of report also became part of subsequent cold fusion claims.[101][102] --Enric Naval (talk) 03:07, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

This Article

Sorry, some of this article is just written HORRIBLY! I mean, just a mess. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.153.128.84 (talk) 02:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It is indeed a mess. That is because irrational hard-core opponents of cold fusion insist on filling it with nonsensical, hand-waving objections to the research, instead of facts from the peer-reviewed literature, and an organized overview of the subject. Whenever anyone who knows about cold fusion tries to correct their nonsense, they ban that person from Wikipedia. This an acute example of the problems with the Wikipedia structure. Experts are denigrated and thrown out. Biased, ignorant fools dominate. This is true of the article on cold fusion and many other subjects I have checked. - Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.10.38 (talk) 00:17, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised that this comment from Jed Rothwell has not been removed yet. Does it have anything to do with ScienceApologist having been indefinitely banned from Wikipedia [removed link with personal details on an editor --Enric Naval] ? Could it be that his mob has been silenced ?130.104.206.154 (talk) 11:39, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Nah, it's just that nobody cares (aka the continued existence of this comment here is not currently causing any particular disruption, tempers have cooled down since the last fights, etc. I could explain more reasons but I would fall foul of WP:BEANS). --Enric Naval (talk) 12:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I am also surprised to see this remark is not been erased. The thought police must be busy elsewhere. One of them, TenOfAllTrades, deleted another remark of mine, explaining that I am a "banned user" -- an honor I was unaware of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Energy_Catalyzer&diff=421321503&oldid=421320271

I grant that remark was snide but I thought it was pretty funny. A pity Mr. (Ms.?) TenOfAllTrades has no sense of humor.

Would it be possible for me to ban Mr. TenOfAllTrades? He contrived to lock me out of that article, which is a neat trick. I do not know the rules, or why some people are given these powers and not others, but it would be fun going around locking people out for no apparent reason.

To be serious for a moment, as I see it, what happens here is none of my business. I do not feel that I have any right to complain about your rules and customs. I have no idea who is in charge here but whoever it is, they have every right to lock me and other knowledgeable people out while they fill this article with blather. I am not being sarcastic. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.7.250 (talk) 17:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

To the extent that anyone or almost anyone* is invited to edit articles, then the articles are "everybody's business". I will agree that this article has problems, but I don't think I would call it "a mess". It simply focuses too much on all the negatives that could be dredged up about CF, and ignores the positives as much as can be gotten-away-with. I expect some more positives to become non-ignorable in the future, as more results come in from pressurized-deuterium experiments. So, I'm merely biding my time. (*an example of someone not invited to edit: a spammer. Jed, I recall you got banned partly because some idiot wanted to expand the definition of "spammer" to include folks who like to brag about themselves with their signatures. By that argument, everyone who attches "M.D." or "PhD" after their names should also be banned. The REAL person to ban should have been the idiot....) V (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

You wrote: "It simply focuses too much on all the negatives that could be dredged up about CF. . ." It is much worse than that. Looking at the section on calorimetry, for example, these negatives are not "dredged up" so much as invented out of whole cloth. They are not a bit true, and even if they were true, they would not apply to any experiment I know of. They would apply only to an experiment in which the temperature is measured at one location in the electrolyte. No one does that. Fleischmann and Pons measured with an array of sensors ~1 cm long as I recall. Most others measure outside the cell, either at the walls or with flow or Seebeck calorimetry. This section is the product of the fevered imaginations of people who know nothing about the experiments or calorimetry. I have not carefully reviewed the other sections but at a glance they are equally bad.

I also noted that some of the references say the opposite of what is claimed in the article.

When I wrote that this is filled with blather, I meant it. That is no exaggeration. I believe the main problem is the "Randy in Boise" effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Randy_in_Boise. Plus in this case the anti-science, anti-intellectual mindset of people who oppose cold fusion. However, as I said, and I sincerely meant, if that is how people here want things to be, it is none of my business. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.7.250 (talk) 19:01, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Bring the evidence, and I'm sure it can be added to the article. But blaming a vast conspiracy on skeptics who are quite educated, pro-science and pro-intellectual is amusing at best. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

The evidence can be found in the peer-reviewed literature, which you can read in any university library or at LENR-CANR.org. You will see that it contradicts the assertions made in this article. I said nothing about a conspiracy and I do not believe in one. This article is full of errors so it cannot be the product of people who are "quite educated" about cold fusion. Perhaps they are educated about other subjects.

Note that even if you do not believe in the scientific method, replication, or peer-review, and you have therefore concluded that the literature is mistaken, in a conventional reference book of this nature you would still be obligated to describe what the literature says. Not what you believe to be true, but what the experiments have revealed and the researchers have concluded. This article ignores the literature and describes only the self-published pet theories of a handful of anti-cold fusion fanatics. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.10.38 (talk) 04:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Let me try to be a little more specific and helpful. As I mentioned, the section on calorimetry is now devoted to crackpot theories about imaginary calorimeters. I suggest that the authors of this article should read the literature and learn about actual calorimeters used in cold fusion studies. They should write conventional descriptions of these calorimeters, with schematics and sample data. They might say that a variety of different types (isoperibolic, flow, Seebeck) have been used in order to eliminate systematic errors. They might describe a few of the challenges of calorimetry as applied to cold fusion, and improvements that have been made over the years to meet these challenges. I wrote something along these lines here: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Cold_fusion

Even if the Wikipedia authors are convinced that all published calorimetric data from all ~200 laboratories is wrong, they should report what the literature describes, not what they themselves think of it. The present article describes only the authors' opinions and theories, with no description of the claims. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.10.38 (talk) 13:41, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Did you find that amusing Orange Marlin? Someone who is pro-science pro-intellectual and educated would, at this point, begin actually researching the topic in primary literature. If that doesn't interest you, perhaps you should leave the article to people who actually care enough to do some work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.58.24.190 (talk) 14:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

A problem now rears its ugly head, that even the pro-CF people have to work with rather than against. This is a Wikipedia Policy regarding the uses of primary sources. A FEW can be offered as references, but they can't be used as direct sources of data for an article (almost any in-depth article). The Policy is that articles must get their data from secondary and even tertiary sources, articles about other articles, that is. Thus, while there are useful articles regarding CF experiments using electrolysis, I've been waiting for something like 2 years for some appropriate articles to appear regarding the direct pressurization of deuterium into palladium. The primary articles exist, but apparently they haven't caught the attention of most folks who write the kind of articles that Wikipedia wants as sources. V (talk) 06:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

And it's even worse. I'm reading some sources (the kind wikipedia likes) to add more stuff into the article, and they treat pressurization of deuterium as something ludicrous. You should be familiar with the caveats they list; citing from memory: molecules in the solid are farther apart than in the gas so they should have lower fusion rates, such high pressures are unattainable by simple electrolysis, the pressures would break the palladium rod, etc. (btw, I'm not interested in entering a looong discussion in technical details, just commenting on what I read) --Enric Naval (talk) 08:10, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Enric Naval wrote: "And it's even worse. I'm reading some sources (the kind wikipedia likes) to add more stuff into the article, and they treat pressurization of deuterium as something ludicrous. You should be familiar with the caveats they list; citing from memory: molecules in the solid are farther apart than in the gas . . ."

Those are not caveats. They are facts well known to people like Fleischmann. He literally wrote the book on metal lattices. If you are suggesting that fusion occurs because of pressurization, in a brute-force "squeezing" effect, that is ludicrous -- as you say. The pressure is typically 1 to 3 atm, so there would be fusion everywhere in nature it that were a factor. Your discussion appears to be a straw man: you are casting doubt about an assertion that no cold fusion researcher makes. Gas loaded systems work because the metal absorbs the hydrogen, not because hydrogen atoms are forced together or forced into the lattice under high pressure. What you are reading has no bearing on the subject.

I suspect you are replacing facts about cold fusion with your own ideas, your own original research, and “caveats” that you mistakenly suppose the researchers never thought of. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org

V wrote: “A problem now rears its ugly head, that even the pro-CF people have to work with rather than against. This is a Wikipedia Policy regarding the uses of primary sources. A FEW can be offered as references . . .”

That seems like an ill-advised policy. The farther removed from original sources you get, the more distorted and mistaken the report becomes. I have learned there are a number of other ill-advised policies here; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_retention

Anyway, primary or secondary, my point is that your sources and the text should be about cold fusion, not some other subject. This article tells the reader little or nothing about cold fusion. It does not say what the researchers do, what the main instruments they use are, what levels of power, energy, tritium or helium they measure, or any other relevant details. There is no sample data, a few inadequate schematics, and nothing about key concepts such as heat beyond the limits of chemistry or helium correlated with heat in approximately the ratio as it is with plasma fusion. This article should be titled "Imaginary skeptical objections to cold fusion."

I do not understand why the skeptics feel they must hijack this article and make it about themselves, just because they do not believe the results. I am honestly mystified by that.

I am highly skeptical about creationism. I don’t believe a word of it. However, if I were writing an encyclopedia article about it, I would not devote the whole article to explaining "Why Jed thinks this can’t be true." I would leave out my opinions. As accurately as I can, I would report what the creationists say and what they think. If I asked a creationist "what is your source of information?" and she said, "the Bible" I would not say: "Sorry, that’s a primary source, we can’t include it" or "that is not a valid source of scientific information, we can’t include it." I would say: "Okay, what chapter and verse?" I would reference that verse and explain why the creationists think it proves their point. Let the reader decide whether it does or not.

If I included skeptical objections to creationism, I would also include the Creationist's own rebuttals to these objections. I would not pretend the creationists never thought of these objections, or never tried to meet them. This cold fusion article is filled with skeptical objections. Most are physically impossible and irrelevant, like the nonsense in the calorimetry section. There are a few genuine issues, but the article does not point out that the researchers themselves knew about these issues, and addressed them in 1989. For example, the article mentions recombination: "Several researchers have described potential mechanisms by which this process could occur and thereby account for excess heat in electrolysis experiments." It should also say that in every actual experiment on record, these mechanisms have been ruled out by using closed cells with recombiners, by measuring the gas flow, or by assuming complete recombination occurs and counting only the heat above the limits of recombination. The text as written gives the reader the false impression that this objection applies to real experiments. That's either a stupid error or it is disinformation.

As I said, the whole article is like this. Nearly every assertion is either factually wrong or distorted. The only mention of tritium says that it was not replicated. It was replicated in over 100 labs, at levels ranging from ~40 times background to millions of times background. Again, whoever wrote that is either grossly ignorant, or he knows the facts and he is writing anti-cold fusion propaganda.

Anyway, I am glad I have nothing to do with this article. I know hundreds of cold fusion researchers. They seldom agree about anything, but all of the ones who looked at this article agree it is outrageous nonsense. Not only is this nonsense, it is not very good at what it sets out to do, which is to discredit the field. McKubre and I have both said we could write far more damning critiques of cold fusion than any skeptic. I have done that for several experiments, which is why I have some prominent enemies in the field. The authors here invent imaginary problems. I know of many actual, real weaknesses that the authors of this article have never dreamed of. The papers at LENR-CANR describe them; the skeptics have not even bothered to read papers that support their point of view! I just uploaded one yesterday. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.10.38 (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding these items posted by two different people: "molecules in the solid are farther apart than in the gas" and "Gas loaded systems work because the metal absorbs the hydrogen, not because hydrogen atoms are forced together or forced into the lattice under high pressure." Actually, if fusion actually happens, it is at least partly because inside the metal, the hydrogen does not exist as molecules or as atoms. The absorption process causes the gas to dissociate into electrons and nuclei. Even without fusion, such dissociation is the only way to explain why hydrogen can permeate palladium like a sponge, when helium (a smaller atom!) can't. So, in an electrolysis experiment when absorption takes place at atmospheric pressure, it can take a long time for enough bare hydrogen nuclei to get into the metal, for fusion to have a chance of occurring, while in a pressurization experiment, getting enough loose hydrogen nuclei into the metal is relatively easy. This is just simple logic and, as I've written before on this page, I'm pretty sure that every pressurized-deuterium experiment, with palladium, has produced anomalous energy. Talking about molecules inside the metal simply distracts from the observed facts (easy permeation, for hydrogen only, being one fact that nobody argues about). V (talk) 19:16, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

(My mistake, I keep using "molecules" for everything....)

Fleischmann did not "literally wrote the book on metal lattices". Let's not distort reality to make some authors look more authoritative than they really are, please. A couple of RS say that he didn't appear to have read the literature on the topic before starting, and that the phenomena inside lattices was well understood before Fleischmann started studying it (again citing from memory, btw). --Enric Naval (talk) 09:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

DIA document

Freelion thinks a certain DIA document should be discussed in the article [1]. This DIA document appears to be leaked, not published, which means that according to [2], it should not be used as a source. Is there something I am missing? (See also [3]) Olorinish (talk) 01:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

What you are missing is the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency e-mailed hundreds of copies of this report to scientists worldwide, as well as a copy to Rothwell with permission for him to upload it. It may thus quite reasonably be considered official, and a valid source as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Brian Josephson (talk) 20:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That's interesting Olorinish. I guess we could remove the source but what about the statement - is it contestable? Could I re-word the statement (as it is general info) and put it back into the intro without the source? Meanwhile, just for the record, can we consider www.lenr-canr.org as a reliable source? Freelion (talk) 05:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The recent work and support is already described by other, sourced, statements. Regarding the question of whether lenr-canr.org is a reliable source, it depends on what the statement is. Olorinish (talk) 12:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Editors here may be advised to review Jed's comments at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_72 with regard to the website he promotes. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you following me LeadSongDog? You're very busy aren't you. Do you think you could find the time to answer my question at Talk:Nirmala Srivastava#2011 proposed rename of article? Thank you for the internal link on lenr-canr.org, that's helpful, thanks.

Olornish, the DIA reference does contain additional info about international experiments sponsored by state or major corporations which aren't mentioned in the article. Brian Josephson (talk), do you have any evidence of the DIA releasing that report? Freelion (talk) 00:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Leadsongdog we have an internal link to a conversation including the librarian of lenr-canr.org. He declares that he has permission to host all of the documents on the website. That means he has legally published these sources, which fulfills the requirements of WP:RS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Freelion (talk • contribs) 00:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, it's previously been shown that LENR-CANR may contain copyright violations: not all of the material is potentially a copyright violation, but some material hosted is included through under the permission of the author, not the copyright holder (the journal). Thus although LENR-CANR is no longer black listed, external links to articles on the site need to be checked to confirm that they meet the copyright policy. - Bilby (talk) 00:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

In that case I believe the DIA reference is OK. Jed Rothwell says that he has permission to host that report and as he says, all the copyright holders of all the reports he hosts have the opportunity to remove them. The DIA report is one he mentions. He says the DIA knows that he is hosting it and even cites his website as one of its references. This DIA report has been on his website for quite a while as is evident by a Google search - many other websites also link to the report on lenr-canr.org. So the DIA has had ample opportunity to ask him to remove it if it is in breach of their copyright. We can take it in good faith that this report is being published with the owner's permission so we are not knowingly breaching any copyright as per copyright policy. Freelion (talk) 03:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not know the copyright status of that article. However, just in the hope of clarifying the general situation, it doesn't really matter how long an article has been hosted on a site, as the copyright holder may simply be unaware that the article is there. More importantly, though, whether or not it is legally hosted, this isn't a reason for not using the article - it is only a reason for not linking to the article. The question as to whether or not the article has been formally published, or has been leaked, is a separate issue - a leaked document may not be a verifiable reliable source, but this isn't a copyright concern per se. - Bilby (talk) 03:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

My previous comment argues that it is fair to assume this report has not been leaked and does not breach copyright. Freelion (talk) 03:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

My two cents: I'm almost certain that anything/everything published by the U.S. Government is considered to be Public Domain (even when it's "classified" and kept secret). That's because of the "work for hire" rules associated with copyright ownership. Someone who pays someone else to create something can be the copyright owner. In the case of the U.S. Government, all its employees are paid by the U.S. Public. So, works produced by the U.S. Government are Public Domain. V (talk) 05:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Though there's a lot of discussion of the copyright status of the document above, I don't see that anyone has addressed Olorinish's central point, the question of whether this is a WP:RS per Wikipedia standards. Has this document been published anywhere, or is there a reliable secondary source that discusses it? Private correspondence that is not remarked on by other sources does not meet our sourcing standards, even if it can be shown to be authentic and not encumbered by copyright. --Noren (talk) 13:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

BAD assumption, Noren. The DIA document is not primary data generated by researchers in the field; it is a secondary source describing various primary sources, and therefore it doesn't need tertiary sources describing it. I will agree, however, that its status as a "publication" needs to be clarified before it can be used as a WikiPedia source-document. V (talk) 05:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Just above it was mentioned that this was mass-emailed to outside scientists by the department itself. That constitutes publishing. Kevin Baas^talk 22:45, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it sounds more like an emailing than a publishing. Is emailing reports the standard way of distributing them? I would guess that when they really want to publish a report, they put in on a web site or something. Olorinish (talk) 00:30, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe if they REALLY REALLY want to publish it. That would definitely be something politically motivated. I've never heard of or seen that done before. Kevin Baas^talk 16:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well it has been published - on the LENR-CANR website. As mentioned above, the DIA has had ample opportunity to ask Rothwell to remove it if it is in breach of their copyright. We can take it in good faith that this report has being published with the DIA's permission. They even use this website as a reference. Freelion (talk) 01:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there any objection to using this report in the article now? Freelion (talk) 09:55, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I still object to using it, since the DIA did not publish that report, which means that it likely does not represent the DIA's official position. Keep in mind that a very likely reason for not publishing such a report is that the evidence for cold fusion is still weak. If that changes, many organizations like the DIA will publish descriptions of it, after which this article should discuss it. Wikipedia isn't going anywhere. Olorinish (talk) 11:44, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't fit any reasonable definition of "being published by DIA". Bilby's comment above would also apply. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:32, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding "likely reason for not publishing...evidence is weak": note this article: [4] which has been widely published, and the evidence is much thinner and more tenuous than that for cold fusion. From a statistical perspective, in fact, the evidence is quite dismal. So you that assertion, "likely reason for not publishing...evidence is weak", is baldly contradicted by empirical evidence. And furthermore, in such cases, we don't even think to question the "publishability". Kevin Baas^talk 12:54, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

This in fact alludes to a more fundamental point: that historically speaking, strength/weakness of evidence, even plausibility, has not been a significant factor in decisions about information dissemination. But we have only to look at politics and religion to see that... Kevin Baas^talk 12:46, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The attitudes of some folks around here is hilarious. Remember the "Pentagon Papers"? Where were the claims that those documents were forged or did not originate in the Pentagon? Why is it, just because this document is about Cold Fusion research and positive, its origin is questioned? What if it had been negative? I bet the detractors wouldn't waste two seconds getting it into the article and trumpeting such negative points! V (talk) 05:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The bottom line is that the DIA report has been published by the LENR-CANR website. Olorinish is only speculating that this is not the DIA's official position. We can use the LENR-CANR website as the reliable source for this document. I have yet to find the rule on Wikipedia that specifies that a government report has to be officially released. Freelion (talk) 03:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

This edit [5] would give far too much weight to a minor event, the emailing of a report by its author to people she knows. That is very different from a major institution publishing a document, since it may not have received the full review that published documents receive. Linking to the LENR-CANR web site doesn't bother me; perhaps someone should place the link (without comment) with the other references after the word "fusion" in the phrase "However, a small community of researchers continues to investigate cold fusion..." in the introduction. Would people be OK with that? PS: I think "small community of researchers" should be replaced with "some researchers." Olorinish (talk) 12:09, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Olorinish, I agree that we could avoid trying to imply the DIA has an official position. There is a lot in that document which is neutral though, like the list of ongoing projects. Here are 12 projects which are not mentioned in the article:

• Y. Iwamura at Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries detected transmutation of elements when permeating deuterium through palladium metal in 2002.

• Additional indications of transmutation have been reported in China, Russia, France, Ukraine, and the United States

• Researchers in Japan, Italy, Israel, and the United States have all reported detecting evidence of nuclear particle emissions.

• Chinese researchers described LENR experiments in 1991 that generated so much heat that they caused an explosion that was not believed to be chemical in origin.

• Japanese, French, and U.S. scientists also have reported rapid, high-energy LENR releases leading to laboratory explosions, according to scientific journal articles from 1992 to 2009.

• Israeli scientists reported in 2008 that they have applied pulsating electrical currents to their LENR experiments to increase the excess energy production.

• As of 2008 India was reportedly considering restarting its LENR program after 14 years of dormancy.

• U.S. LENR researchers also have reported results that support the phenomena of anomalous heat, nuclear particle production, and transmutation.

• At the March 2009 American Chemical Society annual meeting, researchers at U.S. Navy SPAWAR Pacific reported excess energy, nuclear particles, and transmutation, stating that these effects were probably the result of nuclear reactions.

• A research team at the U.S. company SRI International has been studying the electrochemistry and kinetics of LENR since the early 1990s, reporting excess heat and helium production.

• In May 2002, researchers at JET Thermal in Massachusetts reported excess heat and optimal operating points for LENR manifolds.

• Researchers at the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center in California first reported anomalous power correlated with Helium-4 production in 1996

Plus there are more details about Y. Arata from Japan and Violante from Italy. Freelion (talk) 04:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(I haven't taken a through look, but, it those facts are notable, then it should be possible to find better sourcing for them.) --Enric Naval (talk) 08:58, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Letter to editor in bibliography

This was added to the bibliography, as "published in Nature". However, this is not an article but a letter to the editor. We shouldn't give it a place in the article unless a secondary source says that this specific letter was important for some reason.

• Gryziński, Michał (27 April 1989), "Cold fusion: what's going on?", Nature, 338: 712, doi:10.1038/338712a0

--Enric Naval (talk) 11:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I tried the link and the text is behind a paywall. It doesn't make sense to me that a "free for anyone" encyclopedia should link to sources that only people who have money can access. OTHER than that, though, the text could have been important if the Editors of Nature had replied to that letter. They represent a significant voice in the scientific community, see, especially in terms of mainstream thinking at the time such a reply was (if it was) published. V (talk) 17:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Disambig

Now the artist is said to be only about the Fleischmann–Pons set-up. Although the start of the history section is somewhat more general. Perhaps we should spin of the Fleischmann–Pons part to it's own article an keep this as a page about cold fusion in general. // Liftarn (talk)

Excess Heat and Energy Production

Since Scaramuzzi, F. (2000) is an accepted reference (117,119,124), I would suggest the following sentence, based on p. 9 of that source, be added to the end of the first paragraph of the section: Nevertheless, as early as 1997, at least one research group was reporting that, with the proper procedure, "...5 samples out of 6 that had undergone the whole procedure showed very clear excess heat production (4)." Aqm2241 (talk) 07:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

lenr-canr.org link in article

This website is cited or mentioned in many RS. i think it's time to accept that the wikipedia article should include it, even if it's only in the "external links" section. I propose this:

• lenr-canr.org, advocate website with bibliography.

--Enric Naval (talk) 10:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

When I search on "contributory prefix:Talk:Cold fusion" I find three archives that have discussed this site, there may be others elsewhere. Unless the search misses a resolution, I see no excuse for assuming this would not be wp:CCI.LeadSongDog come howl! 13:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be POV to call it an advocacy site. Just because through a site you can learn about research that has been done about a topic, doesn't mean said site advocates a position about said topic. It seems ppl are assuming that not allowing access to research is the "default" position and represents neutrality, and thus allowing it would be "advocacy". Both the premise and the logic of that are false. Kevin Baas^talk 17:56, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I received a lengthy email from User:Abd (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) responding to the above, in which he provided links to two discussions Talk:Martin_Fleischmann/Archive_1#Lenr-canr.org_allegedly_hosts_copyright_violations and [6]. Since he chose off-wiki communication and I do not wish to proxy for anyone I'll simply pass those links along without further comment at this time. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:26, 28 April 2011 (UTC)