Talk:Cold fusion

Pcarbonn is banned from editing the Cold fusion article, for a period of one year.
	The above mentioned editor 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.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments

This article was deleted January 11 after a one-day AfD discussion. I requested that the AfD be reopened, and it has been. The article was already undeleted and userfied. It appears that the article was created to allow detailed consideration of the calorimetry issue without creating undue weight problems here. The work to bring back a summary may not have been completed. --Abd (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Um, no, it was created in order to inflate the significance of the fringe views of its creator. Like all the other forks he created. You are doing an extremely good job of appearing to advance the same agenda, and indeed to work on behalf of the topic-banned POV pusher. Guy (Help!) 21:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Pcarbonn created that article, yes; it doesn't appear to have been controversial at the time. That doesn't prove much, but I don't see that article as "fringe," nor does it reflect Pcarbonn's views. Maybe what is there belongs here. Maybe what needs to be here is already here. I'd just like the editors of articles to decide what goes in them and what is subclassified, not unfamiliar editors at AfD or involved administrators who delete pages because they don't like them. In any case, this isn't the AfD, JzG, so why did you come here with your WP:ABF comment? Please use this Talk page to improve the article. However, for other reasons, thanks for contributing to Talk history, it might be useful some day. --Abd (talk) 00:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

If the AfD closes with Delete, and any editor has argued for that, please do not then object to the inclusion here of reliably sourced material on the topic as creating "undue weight," for the community will have decided that the topic belongs here. If it closes with Keep, and you have argued for that, please do not then object to the removal of reliably sourced material here to that article, provided that there is adequate reference here to that article. Note that summary style doesn't generally need citations, the main article should contain them. It really can clean up an article. My own preferred position would be to Keep, but then Merge or not according to current consensus here. Merge is more flexible. With a Deletion, it's much harder for consensus to shift, it would require a deletion review. I was able to get the AfD reopened because it was closed in a day, instead of the standard period, and I requested it, not because I concluded that we should have an active and separate article, but because that is a reasonable opinion, and if we are going to freeze our conclusion, we should go through the full process. So I urge editors here to consider the options and participate in the AfD, if you have an opinion. At this point, a strong enough majority is clearly Delete, so that I'd expect a Delete close, and I certainly would not take this to Deletion Review myself unless a clear consensus appeared supporting that. It simply places more burden on this article, but not an impossible burden. Your choice, Wikipedians. --Abd (talk) 13:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

For reference, the AfD closed Delete. Unlike the first, prematurely closed, AfD session, however, there was substantial Keep opinion expressed. As noted above, I expected a Delete close (though I considered Keep possible, or I wouldn't have bothered). I had to, once again, request a copy of the article, which is, again, at User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments, in case anyone wants to see it and review it for possible inclusion of material here. I have no opinion on that until I review it myself. --Abd (talk) 16:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

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.

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)

separating condensed matter nuclear science from cold fusion

Whatever is going on within the palladium lattice (and in similar experiments with other materials), it certainly isn't brute-force smashing of deuterons together. That would beg the question: where would the energy come from that would accomplish this? If there is real excess heat, if there is real nuclear radiation and products of nuclear transformations, including effective fusion, it's not by any known mechanism. The field is now called "condensed matter nuclear science." The basis for that is an understanding that it's possible that some conditions in condensed matter may allow reactions to take place that don't happen "naked." There are hypotheses that have been advanced, speculations on what it might be, but nothing, to my knowledge, has been validated by experiment, beyond some clues. It does appear that low-energy neutrons are being produced; probably missed because everyone expected high-energy ones if it was fusion. (Tracks appear on the reverse side of the CR-39 detectors, away from the cathode, but still showing proximity to the cathode -- not in areas of the film away from the cathode. What's that? The hypothesis on that is neutrons, which don't create tracks until they interact with the material, not being ionizing radiation. Then they create, the SPAWAR researchers have published, little triple tracks. So the tracks themselves seem to be fairly well understood, but not the source of the neutrons. We cannot report these things as scientific fact, but, because they are in peer-reviewed publications, we could report the existence of the reports. We have stuffed two separate topics into this one page: the history of a scientific fiasco, "cold fusion," and a new branch of physics: condensed matter nuclear science. Obviously, they are related, but they only overlap, they are not the same topic. The scientific fiasco we can probably document fairly easily and we should be able to agree on it, once we can get beyond the knee-jerk reactions. The new science needs a different kind of treatment. But there are reliable sources on it. --Abd (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

(note: the comments above were split off into a new section by another editor, it was originally posted as a response in the section "incompatabilities in established physics) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phil153 (talk • contribs) 05:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

This is at least the third time you've mentioned some supposed differences between "cold fusion" and "condensed matter nuclear science", as well as pushing for (and creating redirected articles in preparation for) forks. The bottom line is that cold fusion is the accepted name for the whole range of palladium-deuterium type experiments, and the set of reported effects and anomalies, and per our naming conventions, nothing like you suggest is ever going to fly. It's not even close, and I'm confused why you're pushing this.

The recent attempts by advocates to rename the field are smart PR, but nothing more. There is no distinction between the set of experiments, detections, and anomalies reported in 1989 and today. It's the same phenomenon. It's the same people. Even the latest Internal Conference on CMNS, the most prominent conference in the "field" of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, has the acronym ICCF [6]. Guess what the CF stands for?

As for alternative formulations and the uncertainly of fusion, it has no basis. If there is actual excess heat of the larger magnitudes reported, it has to be fusion. I think all parties agree, except those trying to obfuscate (I don't mean you). Can you find good sources that suggest otherwise? The reason it has to be fusion is that energy does not come from a cold fusion researcher's butt; it has to come from somewhere, and the only source within a cold fusion cell is matter. And the only way to get energy out of matter is to modify existing matter such that a higher energy state is transformed into lower energy state, leaving products which are in a readily detectable lower energy state. And the only part of matter in a cold fusion cell that has sufficient potential energy for the size of the effects claimed is the nucleus. You can't wave away the requirement that fusion is going on here; within the bounds of reason there is no other alternative. Every physicist with their sanity intact agrees with that.

Anyway,Can we take this to one of our talk pages? I've avoided responding to you because it's off topic and most of your last 20 or so comments (plus mine here) fit 100% under WP:NOTFORUM and simply do not belong on the article talk page. But not responding doesn't seem to help; long off topic commentary gets posted anyway. Lately they've been inserted in every single section (that attempts to improve the article) with long diatribes about one thing or another unrelated to improving the article. No blame here, just a request because there's no end in sight to this stuff. Phil153 (talk) 00:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

No. This belongs here. My discussion here was (1) background and (2) very clearly about improving the article. Phil153 doesn't like my specific suggestions. Fine. I can do little by myself, given how ready some editors are to bald revert. Absolutely, I created some redirects, and one of these might turn into its own article. Maybe. I'd say, Phil, you are part of the failed old guard here. You are welcome to disagree. We have a deficient article, almost everyone agrees, they just disagree on the direction of the failure. That's a sign that we have not been seeking consensus; instead, we've been making poor compromises, editing by force of numbers and the accidents of who shows up, and all the other dysfunctions that afflict controversial articles where the guidelines about civility and consensus aren't followed. And this is very, very much about improving this article. Don't like long posts, think they are "diatribes," don't read them! You lose no rights by not reading, though you might lose some knowledge, or not. Depends, doesn't it?

The naming can be discussed specifically. The 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science did indeed have an alternate name: also known as the 14th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-14). That's because it descended from the earlier ICCFs. The 2008 Conference web site has a page on terminology. It should be read: [7] Phil, I don't think it is that you are confused, exactly, I think that it is that you don't understand the situation, including me and my approach to Wikipedia process, because you are holding to fixed opinions. It's not obligatory to understand me. But I do know that many times during these discussions you have said things that just weren't true, both about the topic of the article and about Wikipedia guidelines and processes. Stop saying all this nonsense here and then objecting when there is response! --Abd (talk) 02:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I added a section title, this was straying away from the "fourth miracle" topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to object to that description. I clearly called the fourth thing a "problem", not a "miracle". And, actually, in order of events, if fusion is to occur, it should be considered the FIRST problem, not the fourth. Unless, of course, some method exists for nuclei inside atoms to interact with each other, without first escaping their electron shells. In which case it can continue to be ignored as irrelevant. But also which remains to be proved. IF cold fusion happens, of course. V (talk) 08:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Errr, whatever it's named, just discuss the name on the above section and not here, so topics won't get mixed again. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

"We have a deficient article, almost everyone agrees, they just disagree on the direction of the failure." Actually, I don't agree. The current version is the best I have ever seen in the two years I have been monitoring the article. Olorinish (talk) 04:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, when I first read the article in October I was amazed at how bad it was. The current version is the best I've read. I think a bit more work need to be to document the cold fusionist voice, if only to give a sense of the social movement and the depth of belief held by proponents. A section on some of the evidence and why it's not taken seriously would be very informative too. Storms has been reviewed by P.V. Keller who's spent a good deal of time marking stuff for the article, so hopefully that will address most of those remaining concerns in the near future. Phil153 (talk) 04:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that this is probably because of systematic exclusion of a POV. Note that Shanahan, a published critic of cold fusion, just opined that the article was bad. Yes, we need more material from Storms. But, hey, no tendentious argument from me. Believe what you like, but, please, just follow Wikipedia process, no edit warring (not even tag teaming, but there is a kind of legitimate tag-teaming which simply establishes a kind of default consensus as a starting point. Problematic tag-teaming uses bald reverts and simply sits on an article, preventing change toward broader consensus), discuss contentious edits, follow WP:DR, seek consensus, assume good faith regardless of POV, remain civil, etc. If we do this, we'll get there, and nearly everyone will agree on it. --Abd (talk) 16:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Both Shanahan and Jed are COI editors who refuse to back away from claims that are far too strong for the available evidence, and I haven't seen any evidence of ability to find consensus and a fair middle ground. Such is the nature of COI SPA editors all over Wikipedia. As a result, I'm not swayed when Shanahan thinks the article is bad, because based on his edits, the only article that would satisfy him would be horribly POV.

Hmmm..I thought Wikipedia disapproved of ad hominem attacks... Phil, a) the evidence for the CCS explanation of apparent excess heat is published in my 2002 paper, with expansions of it in the 2006 paper. My claims are based on that and by typical scientific standards, I have not 'stretched' anything. b) I was asked to edit the article in an attempt to remove proCF POV, and I did that by adding the counterarguments to the stuff PCarbon had written in. He immediately began block deleteing what I added in a clear POV-pusher fashion. I never edited antyhting he wrote (as far as I can remember now several months later, certainly nothing as substantial as his edits of my additions). My objective was to remove POV. The problem with the current article is that it has been so changed in anture that my comments are not relevent anymore, i.e. there is no technical meat in the article. And, as I suggested several times, I was content with a 3 section article; historical, pro, and anti, as long as editors were allowed to express their opinion but not suppress others. Your claim I would never be satisfied is not true, and is a personal attack. I guess you thought I was gone so it was OK. Nope, still watching. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Come on, you have to admit that the "evidence" you've presented is far from convincing and lacks hards experimental data. It's a theory, and probably quite a good one, but that's all it is, and it's claimed to have failed some tests of its veracity in experiments by CF researchers. While I'm not swayed by that at all, objectively, it weakens your position. Anyway, my comments on your POV take on the article are based on reading your numerous discussions on talk, not your article editing. I apologize if they are inappropriate, and they probably are. For what it's worth, your article edits seem fairly NPOV to me. Phil153 (talk) 17:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for retracting your claim I am unable to write to NPOV standards. With regards to the evideence I have presented, my papers analyze data and come to a different and reasonable conclusion from the data's originator. But there is nothing unusual, strange, or anomalous in what I did. It is straight-up sensitivity analysis. Ergo, it is compelling evidence for the case analyzed. The point of the papers was to demonstrate, with real data, a new 'noise' term, one that was apparently unrecognized previously. Since it was previously unrecognized, it is impossible to evaluate in any published apparent excess heat claim up to that point, as the data necessary to do so (variability in calibration constants) is not publically available. However, since that is so, all prior claims to have observed excess heat must be reconsidered in light of the CCS. Also note that Storms' calorimeter was one of the best, and in less good calorimeters, the errors are expected to be larger and of other types as well. Thus, one has to be 'generous' in evaluating the possibility if a CCS in other calorimeter types and designs. This is all straight up science. No surprises, just SOP.

Unfortunately, the CFers have not responded properly to my publications. They have NOT begun publishing such data along with their cliams, instead they have denigrated the ideas with false accusations, which I have shown to be false in print. Read the papers if you disbelieve me here. So, to date, we still have no assessment of the importance of the CCS to apparent excess heat claims, and rational and reasonable scientists wonder why. By the way, the math of the CCS is not a 'theory', it is a simple mathematical fact, whose presence was directly detected in the one published case where sufficient data to study the problem was presented.

Perhaps you refer to the proposed mechanism of how a CCS could occur in a closed cell? If so, you need to consider the predictive power of my 'theory'. It is consistent with the observations that CF occurs infrequently, and 'explains' the exception of when very high surface to volume ratio material is used. It is consistent with the CR-39 observations. It is consistent with the Szpak IR video evidence. But of course there are other observations as well. Most of those are explained by other known phenomena, not related to producing apparent excess heat, so those weren't included in the 'theory' I proposed to explain that apparent signal. This does not negate the value of the theory.

P.S. I would love to see the reference to where "it's claimed to have failed some tests of its veracity", as I know of none. Please cite your references or retract your statement. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Look, it's really simple. You claim that your method is an explanation for the excess heat, and your editing implies that it is in fact THE explanation in most cases. Yet this is a positive claim; you have to show that the calibration constant actually does shift to the degree required in a range of experiments to cover that amount of excess heat. You have not done that (to my knowledge) except by reanalyzing the data from one set of experiments. You have not done it for different calorimeter types, nor is your theory adequate to cover them, especially the theory of heat shifts as a cause. Because of this, it doesn't "refute" cold fusion results, but merely introduces a type of error to check for when certain types of apparatus are used. This is what I mean by claiming too much. Szpak and Storms have offered refutations which question the veracity of your theory as an explanation for CF heat.

Also, I don't retract the claim that you are unable to write to NPOV standards, since I never claimed that. I claimed that COI regarding your own work has led you to claim far too much, just like Jed and nearly every other COI SPA does. There is no reasoned commentary on the limitations of your own work. Instead, you make claims that you refuted everything thrown at you by CFers, which IMO is clearly false. Also, see edits like this

If you reply here I'll reply on your talk page after that since this is getting off topic. Phil153 (talk) 02:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, I think we should aim to have Storms material added by the end of this month, since PV Keller is understandably a busy man and I don't want to wait much longer. I'd also like to mention a few other skeptical references, like the Italian court case (which is one of the few times a true outsider has examined the field), and skeptical commentary in Nature and elsewhere. Phil153 (talk) 17:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I should say that I also agree with much of what Phil153 wrote above, and I share the hope. --Abd (talk) 16:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Abd, I'm not objecting to a response. I'm not the one starting these discussions, and I've repeated asked for specific suggestions to improve the article instead of general commentary on all things cold fusion, but you don't seem interested at all. You want to get the calorimetry article undeleted first, against consensus. That didn't work. You want to split this article off into another name that can diassociate itself from the criticism. You seem to be on a crusade instead of wanting to improve the article that's the subject of this talk page. And that's your choice. But what I'm objecting to constant littering of sections with off topic comments about Jed's block, JzG's inappropriate actions, a proposed splitting that never gets quite proposed, the blacklisting of l-c.org at meta, the original thought "case" for cold fusion, and so on. It makes it really hard to stay on topic within that section. Most of the worst have been archived by other editors recently because they were so OT. If you have specific suggestions, like moving this article to Condensed Matter Nuclear Science or building a Fleischmann effects article, bring them up in a separate section so we can discuss them! I'd welcome an open discussion so we can either move forward with the new ideas or work on improving what we've got. Wouldn't you? For your peace of mind, I'm done commenting on this here, you're a very experienced and quality contributor and if that's the path you want to take, ok. I just wanted to point out how problematic I think it is for improving the article via this talk page (as opposed to raising the profile of cold fusion on Wikipedia). Phil153 (talk) 04:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Boy, for someone who claims to want to stick on the topic of improving the article, Phil, you are all over the map. Don't be distracted by discussions that don't interest you. I've been working with on-line discussion and projects since the mid-1980s, and there is this strange phenomenon: even though nobody is required to read anything, nobody has to sit through a boring speech, people still protest about others writing what they aren't interested in and think useless. I agree that there can be a problem with too much talk, but that can be handled by respectful refactoring, if anyone really cares. (In fact, usually nobody bothers to refactor the archives, it's a problem.) I really wish editors would stop assuming what I "want." I discovered that JzG had nominated Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments, and that it had been deleted. I asked for a copy so I could see if there was any valuable material there. However, then I noticed that the AfD had closed within 24 hours, and there was totally inadequate notice of the AfD. Please don't wikilawyer "adequate notice!" So I simply requested that the AfD be reopened, and I did argue for Keep, that's true, but I generally favor breaking down articles into subarticles, and I'm hardly attached to Keep; in fact, though, what I'd like to see is Merge, because this preserves the rights of editors to change their minds, AfD is much clumsier, and I've seen editors really regret deletions that they voted for -- when it became obvious that the article they were protecting, they thought, now had to bear the weight of whatever was reliably sourced in the deleted article. I do intend to do a lot of things with the CF article, and, yes, to unmerge the CMNS article, probably, but one step at a time, I'm still doing a lot of research, and, besides, I'm a tad distracted by this little issue of administrative abuse -- which is very clear, by the way, and a very serious issue, apparently impacting, I've been told, "dozens or hundreds of editors." And I have kids to raise, a business to run, etc., etc. And I need to decide whether or not to put half my life savings into palladium. What do you think?--Abd (talk) 05:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Whatever, just provide secondary reliable sources stating that "condensed matter nuclear science" and "cold fusion" are not the same thing --Enric Naval (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to do it if you will find secondary reliable sources saying that "fruit" and "mango" are not the same thing. "Nuclear science" in the condensed matter environment isn't only about fusion. Condensed matter nuclear science is essentially the study of nuclear physics in the condensed matter environment, which used to be considered irrelevant. (I.e., the realms were entirely different, and it was assumed, for the most part, that nuclei were simply unaffected by chemistry and the condensed environment. Now, in favor of your argument, "condensed matter" is by definition "cold." What nuclear behavior occurs in cold environments? We have some examples: muon-catalyzed fusion is one. It's true, the most interesting nuclear phenomena would be fusion, but there is also evidence for fission in that environment, apparently. Does the close environment affect nuclear stability under some conditions? Nevertheless, most material being published under the rubric of CMNS is indeed about evidence for nuclear reactions taking place at low temperatures, and fusion is the obvious hypothesis, beyond some sort of experimental error. Now, as to secondary source, here is one: Institute of Science in Society. But I'm not sure of the nature of the article. Reliable? I'm pretty sure that there are those here who will argue that whatever seems to confirm "cold fusion" is, ipso facto, fringe and not reliable.... There are some pretty remarkable assertions in that article. However, we'll see. I'm in no hurry. --Abd (talk) 04:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, no, "fruit" and "mango" are not the same thing. "mango" describes many things, a few of which are the "fruit" of mango tree cultivars. See here for details. Here is an assertion that "Mango is also a valuable ornamental and shade tree and contributes to the protection of soil against erosion." If you think that www.i-sis.org.uk is a wp:RS, I'd suggest testing that belief at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard to see what reaction it gets. Frankly, I'd much rather see a peer-reviewed journal, but

Also I'd like to hint that splurging long, dense paragraphs is not a sensible way to discuss any matter on Wikipedia. By doing so you limit the number of people who might agree with you to those who have the patience to wade through your words. At this point the provision of reliable secondary sources in support of the words already uttered would be worth far more than a bushel more words. --TS 05:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Treatment of muon-catalyzed fusion in this article.

You know, we are treating muon-catalyzed fusion rather ambiguously in this article. If you read the article, you can tell that muon-catalyzed fusion is a form of cold fusion, in particular, that's what Jones called it in his Scientific American article. Now, if muon-catalyzed fusion is a form of cold fusion, it should have a section in this article with a brief summary, with reference to the "main article," Muon-catalyzed fusion. It shouldn't be a disambiguation link at the top, which implies that muon-catalyzed fusion isn't cold fusion, there is merely a confusion of names. It's cold fusion, all right.

The Fleischman-Pons effect, and the other effects that have been found in relation to "cold fusion," are, indeed, unexplained, though there are many theories. Some of the theories involve catalysis by various exotic mechanisms, such as magnetic monopoles or hydrinos, etc. The only thing really different about muon-catalyzed fusion is that it's a reasonably understood phenomenon, involving known particles and mechanisms. Clearly Pons and Fleischman and Jones though that the topics were related, the history shows that. And I'd agree. If there is one obscure mechanism that overcomes the apparent obstacles to fusion at low temperatures, there may be others. The claim that low-temperature fusion is impossible has a clear counterexample in muon-catalyzed fusion.

Some editors have become confused about Bubble fusion or Pyroelectric fusion, and I just came across Fractofusion, see Takeda, 1989. All of these are hot fusion; the idea that they are "cold" results from mistaking the temperature of most of the apparatus with the actual temperature of the reactants. Bubble fusion is alleged to produce temperatures comparable to the interior of the sun, for example. Pyroelectric fusion is being harnessed as a neutron generator, there is RS for this, which apparently it does cheaply. Fracture fusion is, interestingly, proposed as an explanation for the Fleischmann-Pons effect, through fracture of the palladium electrodes. In other words, "cold fusion" may not be. It would just be that things got hot in a very small volume, much hotter than we would have thought. --Abd (talk) 23:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

(In one discussion, the idea that deuterons accelerated by an electric field aren't "hot" was raised. That's a misunderstanding of what heat is, in this case. What "hot" means is that the atomic motion in the fuel is fast, high velocity, that's all, and whether this is produced with individual ions or by general gaseous conditions doesn't matter. What allows overcoming the Coulomb barrier by brute force ("hot fusion") is the approach velocity of the deuterons or other fusion fuels.) --Abd (talk) 23:28, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, the best thing is probably not to discuss it much at all, maybe give a few sentences just saying that it exists, it's real, here's the article on it, but it has nothing to do with the Flieschmann-Pons proposal. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 23:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Shoemaker's Holiday. The whole point of having easy links to other articles is so that duplication of data, within articles, can be avoided. Absolutely muon-catalyzed fusion should be mentioned as a variety of CF and linked, but not much more than that need be in this article. V (talk) 02:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I agree with Objectivist. There are some semantic difficulties here. Muon-catalyzed fusion almost certainly isn't what is happening in the Fleischmann-Pons effect, so that's correct. Muon-catalyzed fusion is true cold fusion, we can say that because it was, first of all, theoretically predicted, then verified by experiment. It happens at low energies, but it requires the presence of muons, which aren't easy to come by, it takes a lot of energy to make them in quantities sufficient to be able to observe the fusion. The F-P effect is an experimentally observed effect of unknown origin. As I point out above, it's entirely possible that it is fusion, but not cold fusion; rather, hot fusion from fractofusion in the palladium electrodes, or there might be some other effect that, on a very small scale, creates high-energy deuterons. F-P made the mistake of proposing that it was D-D fusion of the traditional kind, but at the same time not of the traditional kind. I.e., no gammas, few neutrons. The fact was that they didn't know. They had suspected that something might happen in the palladium lattice, because of the density of deuterium or hydrogen absorbed by it, but the only basis for calling it "fusion" was a paucity of other explanations, plus, of course, this is what they were looking for. Fleischmann claims, and it's reasonable, that they were not ready to publish, but the university, for legal reasons, forced them to go ahead. I've been reading some pretty convincing stuff, by Storms for example, that the F-P effect is real, that there is more excess heat than can be explained by ordinary chemical processes or systematic experimental error, but there are the other anomalous results; however, until there is more serious mainstream research I'd say that we won't know.

Practically speaking, for the article, I think we need to agree on what kinds of sources can be used. It seems crazy to me that a whole class of sources are being excluded, when, with other controversial subjects, "partisan" sources are allowed, if they are notable. ArbComm has been dealing with this, to a degree, in the Fringe science arbitration. We should not exclude sources just because they are claimed to be fringe. Rather, we need to pay attention to undue weight. If there is an article on a fringe topic, though, it would be silly to fill it with mainstream views, provided that the framing places the article content in perspective. I.e., an article on Flat earth is not going to spend 99.9% of its space explaining that the earth is not flat! Rather, it is going to detail the various flat earth theories and their history. "The shape of the earth was known to the ancients, but flat earth theories persisted into the twentieth century (or even today)," etc. and then the whole article will be about these theories. (To my mind, the flat earth article spends too much space on, for example, how it came to be known that the earth was spherical. That has its own article (Spherical earth}! --Abd (talk) 03:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Abd, perhaps I'm misremembering some things, but I don't recall that some of the things you wrote about actually happened that way. For example, it is my understanding that muon catalyzed fusion was discovered by accident in liquid-hydrogen Bubble chambers of the 1950s, and then theoretically analyzed. Also, I think I read something somewhere (good old hear-say!) that P&F were trying to duplicate an earlier claim of CF in a palladium/electrolysis system, but with more rigor. Fusion is invoked to explain the heat that appears, only because nothing else seems adequate. P&F could have incorrect notions of HOW fusion could explain their experimental results, but such a situation is far from unique in Science. In one sense, all that really matters is, "DOES the evidence really require nuclear reactions to explain the observed heat production?" In another sense, if helium-4 and other fusion products can be detected in greater quantities than the background level, then while that can be just as important, it also can be considered the icing on the cake. Personally, I find it kind of ironic that if the D+D->He4 reaction is happening, with lots of energy released as heat, then it doesn't take a lot of such reactions to produce the observed heat, while it also doesn't produce much helium above the background level! Almost a Catch-22, with respect to trying to convince skeptics. V (talk) 04:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I would never insist on anything based on my bad memory. No conflict with your report re the discovery of muon-catalyzed fusion. As to P&F, yes, they were aware of old research that had been discredited, but probably considered that maybe the discrediting had been merely a lack of confirmation, coupled with some historical factors. The question of a nuclear explanation for the heat hinges on a rather difficult question: how much heat is being generated, compared to how much energy is being added, or how much energy could be released from what's in the cell? The criticisms of cold fusion seem to claim that the excess heat is very small, so that, even if it is large in absolute magnitude, and because so much energy was pumped into the cell during "loading," the percentage of excess heat is small, within experimental error. While a set of independent experiments, showing even small excess heat, could be significant, publication bias and other factors complicate this. The consensus of those working in the field seems to be that the excess heat is far above what could be experimental error; some of the experiments show substantial excess heat practically immediately, and some show "heat after death," i.e., heat that continues to be generated after the electrolysis has been stopped, no more energy is being pumped in. We really need some objective and reliably sourced reports on this. Storms may have something, I'm thinking of buying the book or at least getting it from a library. But I'm balancing this with other tasks, as well.

Because of all the controversy about the calorimetry, the issue of nuclear ash and other transmutations, and the detection of radiation, then loom large. If, for example, the SPAWAR group and others are actually finding alpha or neutron radiation, spatially associated with the cathode and associated with excess heat or deuterium in place of hydrogen, it would be every bit as conclusive or even more conclusive as to some kind of nuclear reaction as would be excess heat alone. And this is exactly what the SPAWAR group is claiming, and some of it has been published in peer-reviewed journals. --Abd (talk) 16:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Yeah, you can't cite memories. Not until the mediawiki extension for virtual telepathy is implemented, anyhow. Abd, which publications are you referring to? We've been down the road before on conference proceedings (not refereed), off-topic journals such as Die Naturwissenschaften (the editorial boards and reviewers can't always competently assess the material's merits)LeadSongDog (talk) 17:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Unfortunately, it seems that this argument leads to Catch-22. There are specialized journals, in particular, Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. But, of course, they are "fringe." Get published in a journal that covers general physics, it's "off-topic." The editorial board of Die Naturwissenschaften isn't competent to deal with (what topic? physics? condensed matter nuclear science? electrochemistry?) Have you actually looked at who they are and what they publish? Naturwissenschaften is published by the Max Planck Society. The name should be a clue, if you know physics! For a description of what the publication covers, see [8]: Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature - is Springer’s flagship multidisciplinary science journal covering all aspect [sic] of the natural sciences. Now, do you imagine that they don't take advantage of the resources of the Max Plank Society? That their papers in any field wouldn't be reviewed by experts in the field and probably related fields? Yes, I had Naturwissenschaften in mind. --Abd (talk) 21:54, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Who defines "improved"?

I do wish to help improve the article. I even tried to go about it in the recommended way, by discussing it first, instead of just sticking some new text in the article. But it seems there is a radical element promoting a particular POV here, which is so much against posting valid data that conflicts with their POV, that they would rather delete all the arguments in favor of posting the data, than admit they have no real argument, supported with references, for why it shouldn't be posted. Tsk, tsk. Who do I post a complaint to, so that such behavior can be properly reprimanded? V (talk) 21:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page --Enric Naval (talk) 22:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Kowalski and Mosier-Boss et al (2008)

I'm replacing this section from the talk archives because the discussion surrounding Olorinish's suggestion that the table be summarized was never concluded. (See below.) In particular, is it possible even, to summarize the table in a single sentence? GetLinkPrimitiveParams (talk) 14:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Summary of U.S. Navy SPAWAR's CR-39 nuclear track
detector Pd/D co-deposition control experiments:

Experiment	Pits?	Conclusions
PdCl2–LiCl co-deposition in D2O	Yes	Pits are observed where Pd deposit was in contact with CR-39. The Pd deposit is the source of the pits.
Cathodes, plating solution, PdCl2 in contact with CR-39 – No electrolysis	No	Pits are not due to radioactive contamination of the cell components
LiCl electrolysis in D2O	No	D2 gas impinging on the surface is not responsible for the pits
CuCl2–LiCl electroplating in D2O	No	Electrochemically generated D2, O2, and Cl2 gases do not cause pits. Metal dendrites piercing into CR-39 not responsible for the pits.
PdCl2–LiCl co-deposition in H2O	Yes	More than four orders of magnitude fewer pits are observed than for D2O. Observed pits could be due to Pd/D interactions.
Table 1 from Mosier-Boss et al (2008) "Reply to comment on 'The use of CR-39 in Pd/D co-deposition experiments': a response to Kowalski" Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 44: 291–5, p. 292.

The article's photograph of the CR-39 pits gives practically no information, it's poorly cited, and the text next to it doesn't talk about it at all. I recommend that it be replaced or supplemented with this table.

I further recommend that the 2004 DOE Report's conclusion stating that, "reviewers identified a number of basic science research areas that could be helpful in resolving some of the controversies in the field, [including] the study of particles reportedly emitted from deuterated foils using state-of-the-art apparatus and methods,"[9] be summarized along with a description of the CR-39 detector and SPAWAR experiments using it. 69.228.220.30 (talk) 19:46, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I for one appreciate your efforts. However, I don't understand what the case is for including primary, non repeated, challenged research. The image makes sense as a curiosity but that's very different to what you're proposing.

I mean, when Kowalski first debunked the research some months ago, should the article have reported that "Claims of CR-39 pits have been shown to be unconvincing"? Is it really the job of Wikipedia to follow the comments and counter comments in a single journal for an unreplicated experiment? Sounds like a mess to me, and far too much weight on unverified primary research. Phil153 (talk) 20:13, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The chronology and authorship of the many challenges to the nuclear interpretation of the CR-39 pits may be different than what you seem to think it was. All of the challenges to CR-39 pit interpretation including Kowalski's more recent have been addressed by the Navy, and the original challengers have made no attempt to claim that the Navy's response was insufficient (unlike Shanahan, who still relies on his "calibration constant shift" method of designing an argument around the conclusion he wishes to reach, according to his own words in the most recent archive.) In both of the most recent back-to-back academic journal publications, the editors have given the pro side the last word, but only Shanahan claims the response was insufficient. Could it be any more conclusive than that? 69.228.220.30 (talk) 20:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: "method of designing an argument around the conclusion he wishes to reach" -

I'm sorry "69" but you don't seem to have a clue here. I did NOT design an argument around the conclusion I wished to reach, I tested the impact of variability in the experiment on the conclusions drawn from it. That's known as 'error analysis', which consists of two parts, numerically defining the error (in this case the variation in the calibration constant) and computing whether the claimed observation falls within the 3 sigma error bounds. That is scientific SOP, except for CFers. The upshot is that the observed peaks in the excess heat curves are explainable by 'error', thus no one has to conclude a nuclear reaction is ongoing based on such claims.

Also, in my case, the 'anti' claims got the 'last word', as if that was important. What is important is that I answered all charges against me in my last rebuttal. No outstanding issues, and none of Storms' comments were found substantive. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

That table is very large. Maybe someone could add a sentence summarizing it instead. Combined with the blue-green image, that would probably give the Cr-39 work the proper weight. Olorinish (talk) 20:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to summarize that table in a single sentence? GetLinkPrimitiveParams (talk) 19:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

ONE way to shrink the table is to simply shrink the table, using smaller fonts and so on. Why not? Is there a problem with the number of bytes it takes to represent the table? V (talk) 19:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

ANOTHER way to shrink the table is to make two images of it. Post the large image at the "commons" site, and post a highly shrunk version of the image in the article, with a "click to enlarge" thing associated with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Objectivist (talk • contribs) 17:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Has any other group performed CR-39 experiments and confirmed their conclusion that the CR-39 detectors are detecting fusion products? If not, I don't think the CR-39 results deserve additional emphasis in the article. Olorinish (talk) 21:16, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Steven Krivit, whose web cite is (was?) blacklisted from Wikipedia for no other reason than that it was being used for courtesy links, sponsored a series of replications. 69.228.211.251 (talk) 10:51, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

What I vaguely understand is that the original paper was presented, there were challenge(s), and the original authors followed up a couple of months ago. I don't work in this particular field but academic journals generally have significant times between comment and reply. The person who has the last word has little bearing on who's right, either, and frankly I'm bemused that you would call something conclusive without replication or sufficient time for reply. In short, the current state of this particular debate has little bearing on most of my objections to the inclusion of this comment, which are: single result (not independently replicated), primary research (which is discouraged, for a host of obvious reasons), and the work has not stood without challenge for long enough (doubly so given the extraordinary burden of proof). Exactly the kind of stuff that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia with such weight as you're giving it. It probably deserves mention, similar to how Shanahan's work is mentioned in passing (note that I argued against the inclusion of Shanahan's work on the same grounds, so it's not a pro or anti cold fusion thing). Phil153 (talk) 20:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Not including my work is an omission of fact that leaves the reader presuming CF has been significantly substantiated by experimental evidence. It has not. Thus, your edits have skewed this article back to a proCF POV.

I also note in passing that the secondary page PCarbonn set up to isolate the impact of my work has now diasppeared as I predicted, it was just someone else besides P who did it. Wiki is far too transient for me. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Journals don't usually publish replies to critiques along with the submitted critiques unless they think they are merited. The various challenges date back as far as April, 2007 as far as CR-39 goes. If you read that, you will see that there is already a series of independent replications since the original publication. 69.228.220.30 (talk) 21:17, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the challenges go much further back than that. I was negatively commenting on the Oriani and Fisher report of CR39 pits in 2002. See:

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion

From: kirk.shana...@srs.gov (Kirk L. Shanahan)

Date: 13 Nov 2002 09:15:34 -0800

Local: Wed, Nov 13 2002 12:15 pm

Subject: Re: Oriani & Fisher in JJAP

where I begin the discussion of the claims by pointing out some errors in the paper (later found to be due to typesetting problems) and by showing how my challenged chemical mechanism for CF can also explain CR39 pits. I added another possibility in a later post. I suggest you read the whole thread. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

And, at least in the journals I publish in, when an author critiques some prior paper, the authors of the prior paper are informed and given the opportunity to respond. This is what happened with the 2006 rebuttal to Storms' comments. The SMMF publication of 2005 apparently didn't have enough of a comment to warrent that however, as I was not informed such a paper had been published by the Editor. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Noone can "isolate the impact of [your] work", nor does anybody need to. Your work - that i have seen you present here - is very specific in scope. For instance, it deals specifically w/conventional electrolysis cells. Aspects of electrolysis cells that by their very nature do not apply to gas-loading experiments. They also do not speak at all to claimed transmutations, pits on cr-39 present in significant quantity only when heavy water is used, or things like structural anomalies on the cathode in co-deposition experiments (craters, etc). But this specificity is all very natural for science (and reason), and i don't see you disputing any of it so i don't see the problem.

Actually you're wrong Kevin. When I added my first contributions to the article back in the May/June timeframe, I added several comments to the existing article. PCarbon was about the only editor there contributing regularly at the time. He deleted almost everything I wrote. What he couldn't delete were the comments regarding He detection and the Clarke work on that, and my work on the CCS. He did however, spin off a subpage to 'isolate' the comments on my work, a page by the way that is not lost somewhere in the Great Wiki Void (pretty well isolated I'd say). I commented negatively on all positive claims in the article at the time, thinking Wiki would be reasonable about this, but they weren't. Today, the article has a brief mention of my work, mixed in with other stuff, which misrepresents its significance greatly, and the Clarke work is no longer discussed. There is no mention of the problems with the transmutation claims or the CR39 pits, even though I have tried valiantly to explain them to the editors in this Talk page (go check the archives). Your claim as to 'structural anomalies' is not correct, conventional explanations exist for those too. So, do you see me disputing it Kevin? Let me be clear: For any body of related results that is large enough to be considered to have some level of reproduction in it, conventional explanations are available and preferred. How's that? But, as noted by others, since the mainstream all think CF died somewhere in 1990-1994, no one is publishing anything negative, because they aren't even aware 'research' continued! So you are not going to find specific articles now or anytime soon. So how do you fairly represent this to the Wiki reader? You get an expert to explain the problems to you and include them in the article. But this Wiki article has gone exactly the opposite, with a reduction and removal of all negative criticism of the supposed evidence for CF. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:06, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Kirk, a couple of points. First, you are one person who sought flaws in the experiments. You found many. However, to the extent you think a group of people seeking flaws can do better, then you need to be reminded that the 1989 DOE panel consisted of 23 people who at least partly had the job of finding flaws in experiments, because they knew just as we do, about the theoretical difficulties for CF. Neverthless, in the "Executive Summary" of the conclusions of that panel, http://www.ncas.org/erab/execsumm.htm , the group stated: "The Panel also concludes that some observations attributed to cold fusion are not yet invalidated." YOU are talking as if every single experiment in this field can always be invalidated, yet the evidence is, and you even agreed with this, that a small percentage of experiments has defied and continues to defy the flaw-finders. In my opinion this leaves everyone with three paths to take (some of which you yourself wrote about on this page, and so the rest of this is not directed mostly at you, Kirk). (1) We focus on replicating those experiments so they no longer are a small percentage of the total. (2) We assume they are all flawed, regardless, and strive to explain them that way. (3) We accept that CF is real, if rarer than originally thought, and strive to explain it. I'm fully aware that Path 1 can eventually indicate which of the other paths would be the better choice to pursue. However, not everyone is a good-enough experimentalist for Path 1 (as evidenced by so many flawed experiments!!!), which would leave a lot of interested parties with nothing but Path 2 or Path 3 to take, blindly. It would not hurt this Article if people taking those paths exhibit some simple respect for each other's work. This means that hypothesized explanations for flaws deserve the the same treatment as hypothesized explanations for CF. The Article would be richer if it had both instead of neither, and "standards" for the technical parts of the Article don't necessarily have to be the same as the standards for hypotheses. Finally, that richness may be historically valuable even after Path 1 eventually/finally leads to a "winner". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Objectivist (talk • contribs) 14:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Speculations and unpublished material do not belong in wikipedia articles, quite irrespective of who writes it. If your description is accurate, Pcarbonn was correct in removing the material in question. My claims as to "structural anomalies" are correct: there are "structural anomalies" that have been found in co-deposition and they have been published. And -- on a side note -- i'm not aware of any conventional explanations for those craters, other than a concentrated and high-heat reaction, and this is corroborated by the thermal output. i.e. The conventional explanation is pretty simple and straightforward. So back to the subject - no, i don't see you disputing the existence of these structures, nor the fact that your published work (that i'm aware of) doesn't even mention them, nonetheless speak to them. In fact, the only thing I've heard from you is speculation and unsupported claims - both of which are worthless to me, and neither of which is very scientific.

It seems to me like you are twisting my argument to make it sound like you have a rebuttle. This to me is all straw man and non-sequitor. It's specious. It may sound persuasive but it's really deceptive. It's not an ethical way to argue. Once should try to avoid logical fallacies like those and respond to the strongest interpretation of your opponents argument (by strongest i don't mean boldest, I mean most difficult to attack), not the weakest. etc. etc. FWIW, I develop a strong distaste for people very quickly when I see them discuss things in an unfair manner. Kevin Baas^talk 19:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

As to the Arbcom ruling - it appears I am not the only who found it to be a complete farce (double standard in comparision to ScienceApologist). Though you seem to be the only one taking joy in another's suffering and using what many see as an injustice as a premise for a (fallacious) argument, thus adding insult to injury. Kevin Baas^talk 16:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Your insult is noted. I challenge you to support that by citing where I have 'taken joy' in the ban. Make sure you realize that PCarbon was a hindrance to the Wiki article development once there was someone other than CF afficianados editing it. He opposed everything negative regarding CF, and that led to an unbalanced article. His persistance in this was recognized as POV-pushing and he was banned for it. If you check the pages on this, I suggested there that PCarbon not be banned but be restricted from editing the 'anti' section of the article (which is now gone as well). Your comments betray your position, and I'm not going to be responding to you further on this. I had a great time while away, and I think I shall probably just leave you all to it. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:06, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

My insult?!? -- Opps, I looked back for reference and found that I had just misread something you read -- sorry about that. You are correct, there is nothing you said that would support that notion. I will say, however, that your most recent reply certainly "betray"s a sense of relief and a very low opinion of his work. "Make sure you realize" that PCarbonn is almost solely responsible for getting this article up to good article status (which if i'm not mistaken it has since lost on a request for reevaluation). He has contributed a lot of material on both sides. That's right, he has written for "the enemy". If we're making neutrality comparisons here, that puts him a step above you.

My comments betray what position? I said I thought the arbitration ruling was unjust because it punished Pcarbonn for violations less severe and numerous than that of ScienceApologist, as elucidated by the evidence presented to arbcom, yet SA didn't get any sanction for his actions. That is my position. I state it plainly and intend it to be known so there is nothing "betrayed"; in speaking plainly on the matter i have been perfectly loyal to my intentions. And I am glad you're not responding further because if you did I wouldn't expect it to be very productive. Kevin Baas^talk 19:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I have my own question here; I thought the codeposition/particle-track experiments were done after the 2004 DOE review, so that data was not available to them? On the other hand, I've also heard (yes! hearsay!) that those experiments were highly repeatable. Have any of the doubters (a group that doesn't include rabid detractors) tried it yet? If any of them get positive results, then I have another Question for the detractors: "With evidence of more-ordinary fusions occurring in very thin deuterium-saturated palladium (because of the particle tracks), what could be the CAUSE of those fusions?" Note this is essentially the same question that has to be asked regarding deuterium-saturated bulk palladium; if fusion is the culprit for the claimed/observed heat, then how could have been Caused? We can ignore for the moment the mechanism that carries away the energy in the latter case (no ordinary high-energy fusion-byproduct particles), because the KEY is the first Question. If deuterium is fusing in a thin layer of metal, why couldn't the same mechanism cause it to happen in bulk metal? AFTER the common Cause has been figured out, THEN the differences can be examined, regarding how the fusion energy is released. V (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Could you please stop saying "high energy fusion byproducts"? It's a red herring and we discussed it above. Both low and high energy fusion byproducts are observed to be the same, which is one thing that make CF so unlikely. And you can see why "high energy" is irrelevant if you look at the energies - between 0.01 and 0.1 MeV are required to overcome repulsive forces (depending on the nuclei), compared to 24 MeV coming out. It's like flying a toy aeroplane into a tornado - it doesn't really matter how fast the plane is going, the tornado takes over and decides how everything turns out. Anyway, sorry for the aside, that bit of nonsense spread by CF advocates (not you) annoys me. Phil153 (talk) 21:54, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It is my understanding that ordinarily the 50/50 split of protons and neutrons released as a result of D+D fusions are indeed "high energy" particles (although nowhere near 24MeV due to the particular reactions involved). I could agree that "byproducts" may be inaccurate word-choice, since that word typically is associated with unwanted stuff like pollutants. Nevertheless, my prior paragraph was more about "If we have repeatable evidence for CF in thin-film metal, then detecting vs not detecting [them, the "semi-products"] in bulk metal is irrelevant, until after we understand how CF can happen at all". Do you have a disagreement with that logic, Phil? V (talk) 22:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

You know, I think I misread what you were saying. Shouldn't edit from work when distracted. Sorry. As for your logic, it seems premature to me. I think most scientists would like to see something unequivocally demonstrated first before they go chasing theory fairies. Surely that's not too much to ask after monstrosities like polywater and N-rays. And make no mistake, the CR39 stuff is full of holes. Read the critiques or even the attempted replications that IP editor posted above. Phil153 (talk) 22:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Phil, I used the initial word "if" for a good reason. You do not have to accept-as-fact anything preceded with "if" in order to analyze the logic of a statement. I could write, "If God exists in accordance with certain claims, then it must be possible to build a perpetual-motion machine." The statement is either logical or illogical, and whether or not its premise is factual is irrelevant. Therefore I ask that you not avoid answering the question I asked in my prior paragraph. "IS it logical to ignore where the energy goes in bulk metal, if fusions are happening in thin-film metal, until after the initiation mechanism has been understood?" Thank you! V (talk) 22:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

i'd just like to comment because i find this discussion interesting. I have to say when i read the "logic ... seems premature" phrase I was a bit confused - logic is not temporal so it can't be mature or premature. But from the next sentence I see that Phil wasn't actually talking about the logic. I actually still don't know what he was talking about there so I still don't know what that phrase was supposed to mean. As to "most scientists...chasing theory fairies", the scientific process is essentially that you do a lot of experiments and then from the results you try to form theories that tie the results together in a simple way and allows you to predict, then you try to find ways to test those theories. But ofcourse you can't really develop a tenable theory until you've done enough experiments to have a fair idea of what's going on. Which is exactly what I believe Objectivist is saying. And in that, I perfectly agree with him. I would say that, yes, if you have consistent empirical results that contradict your working model, then clearly your working model needs to be refined somehow, but it would be premature to refine it before you have a fair idea of what's causing those results. I'm not sure if, technically speaking, that's a logical conclusion, but it certainly is consistent with the canons of science. The working model is a logical system and the physical world is - for purposes of evaluation - a logical system. The goal is to make the working model approximate the physical world, and one does that by bayesian updates, Bayesian model comparison and all that jazz. And bayesian inference works best (is most robust) with a lot of orthogonal information, hence one gathers various types of data from various sources. And hence a "good" theory is supported by many strands of evidence. Gathering data means doing experiments to figure out what's going on. So I suppose from all that that one comes to a pretty solid logical-mathematical proof that if your goal is a good predictive model, then when you encounter a consistent discrepancy between your model and that which it models, the thing to do is to do experiments on that which is modeled to try to figure out what's going on. (But I imagine that to most scientifically-minded people this just comes as common sense.) In any case, i think Objectivist is simply trying to ask if this seems unreasonable to you, or more precisely if this "math" is wrong, and if so, how. Kevin Baas^talk 16:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I actually do need to add a little more, cause the question is a bit more complex than that - he is also asking if it's really prudent to rely on certain parts of a working model that apparently contradict the empirical results in order to refine that very same model. Or to put it another way, if it's more productive to use a descriptive model to predict the outcome of a process that, when it comes down to it, doesn't fit the description, or whether it's better to try to construct , by way of hypothesis, experiment, etc., a (revised) model that _does_ fit the description. Though I will say that knowing HOW the results differ from what's predicted by the current working model may certainly be helpful in revising it. I.e. particle emmisions, radiation, products, etc. is useful data for figuring out what's going on. It's simply that if after considering them you still don't know what's going on, then obviously you still have some more investigating to do. Kevin Baas^talk 17:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't think I was being quite that complicated, in asking what I asked. There are several intertwined problems. (1) Excess heat in electrolysis experiments, sometimes replicated and sometimes not. (2) Well-accepted theories regarding fusion, which do not offer much in the way of allowing either (A) fusion to happen in that environment or (B) fusion to produce heat without lots of radiation. (3) People who act as if the theories of Item 2 encompasses all possibilities, so therefore the excess heat must always be an erroneous measurement. (4) New co-deposition experiments indicating fusions could have happened, after all, in the electrolysis experiments --and these experiments don't need to pay any attention to the excess-heat question. (5) The continuing lack of a widely accepted plausible explanation for how fusions could happen (what is the hole in Item 2A?). (6) People who have committed themselves to a particular scientific position, and in order to not look like fools, need to grasp Item 5 to claim that Item 4 cannot be valid, either, except that if they are wrong they will look even more foolish! This could explain the lack of a reply to my question --simple "ignore it and maybe it will go away" philosophy-- which was about "Why not save Item 2B for later, and focus the theorizing on Item 2A for now?" See, to the extent that the co-deposition experiments produce more and more valid data (it is claimed this is highly reproducible, remember), the people of Items 3 and 6 will find their position less and less tenable. Which sort-of means those who lack the courage to recant can be ignored, and we need an answer to Item 2A more than ever! V (talk) 18:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Mosier-Boss et al (2009) "Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd–D Co-deposition: evidence of energetic neutrons" Naturwissenschaften 96: 135–142 is particularly helpful in resolving the question of the particles detected. I would point out that Naturwissenschaften, Thermochimica Acta, and Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., are the highest impact factor journals in which the subject has been covered since the 1989-90 articles in Nature and Science, and they are all recent, since 2002. There is absolutely no reason to ignore the recent publications in Naturwissenschaften, Thermochimica Acta, and Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., because Wikipedia's reliable source criteria requires that they be given a higher priority than work in journals with a lower impact factor. 69.228.220.30 (talk) 22:21, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It's still primary research which has to be weighed up against what the more reliable secondary sources say, regardless of where or when it's published. This is something I intend to bring up in the latest arbcom because it's a source of dispute in fringe science - mainstream science ignores something (such as N-Rays or polywater or homeopathy or cold fusion) and (rightly) requires a higher burden of proof to un-ignore it, so the only sources available become advocate material. I think careful editorial judgment in this case requires acknowledging the burden of proof placed on the field, although that's open to opinion of course. Phil153 (talk) 22:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Please correct me if there are any reasons that I'm wrong, but a primary source which has been peer-reviewed, challenged by critique, and a reply published back-to-back after the critique by editors who have had the opportunity to see the reviewers' comments on both the critique and the reply rises to the level of a secondary, juried source. 69.228.220.30 (talk) 22:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong. Published in a seconday source means published in a secondary source. Additionally, can you confirm that you are not logging out to avoid scrutiny? This page has been the subject of arbitration and one editor was banned from participating here. Jehochman ^Talk 22:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

According to WP:SECONDARY, what is and what is not a secondary source is currently the subject of discussion. I am not logging out to avoid scrutiny. I saw the arbitration case and I think it is a shame that a respectable editor was banned here for no other reason than that he was resisting the deletion of all non-mainstream points of view, even though those points of view are held by the overwhelming number of experimenters who have published in the academic literature over the past decade. It seems that sort of thing has happened here before. I know that all of the incumbents on the arbitration committee who ran for re-election were soundly defeated, and I hope the banned users appeal to the new committee at their earliest possibility. 69.228.220.30 (talk) 23:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

{unindenting} Quoting from earlier in this section, " there is already a series of independent replications since the original publication" --if that is true, then are not those replications secondary sources? (I suppose it depends on whether or not any made it into print yet.) V (talk) 23:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

This is little better than raw data. No way. ~Paul V. Keller 01:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

How about Mosier-Boss et al (2009)? 69.228.207.247 (talk) 01:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I think what makes this technique attractive is its rife possibilities for misinterpretation. ~Paul V. Keller 02:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Does Szpak & Mosier-Boss (2007) "Further evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd/D lattice: emission of charged particles" Naturwissenschaften 94: 511–4 leave any room for misinterpretation? 69.228.201.125 (talk) 13:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Please be more specific. If someone other than the original experimenters do a codeposition experiment and replicate the apparent particle tracks in the plastic, AND publishes it in a reasonably reputable place (which is the part I "supposed" about above), then why is that "little better than raw data"? Isn't "replication" and "reputable publication" the things the detractors here have been insisting on??? I agree that there might still be an "interpretation" issue, regarding whether or not the particle tracks were caused by fusion products, but I would hope you are not planning on insisting that the replicated tracks don't exist at all, or are not similar enough to tracks that appeared in the original codeposition experiment! V (talk) 04:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

What it means is saying you have seen tracks in CR-39 does not confirm that you have seen neutrons, or alpha particles, or energetic ions, or whatever else they are claiming. It is not something that even the most knowledgeable people who make it to this web site can look at and draw a conclusion about. All it shows is a disconnected observation. Saying that the tracks are "not inconsistent with . . ." or "look like tracks from . . ." does not give a conclusion reportable here. ~Paul V. Keller 05:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but it is the job of Wikipedia to say what the researchers said, who got their data peer-reviewed and published. There is also the other published data tabulated at the start of this Section of the Discussion, indicating the tracks appear in a manner that is distinct from background noise and other sources than deuterium-saturated palladium. To the extent this data can-be/has-been replicated, then (A) a description of it belongs in the main article, and (B) the tracks require an explanation. I'd like to know if anyone has put a piece of CR-39 into a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor (briefly!) to get some data on tracks made by known-fusion events, for comparison with the co-deposition data-pits. I recognize some compensation-analysis may be necessary, since a Fusor operates in a vacuum and electrolysis doesn't. But if CR-39 is such potentially important stuff, then I'm all for including a decent description of it and its usual place in particle-detection physics --and I'm also for including a published picture of CR-39 that has been through a Fusor, just so the readers can see how similar (or different) the pits are, to the other picture, and they could maybe also see why the CF researchers claim their pits are caused by fusions (or why they shouldn't make those claims!). (Yes, I know about the OR rules. But I bet a CR-39 picture could be added to the Farnsworth fusor article, and then this article would only need to mention that the other picture exists... or both pictures could be added to the CR-39 article!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Objectivist (talk • contribs) 06:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, the professionals editing the article have decided that skeptical sources need not be peer reviewed or meet any of the other reliable source criteria for physical science articles, but opposing sources from recent high-impact peer reviewed journals must not be included even when they are supported by back-to-back replies to peer reviewed critiques. Because, they are not WP:SECONDARY sources, meaning that even though they include their own background literature surveys approved by the reviewers, they were originally authored by experimenters who have actually made the measurements in question instead of theoreticians who only measure things with their word processor as they contribute to perpetuation of the "mainstream." Welcome to the wonderful world of controversial Wikipedia articles! 69.228.207.247 (talk) 02:36, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

[additional comments from another archived talk section on the same topic follow. GetLinkPrimitiveParams (talk) 14:48, 13 February 2009 (UTC)]

The funny thing is that I had the exact opposite reaction. I started off thinking there might be something to it (lots of smoke for no fire), and every bit of research I read from CF researchers caused me to become more and more skeptical due to the quality and nature of the "evidence". It has all the hallmarks of error and pathological science. As for SPAWAR, http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/index.html is very telling. Phil153 (talk) 00:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly how telling is that personal web page when in fact every single one of the issues it raises is addressed by the peer-reviewed Mosier-Boss et al (2008) "Reply to comment on 'The use of CR-39 in Pd/D co-deposition experiments': a response to Kowalski" Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 44: 291–5, p. 292? Where is the intellectual honesty? 69.228.206.231 (talk) 07:19, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Now, kids, be nice! The web page is interesting, and not conclusive in itself. I don't see that Mosier-Boss et al responded to the issues raised there. They addressed the issues raised by Kowalski. Look, this is the point. If it's fusion, it's extraordinary. Because of the magnitude of the claim, extraordinary evidence is required. CR-39 gets close, so too does reliable extra heat, if it really is that reliable and fast. But with the CR-39, there are obvious possible errors, and chemical damage is one of them. Mosier-Boss claims that chemical damage was ruled out, but nothing can be ruled out in this field, unless it's totally conclusive. Too many variables. It's going to take experiments with tiny changes in variables; my guess is that this work is going on now. How about varying the distance of the material from the electrode and seeing the effect on track density and depth? How about doing the same in the same solution with an americium source? How about a lot of things that I'm sure clever experimenters would think of. Editors and others are right to be skeptical. *Very* skeptical. My only point here is that we shouldn't pretend that skepticism is knowledge, nor that someone coming up with a hypothesis as to how the experimental results could be deceptive means that it has been debunked. One of the results from the web page is quite telling. They were finding SPAWAR-like pits; when they substituted normal water for heavy water, they also got the pits. "In several cases, we also substituted light water for heavy water in the electrolyte. These tests showed no discernible difference in the quantity of SPAWAR pits produced. This seems quite significant as the nuclear behavior of deuterium, at least in high energy experiments, is significantly different than that of protium." Indeed. Anyone know of a secondary source that reliably reviews the work? --Abd (talk) 19:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

[undent] Kowalski incorporated the complaints in that 2007 web page into his critique. The editors of Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. sent his paper to their reviewers. The reviewers contacted SPAWAR with questions. SPAWAR submitted their reply to the editors, who forwarded it to the reviewers, who agreed that it should be published back-to-back as a response to Kowalski's critique. SPAWAR got pits from light water, too -- in the same proportion that deuterium exists in natural light water. The 2007 earthtech.org web page authors repeatedly assume that the pits are alpha particles and compare the pits to those from known alpha particle sources, but Mosier-Boss et al (2009) "Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd–D Co-deposition: evidence of energetic neutrons" Naturwissenschaften 96: 135–142 suggests pretty convincingly that alpha particles are not the source of the pits. 69.228.206.231 (talk) 15:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

If there is going to be so much fuss raised about CR-39 pits, then perhaps an alternate way to detect fusion products should be attempted. I'm thinking about the Super-Kamiokande detector as an example to imitate, heh. V (talk) 18:42, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Szpak & Mosier-Boss (2007) "Further evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd/D lattice: emission of charged particles" Naturwissenschaften 94: 511–4 shows one of the methods of detecting protons. 69.228.197.195 (talk) 08:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, here's where we can start. The reliably-sourced information, from peer-reviewed articles, belongs on Wikipedia, it's sufficiently notable and reliable and verifiable. Where does it belong? It belongs here, but if placing it here would create undue weight, then it belongs in a subarticle. Not a POV fork, simply a subarticle that considers a detail. And we need consensus on this, or, if we don't have consensus, then we need clear statements of each differing position so that further process has something to decide upon, clearly stated, and supported by evidence. Otherwise what we get are shouting matches and endless discussions that go nowhere. I intend to facilitate this process, if it doesn't happen by itself. I'm slow and very busy. Anyone else is welcome to try. I would, myself, create a page in my user space to consider the issues; other approaches would be to create Talk space subpages, but that's not flexible enough, sometimes, unless more than one page is created. Like a "consensus" page and another page that discusses what goes on the consensus page. What goes on the consensus page is what all or nearly all editors agree upon, *plus* attributed opinions where consensus couldn't be found. The consensus page should be NPOV, documenting both agreement and unresolved dispute. --Abd (talk) 15:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Accusing people of intellectual dishonesty is no more useful than accusing editors of POV-pushing; in fact, it's less useful. Both just make editorial disputes into personal ones. Everyone, please, stop trying to put out the fires here by tossing volatile fuel on them. It doesn't work. We very much need the participation of editors with knowledge, including experts, and experts often have a COI, that's connected with what makes them experts, and people with knowledge quite often have strong opinions, which they assert, and some assert it arrogantly. It's a problem, but we address it by being welcoming at the same time as we stand firmly for civility and consensus. We need people who understand the subject -- from all notable POVs -- in order to ensure that our consensus is rooted in knowledge and not just in knee-jerk opinions. --Abd (talk) 15:33, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to echo this comment made by LeadSongDog above: "Abd, which publications are you referring to? We've been down the road before on conference proceedings (not refereed), off-topic journals such as Die Naturwissenschaften (the editorial boards and reviewers can't always competently assess the material's merits)"[10] --Enric Naval (talk) 17:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I responded to this above. It was a preposterous argument. Die Naturwissenschaften is published by the Max Planck Society, which would be as capable of any organization in the world, if not more capable, of assessing an article on, say, physics or electrochemistry or, for that matter, any topic in the natural sciences. As to "down the road before," the road we have been down is long tendentious debates with no resolution, such as this thread, with one side imagining that it "won." No, we will go down this road again, but next time we will make every stop along the way, and we will stop arguing from conclusions. Watch. --Abd (talk) 22:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention, there is more than one kind of intellectual dishonesty. For example, every Religion that ever tried to suppress competition was being intellectually dishonest, acting as if only its own POV was the only one anyone needed to know, without providing any supporting evidence for such actions. A chessplayer who overturns the board is doing even worse, not having the courage to admit, in the normal way, to losing. V (talk) 17:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The religion thing might be ignorance - i suppose - according to the article on intellectual dishonesty - that technically would depend on whether the antagonist was aware of the existence contrary evidence. However it states that someone who has not "performed rigorous due diligence to ensure the truthfulness of the position" can be considered "intellectually dishonest". This would seem to contradict the part of the article which calls this ignorance. Perhaps the article on intellectual dishonesty is being a little intellectually dishonest. Personally, I think the middle bullet on that should go. i would call that rather "intellectual complacency" or something of the sort. i'll bring this up on that article's talk page. Kevin Baas^talk 16:18, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

re CR-39 evidence and blacklisting

[unindent] For those of you who continue to consider CR-39 evidence compelling, you may want to look at the Oriani and Fisher paper from ICCF10 (2003). It can be found at
www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/OrianiRAenergeticc.pdf
That paper shows that CR-39 plates suspended _over_ the electrolyte, in the gas phase, develop pits as well, even with a Ni baffle present to stop any charged particles from making it to the plates from the liquid. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:45, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

What does that tell you beyond that the "evidence for energetic neutrons" is supported? (And that the black-list censorship prevents people on both sides of the debate from being able to cite support for their points; why do the admins think our sensibilities are so fragile that we must be shielded from these sources?) GetLinkPrimitiveParams (talk) 04:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm working on the blacklisting. Because it was requested and confirmed at meta, it's quite difficult to approach, and, in the meantime, if anyone wishes to propose a specific whitelisting for a need page for en.wikipedia, ask me and I may be able to assist. The blacklist issue is complex and is not going to be resolved overnight. One step at a time. We have one whitelisted link now to lenr-canr.org. If no more can be whitelisted, chances of removing the blacklisting approach zero, no matter how flawed the process may have been. (But that also is possible, there is process underway which might result in a delisting.) --Abd (talk) 17:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

One more point. The blacklisting doesn't prevent citing a reliable source, it only prevents linking to a convenience copy of the reliable source. In Talk, if you need to point to a proposed source convenience copy URL, just put it in as text without the http://. The blacklist will then ignore it, but anyone can paste this link into a browser and get the page. In other words, cats may lose their skin through more than one method. --Abd (talk) 17:41, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

On the substance here, note that the paper is a Conference proceeding and doesn't reach to WP:RS (unless possibly as an attributed report or opinion of the authors). However, for our discussion here, this is eminently on-point. Yeah. Neutrons, perhaps, though the source here may be charged particle radiation, as they authors hypothesize, coming from radioactive isotopes in the gas. Shanahan doesn't mention the other reports which show pits on the back of the detectors; the detectors are too thick to allow charged particles to pass through; what is seen is that pit density is drastically reduced, leaving pits that appear to be characteristic of neutrons. That is, folks, we are seeing reports of a smoking gun. Until there is some secondary review, this could only be reported in the article with caution. Charged particle radiation, quite significant by itself, but neutrons? Released products of nuclear transmutation?

What's happening in this experiment is consistent with other reports finding nuclear transformations under proposed cold fusion conditions. That is, low levels of unstable nucleotides, we can hypothesize, are being created and released from the electrode in the emitted gas, these then decay and generate the tracks found on the CR-39 suspended in the emitted gases. --Abd (talk) 17:56, 1 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)

Back to mediation?

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science/Proposed decision#Editors encouraged seems to recommend a return to formal mediation. So for starters can the previous mediation pages be undeleted now, please? GetLinkPrimitiveParams (talk) 09:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

What it said was "Editors in the disputed area are encouraged to seek to engage in formal mediation to help establish consensus when coverage of fringe science in an article or group of articles is under dispute. While mediation is not binding, editors are further encouraged to abide by the results of mediation (and other dispute resolution)."

So is there still some question under dispute that needs mediation, or have we gotten back to serious editing?LeadSongDog (talk) 20:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty of issues, but it takes time. The editor we had most knowledgeable from the profusion side has been topic banned, and one of the most active from the other side, likewise. What is the story about these "previous mediation pages"? Can I get the file names? --Abd (talk) 19:05, 3 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: [11]

[12] 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, [13], 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)

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, and note the result for ScienceApologist. --Abd (talk) 23:56, 4 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)

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.[14]. 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)

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)

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)

(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)

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)