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Hi, folks. A little disambiguation question: there's a Doctor Who novel called Cold Fusion (page at Cold Fusion (Doctor Who)). It's pretty insignificant, but there should be some pointer here towards it, for general disambiguation purposes. Do you think it's better to add it to the existing hatnote, like this:
Or should we create a disambiguation page and just have a standard {{ otheruses}} or {{ otheruses1}} hatnote? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 18:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, after your edits, the summary of the DOE Panel's conclusions does not correlate with the description at 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion. Only the negative aspects are reported. For instance, there is no mention of positive evidence of excess heat, production of 4He, transmutation and other unexplained effects. I'm going to reword to bring this in line with the detailed article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ronnotel ( talk • contribs) 15:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC).
The report concluded that cold fusion is as it was when the original report came out. While sympathetic to continuing efforts to figure out what's being measured, it's by no means an endorsement. Hasn't changed in over 10 years is the key finding. –M T 07:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I find your logic argumentative. The panel's sole purpose was to investigate Cold fusion, the exact topic of this article. Please see WP:AN/I, you may wish to respond to my complaint. Ronnotel 17:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the conclusion of the report:
As such, it is fairly clear that the conclusion is negative towards cold fusion (which was the finding of the 1989 report). To try to spin it any other way is original research. -- ScienceApologist 20:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Noren. Now we can make progress: your arguments are well sourced, and we have a basis for discussion. However, I still disagree with what you said, so let's try to resolve it.
Here is the problem we face: the last paragraphs of Charge 1 and of Charge 2 seem to say different things. The concluding remark of "Charge Element 1" says: "2/3 of the reviewers commenting on Charge Element 1 did not feel the evidence was convincing for low energy nuclear reactions, one found the evidence convincing, and the remainder indicated they were somewhat convinced." Clearly, this is not the same as "the panel did not find evidence for cold fusion", and so is a direct challenge to your argument. So, either the 2 concluding paragraphs are contradicting each other, or there is subtle difference between the 2. We need to resolve this to be able to agree on the lead section.
I'm open to your suggestion to resolve this contradiction. Here is my proposal. When I read the description of the charges again, I see the following difference: the first charge asks "are the evidences convincing ?", the second one asks "are the evidences convincing beyond doubt". Please tell me if you agree, or if you see another difference between the two that can resolve the apparent contradiction.
If we agree that this is the difference, then we would conclude that this is what the panel said about the evidences: 12 reviewers did not feel the evidence was convincing, 5 reviewers found the evidences somewhat convincing, and one reviewer found them convincing beyond doubt. The preponderence was not convinced beyond doubt; several reviewers did not say whether they were convinced beyond doubt. The 2 concluding paragraphs would then make sense again, without contradiction.
Can we agree that this is what the report says about the evidences ? Or do you have an other proposal to make ? Thanks in advance for your reply. Pcarbonn 21:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Did we reach a consensus ? Here is the summary of the discussion. Feel free to adapt to reflect what was said. We'll adapt the lead section afterwards. Pcarbonn 09:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Scienceapologist wrote: "New Energy times is not a reliable source for who is and isn't working on Cold Fusion. Sorry.)"
That's an unsubstantiated, libelous and POV statement. You should be informed of a few facts.
It's editor, Steven Krivit, has attended and reported from the last three international conferences in Cambridge, Marseilles and Yokohama, respectively. From what I read in the New Energy Times magazine, Krivit and the other reporters who have written for New Energy Times, Lietz and Daviss, seem to know just about everybody involved in the field. Krivit's book explains, on page 162, how he collected the data for that chart. His book also provides additional evidence that he knows who's who in cold fusion, through the many personal communications he has had with these researchers.
In addition, New Energy Times has copies of the most recent abstracts from most of the major conferences. If you look through them, you will see the names and affiliations of the researchers who are contributing papers. So you really needn't even rely on New Energy Times if you would care to take the time and the diligence to go through the abstracts yourself.
Krivit has participated in the scientific process - he has presented in multiple science conferences and will be speaking at the APS conference in March. So go ahead and demonstrate the foundation for your assertion that New Energy Times is not a reliable source.
STemplar 06:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
To wit I cannot think of any reliable source for this kind of information. It would be ridiculous to estimate the number of biologists, for example. Jefffire 18:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this article should be either split up or reordered. Every paragraph seems to contain a mix of "FP 89 experiment" "Whats wrong with FP 89" "New navy research" "Whats wrong with the critics of 89". There seems that in every paragraph, both critisism of the FP 89 experiment and the new Navy experiment seem to "slip" in. This whole article need a new structure:
The current state of this article leaves me in a state of cold confusion. 213.39.136.91 03:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I dispute the following lines: "A 1989 panel organized by the U.S. Department of Energy concluded there was no convincing evidence that useful sources of energy would result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion, but was sympathetic to careful funding of additional research to resolve the controversy. A second DOE panel, convened in 2004, reached similar conclusions to the prior panel."
Because the 2004 DOE panel is cited quasi-verbatim in a different context, these sentences imply that the 2004 DOE panel concluded that there was no convincing evidence that useful sources of energy would result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion. This cannot be true, because the question was not asked to the panelists, and that the summary report does not mention this issue anywhere. In my view, the "reached similar conclusions to the prior panel" sentence in the 2004 report must be understood as refering to the 3 questions asked only. Pcarbonn 11:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I dispute the following lines, used in the overview to describe Mosier-Boss and Szpak's results: "In 2006, these experiments have produced evidence of high-energy nuclear reactions concentrated near the probe surface.[2] Based on this work, two other teams have reported similar findings at the American Physical Society meeting of March 2007 (sessions A31 and B31) although interpretations vary.[3]"
The definite phrasing of the first sentence, combined with the offhand phrasing of "although interpretations vary" at the end of the second, suggests that high energy nuclear reactions are a generally accepted fact. However, if you go read the four references (WP's [2], APS A31, APS B31, and WP's [3]) you get a very different picture.
If I may summarize the four references a little glibly, they say:
If Mosier-Boss and Szpak have eliminated the possibility of chemical etching, then those results should be referenced. If not, then the issue is much more in dispute than the article's phrasing would suggest. JohnAspinall 16:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)JohnAspinall
'By 1991, 92 groups of researchers from 10 different countries had reported excess heat, tritium, neutrons or other nuclear effects. [1] Over 3,000 cold fusion papers have been published including about 1,000 in peer-reviewed journals. (ref) LENR-CANR.org In March 1995, Dr. Edmund Storms compiled a list of 21 published papers reporting excess heat. [2] Articles have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Physical Review A, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy. [3]
Now, I find this text not adequately verified by independent sources. Simply enumerating "92 research groups" is meaningless. If I set up a cold fusion lab in my basement, I could make that number higher. Likewise the 3000/1000 papers reference doesn't evaluate the type and style of cold fusion papers. A great many of them may be reporting negative results, so the snowjob implications are not very well-handled by simply stating a raw number. Why should a compilation of 21 published papers be notable for inclusion in this article? Does Storms hold some sort of weight above the normal evaluative scientist? Likewise, why likst the names of the journals that have published articles on cold fusion (positive or negative). This paragraph serves no purpose other than to pull the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting readers. It is not illustrative of the field or the science or even the papers/research it claims to be discussing. -- ScienceApologist 15:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that STemplar has pointed out that the neutrality and the reliability of this paragraph is very much in question. I will remove the paragraph until he can find independent verification (not from New Energy or the Cold Fusion Society) of its claims. -- ScienceApologist 08:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I found this which I thought might be interesting to use: [1], scroll down to no. 13. -- Guinnog 17:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
A spin-off article Cold fusion history was created back in August but it seems to be less developed than the history section of this article. So it might make sense to merge it back in. The alternative would be to really exploit the spin-off article. (note also that History of cold fusion would be a more appropriate title) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pascal.Tesson ( talk • contribs) 17:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC).
ScienceApologist, you say that "According to Wikipedia, however, it is definitely under the purview of WP:FRINGE." as a justification of your deletion of "Articles on cold fusion have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Physical Review A, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy.". Please provide a clear justification to this. Which criteria for fringe do you think cold fusion meets ? And, assuming that cold fusion meets the criteria, please explain why this sentence would have to be removed according to WP:FRINGE Pcarbonn 15:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
it seems to be a prominent cold fusion theory.: www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ChubbTAtheionband.pdf —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kevin Baas ( talk • contribs) 20:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC).
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Cold_fusion
link to FA version: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cold_fusion&oldid=33756791 Kevin Baas talk 22:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
The American Physical Society's March 13–17, 2006, Baltimore, MD session on cold fusion had 13 presentations. [2] Does anyone know how many this year? James S. 23:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
"A 1989 panel organized by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) comprised of scientists with no specific expertise in stochastic chemistry and a vested monetary interest in protecting their own billion dollar research budgets allocated to hot fusion experiments, concluded that there was no convincing evidence that a low energy nuclear reaction had occurred. Ground breaking advances in science in one field often grow out of experimental results in another field, and the breakthrough in cold fusion was no different. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann were world class experts in the field of electrochemistry, and their experimental results in 1989 had wide ranging implications, reaching into even the field of Physics. Billions of dollars have been been utilized in hot fusion research deployed in experiments with substances in heated states such as plasma. The direct threat to the Physics community that the Fleishmann Pons experiment posed resulted in the swift and total repudiation of the scientific reputations of Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons."
Seriously, what in the world is this? I'm pretty sure stating the only reason cold fusion doesn't work is because that there is some sort of hot fusion funding cartel is a bit biased. (added 17:40, 7 March 2007 by 198.214.186.128)
Frostfex, thanks for your input and your interest in improving this article. Please be aware that just because not everyone shares your opinion on how the text of the article should read that we are all skeptics on the subject of cold fusion. If you read the complete article, I think you'll find that considerable effort has gone into to describing the research you refer to in a fair way. The text in the header was debated at some length to reach what all parties felt was largely free from WP:POV. I encourage you to become familiar with WP policies such as using reliable sources, maintaining a neutral voice, and seeking consensus on major changes. Also, it's helpful if you sign your comments with four ~'s so we can more easily read and understand your arguments. Thanks! Ronnotel 19:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Frostrex: First, I'm not a scientist, just an interested editor with some undergraduate physics as are most of the contributors here. Second, to be an effective contributor, it's important to assume good faith on the part of the other editors. Also, please note that the third paragraph of the lead states
which hardly seems like an attempt to minimize the validity of cold fusion. Ronnotel 20:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
A few months back, I suggested that the image of the CR-39 be promoted to the top of the article given it's significance. The consensus was to wait until the research had been formally published in a reviewed source. That has now happened. Any objections? Ronnotel 20:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I looked at the article and the powerpoint file related to this image, and found no assertion by the authors that the image showed cold fusion in action. Therefore, I propose replacing this image with the previous image of a device, or with an image and caption that is more definitively related to cold fusion. Any objections? 209.253.120.205 14:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
The authors do claim that the picture shows hot spots in a cold fusion cell, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it shows cold fusion. If the authors were confident that nuclear reactions were taking place, they could have easily stated that. The image of the device is more directly linked to cold fusion, and more informative for the casual reader. 209.253.120.205 14:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
The infrared image is strongly linked to excess heat, but the authors do not claim that it shows cold fusion. It is also significant that the article does not identify any proposed nuclear reaction and does not include any discussion of detecting either helium or radiation that the cell may be producing. Placing this image so prominently in a "cold fusion" article implies that there is consensus that the image does show cold fusion in action, which is not supported by the present documentation. Therefore, the current article violates wikipedia's NPOV policy and should be changed. The best option would be to replace the image of an experimental cold fusion device. It may be boring, but it would make this a more useful encyclopedia article. 209.253.120.205 03:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
After following the suggestion to look at the first sentence of the article,
I noticed that it was illogical, so I reverted it to an older definition
added 04:58 22 November 2006. Regarding the comment about
taking the title "cold fusion" literally, I plead guilty. This is an
encyclopedia, so we should be taking the titles of the articles literally
unless there is a very good reason not to. Regarding the comment about the
2004 DOE review, this article is not about the 2004 DOE review, it is about
cold fusion. What they reviewed is irrelevant to the definition of cold
fusion, and how the primary image on this page should be chosen. Regarding
the comment that an electrochemical cell image would not illustrate a
nuclear reaction, I answer that the purpose of this article, especially the
introduction, is to help a wide variety of readers quickly find out about
the issue of cold fusion. Regarding the blue&green CR-39 detector image, it
is completely inappropriate to use such an image for the primary image
unless it has more documentation than the linked New Energy Times article.
The primary image of this page should show something important about the consensus of the field, and one of the most indisputable facts of this field is that electrochemical cells are key to most of the experiments. That is why an electrochemical cell is the best candidate. 209.253.120.205 02:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I have reverted the electrochemical cell as the primary image to bring the article closer to NPOV. Placing the CR-39 image at the top of the article seriously misrepresents the consensus in the field. To demonstrate that there is consensus that the CR-39 image shows cold fusion, much more documentation is needed than New Energy Times articles and APS March meeting abstracts. 209.253.120.205 18:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I see that a few people are working hard to improve this page, and noted the following infobox at the top of the page for talk:vitamin C, which is a form you guys might want to emulate:
{{ Maintained}}
--- Wfaxon 15:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
The following line seems dubious: "Sagan sued Apple over the association of his name with what he considered pseudoscience." Could you provide a source ?
This page here reports on what Carl Sagan thought of cold fusion. It does not mention pseudoscience. Pcarbonn 15:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
The page has changed substantially over the last few months, but so has the status of cold fusion in the research community. With the APS announcement and the upcoming ACS panel, there is renewed interest in cold fusion. However, skepticism within the commnunity still remains and it needs to be reported. The main goal of cold fusion advocates is to attempt to convince the scientific community that this line of research is still worth studying -- even after the problems that it had in the past. The article as it is writtent right now is a bit bullish and written from the perspective of a cold fusion advocate rather than a dispassionate reporter on the current state of the subject. As such, I have placed the POV tag on the article and encourage editors to go through and try to identify and fix the problems that exist with the text.
In particular, we need to be clear that cold fusion is still very much fringe science, even though there are more signs of acceptance today than there were even six months ago.
-- ScienceApologist 19:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
The following postulated reaction has been posted as fact that it doesn't emit any EM-radiation: d+d+d+d -> 8Be -> 2 4He.[33]
Is there any credible proof that such a reaction could even in theory not emit any Gammas? I find that extremely hard to believe, since all nuclear reactions emit EM-Radiation of one or the other form and energy level. And [33] is no credible source. It's just painting in the sky of what might be happening. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dio1982 ( talk • contribs) 13:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC).
I second Dio1982's opinion of the unsuitability of [33] as a credible reference. The rhetoric is not that of an objective analysis. I see sarcasm: "Naturally, this work was ignored", pleading: "While the answers given here may not satisfy everyone", and gaps in logic: "if these claims are false ... a large number of highly trained scientists ... can not be trusted to obtain accurate data".
On the other hand, [33] is not a primary source for the postulated four deuteron reaction. That review references its own references 119 and 120. I suspect that should be 120 and 121, which would point at a pair of papers from Takahashi. The Physics Letters A paper is available online, for a fee, and the abstract is free. I'll return to Takahashi's results in a moment.
Even if such a four deuteron reaction existed, it would also be necessary to explain why the gamma-producing two-particle d+d -> p+t , d+d -> n + 3He, and d+d -> 4He were suppressed. Remember, [33] is trying to explain the absence of gamma rays. Any simple statistical model (such as the model underlying Nuclear_cross_section) would indicate that the probability of three deuterons arriving within the required interaction distance at the same time must be less than the probability of two deuterons arriving within the same distance. And similarly, the probability of a four deuteron reaction must be less than the probability of a three deuteron reaction.
Do Takahashi's results support the explanation of a gamma-free, four-deuteron reaction? No. They may even be considered to support the case against it. Takahashi observes a three-deuteron reaction, at a factor of 10^4 less than the expected two-deuteron reactions. So the gamma-producing two-deuteron reactions haven't been suppressed. Now even a factor of 10^4 less is much greater that the simple statistical model would predict, so Takahashi suggests a mechanism (a "channel") whereby the 3 particle reaction could proceed as a pair of 2 particle reactions. That mechanism starts with a plain old two-deuteron reaction. If the excited 4He hangs around for long enough (before giving off its gamma) to meet up with a third deuteron, then the reaction channel proceeds. But you've still got the other 99.99% of excited 4He's that don't meet up with a third deuteron in time, and give off the gamma ray.
The summary is that Takahashi's results do not support the claims that [33] makes of them. [33] is not a credible reference. JohnAspinall 15:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)JohnAspinall
Critics note that great care must be used to prevent contamination by helium naturally present in atmospheric air.[19]
Actually this is blatently false. If heat is generated in measurable quantities (a few kJ), the produced Helium via a mystic D+D->He-4 reaction would be available in quantities which are above air concentration by at least a factor of a hundred. Air has a concentration of only ~2.2*10^-8 mole He/l. This would be like a punch to the face. Dio1982 23:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi. I think the current version of the page is getting very large and difficult to follow. The Mosier-Boss/Spzak experiment is now starting to rack up a significant number of references, and it's (IMO) a significantly different experiment to Pons-Fleischmann, with different experimental specifics and some different "issues", so "Cold fusion" is no longer synonymous with "the Pons-Fleischmann experiment".
In light of this, several sections that are specific to PF now need to be reorganised or subcategorised. We also need a separate section on MB/S. I think that given the size of the article (which will increase with the new MB/S material), it's probably time for [we might want to consider] all the very specific technical stuff about Pons-Fleischmann to be moved back out to a separate article. At some point, when the MB/S material also achieves critical mass (and gets an agreed name), that should probably [might] be exported to a separate page too, with "cold fusion" becoming the generic parent page.
I'll be doing some editing on the page today (05 May 2007). ErkDemon 14:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
That is all I have to say! Excellent read! Bill Sapperton
Maybe we should have an article on Szpak and Mosier-Boss's codeposition technique, since it was really the turning point for reliability and replicability. They've produced a ton of stuff at SPAWAR/SSC, and it's all on lenr-canr.org. 75.35.79.57 20:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
"The 2004 DoE panel identified several areas that could be further studied using appropriate scientific methods."
This sentance in the article suggests that only "inappropriate" methods have been used so far. Is that true? If not it needs to be changed to this -
"The 2004 DoE panel identified several areas that could be further."
I would agree with User:67.188.7.78's removal of the pop culture section. It was becoming undue weight. If someone wants to resurrect, I would suggest breaking it out into a separate article and linking to it. Ronnotel 12:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
The hoax tag that just appeared seems somewhat disingenuous. It was added by a new account with only two other edits. The call for reliable sources is at odds with the copious references to reliable sources cited in the article. I'm going to remove this tag. Before re-adding it, please provide more evidence that this page is a hoax, including why you think that the supporting literature is inadequate. Ronnotel 18:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed this recently-added paragraph:
The referenced article does not talk about "commercial products soon". If it did, some people knowledgeable in the field would have strong reservation (see New Energy Times' investigation about previous claims of D2Fusion). You may also want to know that D2Fusion is being sold to Enwin Resources Inc. [6]
The second sentence would need a reference, as there are many other possible reasons for the increase of Palladium price. Wikipedia is not a place to distribute speculative rumors. Pcarbonn 09:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
A recent anonymous commentator has added a paragraph in the theory section about "the Little effect", and references a US patent issued on April 25, 2005. Will that commentator please supply the patent number so we can reference this properly? Using the US Patent Office's search engine, I am unable to find any matches on patents issued on 4/25/2005 to inventor "Little". JohnAspinall 15:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
A paragraph in the theory section floats a suggestion whose only reference is an archive of a site called "The HalfBakery". The suggestion, which I'll summarize as "conduction band electrons could shield deuterons more than valence band electrons", should at the very least be presented alongside the mainstream physics which would claim to debunk it. I would prefer to see the paragraph removed completely, but if consensus is to debunk alongside the "half baked" suggestion, I believe all the physics is already well described in WP. Essentially:
JohnAspinall 16:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
To User:Pcarbonn... apart from assuming good faith, you would know that I wasn't using "tactics" if you had read my edit summary.
The original text read "More claims of experimental success were reported, primarily in non-mainstream publications" until User:Donreed changed it to "More claims of experimental success were reported, primarily in non-mainstream publications: that is, not in refereed physics journals" here. That User has now been blocked due to hundreds of unhelpful edits. I was simply returning the text to what it originally said.
You, in fact, have strengthened the cold fusion case by changing it from "some researchers reported successes - mostly in non-mainstream publications" to "some researchers reported successes in peer-reviewed journals."
I have reverted your change. In-line citations should be provided to back up the statement that any of those successes were reported in peer-reviewed journals. In that case, I think that the most informative wording would be "some researchers reported successes - mostly in non-mainstream publications, with a few in peer-reviewed journals." -- David Broadfoot ( talk) 09:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was no consensus to move the page, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 03:38, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I suggest to move the page from "cold fusion" to "low energy nuclear reaction" because it is the proper name as the article intro explains. Also, this is the name used by the 2004 DOE panel. Any comments ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 10:42, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I did not expect a WP:POLL to take place. Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion. Many arguments presented above seem very dubious to me, and I ask that they be supported by WP:Reliable sources. I also ask that they be ignored unless properly sourced. Also, the article would still be available from 'cold fusion' after a rename, thanks to a redirect. Pcarbonn ( talk) 09:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for that. I did not think it would be an issue. So, I removed the tags, and here are the statements I find dubious:
Pcarbonn ( talk) 14:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I expect the closing admin will note both my comments and yours, but I doubt they will discount my comments as you request. But we like to work towards consensus here. So here's my suggestion for a way forward: Now that you've seen what others think of the rename proposal, do you think there's any way you can work towards achieving a rough consensus in support of your view? That should be your goal. Personally I doubt it's achievable, but I could be wrong there. However I'm quite sure that trying to unilaterally impose a whole new set of rules to govern these discussions won't do it. That's been tried before. Andrewa ( talk) 12:45, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Pcarbonn, your edits imply that the Fleischmann-Pons excess heat effects have been credibly replicated. I am highly doubtful, since if that were true, where are the patents and followup peer-reviewed papers optimizing the effect? Where are the devices on sale? What is more likely is that researchers perform different calorimeter experiments that, while they might produce transitory excess heat effects, also fail to produce practical devices. Even if recent, higher quality experiments show promising data, my phrasing is still correct: the failure to replicate the results of the 1989 announcement resulted in cold fusion gaining a reputation as flawed science. If there is a credible report that shows that electrochemical activity causes heat that is most likely due to nuclear reactions, please post it. 209.253.120.205 ( talk) 19:07, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I certainly do want to produce the best encyclopedia possible. To me, this means that cold fusion should be presented as an on-going scientific controversy, not as a topic that has been closed long ago. The 2004 DOE report does recommend further research, after all. The panel was evenly split on the evidence of excess heat: one cannot ignore that. Let's avoid injecting our own personal theory. I'm open to any suggestions to improve the intro in that direction. Pcarbonn ( talk) 22:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Let me add this. You asked for the references for the peer-reviewed journals, and I provided them. You were right to request that. After all, the purpose of wikipedia is to inform, and to do that, "articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" (quote from WP:reliable sources). So, if you hear someone say : "cold fusion is bullocks", you should question him: did he read any of the paper reporting excess heat ? Did he check the facts as extensively as the peers reviewing an article before publication ? Did he spend the time that the DOE panelists spent on looking at the evidence ? If he has, please ask him to publish a paper to document his view. Pcarbonn ( talk) 07:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Please provide a quote supporting your view that these are "shitty peer-review journals". Please explain why Wikipedia would consider these journals as unreliable sources. Please provide quotes from journals that you feel are superior and that would say that the replications have failed, for one reason or another. Pcarbonn ( talk) 20:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Please stop polluting this discussion with your own opinion: they are irrelevant. If I find a WP policy that allows editors to remove irrelevant statements from talk pages, I will remove your statements. Wikipedia is based on facts, not opinion. Please provide quote supporting your view that "What is clear is that this view is being marginalized even as it tries to mitigate its own marginalization". This is not a café: we are writing a reliable encyclopedia. Pcarbonn ( talk) 20:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, in fact, there is a policy allowing one to "Delete material not relevant to improving the article (per the above subsection)" See here. I intend to apply it from now on. Pcarbonn ( talk) 21:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The core of the issue is this: please provide evidence why Wikipedia should consider these journals and the 2004 DOE panel as unreliable sources. Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I have now proposed the following sentence in the intro: "Cold fusion quickly gained a reputation as an example of pathological science after attempts to replicate the effect were unsuccessful." Is the intro OK now ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 16:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The following bibliography entry has been removed, on the ground that it is not a reliable source:
Presumably, it is on the ground that it is self-publishing. Yet, WP policy says: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Mizuno meet this requirement: he has published relevant work in the peer-reviewed Jpn. J. Appl. Phys:
I therefore propose to add it back. Pcarbonn ( talk) 19:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I have removed a number of self-published books from the reference section. In order to include a self-published book we must establish that it has notability outside of the pro-cold fusion community. Even a negative review will suffice. Please see WP:FRINGE. ScienceApologist ( talk) 19:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Here is the guideline for the bibliography section: "Put under this header in a bulleted list that should usually be alphabetized, any books, articles, web pages, et cetera that you recommend as further reading, useful background, or sources of further information to readers." There is no requirement for notability. I will thus revert your change, as the reason for your change is not valid. Pcarbonn ( talk) 21:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Please clarify the substance of your complaint, in view of the guideline for bibliographies. Please clarify why you add "outside of the pro-cold fusion community" when you talk about notability (even if notability is not a requirement). What is the pro-cold fusion community anyway ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. Please clarify the substance of your complaint, in view of the guideline for bibliographies. I do accept that some of the websites you deleted are not recommended reading. I question your position that the books you deleted are not "further reading, useful background, or sources of further information to readers", especially when the author has been published in a neutral, peer-reviewed journal. Pcarbonn ( talk) 16:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Here is what WP:verifiability says on self-published sources: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I argue that Mizuno meets the requirements for a source to be quoted on CF, and can thus be recommended as further reading on this subject. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
He has published many papers on cold fusion, some in non-mainstream papers, others in neutral peer-review journal. He has not one but several papers in JJAP, and one in "Int. J. Soc. Mat. Eng. Resources", titled "Confirmation of the changes of isotopic distribution for the elements on palladium cathode after strong electrolysis in D2O solutions". See bibliography here. Wouldn't these qualify ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 20:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Who said that his book was a review ?? He is an expert in the field, as shown by his numerous publications. Why would a book he writes on his subject not be recommendable ?? Also, let's be careful to avoid Anglo-American focus and systematic bias Pcarbonn ( talk) 09:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I cannot answer that question, but this is putting a very high criteria for a "See also" section. Could you provide notable reviews for the book that are still in the bibliography section ? If so, please do it. I don't see why we would need to apply double standard in a science that is not fringe, but a valid scientific controversy. Pcarbonn ( talk) 16:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I don't see why we would apply double standard even if it was fringe. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
In addition, I have an issue of NPOV in the current bibliography, because of undue weight. The balance of papers in peer-reviewed journals is largely in favor of the existence of an anomalous phenomena; scientific papers that challenge its existence are almost non-existent. The bibliography should reflect that. Pcarbonn ( talk) 19:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I actually think the references and bibliography look pretty good. They list articles and magazines which report cold fusion-related success, as well as articles and books critical of cold fusion's prospects. I certainly don't see any reason to remove any of the books from the list.
209.253.120.205 (
talk) 23:11, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I just heard about the discussion happening here. Looking over it reveals to me that ScienceApologist did a good job raising the citation standards on this article, but is now being a tyrant by trying to extend his 'victory' inappropriately. You fought a good fight, stop being belligerent. Shpoffo ( talk) 06:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's the deal: There are a lot of books out there about a lot of subjects. Let's keep the books that Wikipedia references in controversial articles of the highest quality and published by groups that are univerisally considered respectable. That means avoiding publishing outfits such as Infinite Energy Press, Pacific Oaks Press, and Oak Grove Press as these are simply vanity publishing companies. Such companies have no consistent distribution process, no respect within the reference community, nor is there any real visibility for the books that they publish outside the singular fringe communities that are interested in the subject of cold fusion. ScienceApologist 16:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Although the popular media have referred to it as Pons-Fleischmann for quite some time now, it seems that very few people realize that there was a third author (Hawkins). Perhaps luckily for him, his name was left off the original paper, but this was corrected in the errata. See page 8 of this document. I believe Hawkins should be discussed in this article, alongside Pons and Fleischmann. Thoughts? Ben Hocking ( talk| contribs) 18:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
1) [8] Cornell collection on Cold Fusion.
2) Above reference has Steven Jones research on muon-catalyzed fusion which causes the deuterium nuclei to approach the neutron capture radius of deuterium and fuse. "submitted their proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy, which asked nuclear physicist Steven Jones at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, to review it. Jones had been one of the leaders in research on muon-catalyzed fusion (the "well-known" form of room temperature fusion) throughout the 1980s, but he was now working on new ways of creating fusion through electrolysis--what he called "piezonuclear fusion." Though Jones had been working on piezonuclear fusion since 1986, only by the fall of 1988 had his team developed a neutron detector sufficiently sensitive to measure the low levels of neutrons produced by his experiments. Pons and Fleischmann, who said they had begun working on their electrochemical experiments around 1984 and had been funding the research from their own pockets, also reinvigorated their research program in the fall of 1988, hiring one of Pons's graduate students, Marvin Hawkins, to design, build, and run new cells and to begin to study the nuclear aspects of their apparatus."
3) My experience ranges from Contract Testing Lab to Plating Chemist. Occam's Razor. The conditions of reaction contradict intent. Common plating problem is hydrogen injected into metal lattice weakening it. High hydrogen ion concentration, pH=-2 (dilute sulfuric acid), is most favorable for generating hydrogen. Lithium Hydroxide solution, pH=14, has very low hydrogen concentration. Raising cell voltage to create the "required" minimum Deuterium flux at the Palladium surface would actually drive Lithium into the Palladium. Lithium 6 isotope has a neutron absorbtion radius much larger than Deuterium. The reaction product Li 7m (metastable, excess energy) gives alpha plus Tritium (this is DOE breeder reactor formula for tritium production). Li 7 + neutron > Li 8 > (Be 8) > 2 alpha. The Deuterium reaction is reported to work with Lithium Hydroxide but not Sodium Hydroxide, although Borate (Boron 10 has a huge neutron capture radius) improves the reaction?
4) Palladium disks used to purify hi pressure hydrogen for GC-FID analysis. Palladium disk is alloyed with 5% Silver because pure Palladium shatters after reacts with Hydrogen with acompanying phase change.
5) By the way Be 8 decomposition does not generate a gamma because the alpha are emitted in opposite directions therefore all the energy of reaction.
Shjacks45 ( talk) 08:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
From the requested move discussion section above:
and above that:
This was all as follow-up to Pcarbonn's suggestion that my vote in the rename survey should be ignored unless properly sourced. This most recent request doesn't seem to be about the rename, so let's have a new section.
I don't think there's anything in these rules that should encourage one party in a heated discussion to unilaterally delete comments made by another. I'd recommend that you look beyond what is allowed. Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are designed to work towards consensus, and don't work well at all when winning an argument becomes the objective, however correct the cause may be. You might also look at User:Andrewa/creed for where I'm coming from in all of this. Andrewa ( talk) 15:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I dispute the presentation of the Widom Larsen theory as using conventional quantum mechanics. In mainstream physics, so-called heavy electrons appear in the theory of heavy electron superconductors. I believe (but I welcome expert guidance here) that the "heavy" electron is a calculational artifact, designed to express the dynamics of the collective motion of electrons. In some ways it is similar to the reduced_mass of classical dynamics. I do not believe that any mainstream physics publication has ever suggested that a single electron, the particle that would participate in Widom and Larsen's proposed reaction, ever gains mass. JohnAspinall 20:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Information and relevance of nuclear transmutations with unnatural isotope ratios have been suppressed in this article. There are other problems I will address over time. Ron Marshall
In October of 2006 the cold fusion article was trashed by self appointed censors of science in order to suppress information about transmutation and other positive evidence. The only references in the current article are "Although there appears to be evidence of anomalous transmutations and isotope shifts near the cathode surface in some experiments, cold fusion researchers generally consider that these anomalies are not the ash associated with the primary excess heat effect.[21]" and "To address the nuclear products issue, and because transmutations products have been reported, it has been suggested that fusion occurs between one or more deuterium and palladium, and is followed by a fission of the resulting nucleus."
The first remark is misleading and the second is inadequate.
Many experimenters have found transmutations with unnatural isotope ratios since 1992. Usually the result produces several elements spread over the atomic weight scale. Some experiments show direct conversion from one element to another. The unnatural isotope ratio proves that the result cannot be caused by contamination. A transmutation is a nuclear reaction. Transmutations prove that nuclear reactions are happening in cold fusion experiments beyond a reasonable doubt. This is true whether or not transmutations are the primary source of heat. Ron Marshall 19:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC) Ron Marshall
I will provide links, however a major part of the evidence is the state of the article at this point. This statement does not look logical to me "although I deem your statements nonsensical at the moment, because the presence of radioactivity in an experiment in no way implies fusion". Radioactivity could imply fusion. Whether or not deuterium fusion is going on is one question. Whether or not any nuclear reaction is going on is another question. When an element is changed to another element protons are added or removed from the nucleus. You change a nucleus and you have a nuclear reaction by definition. Changing an isotope means adding or removing neutrons, also a nuclear reaction. The new element could be radioactive when the old element was not. The new element could be not radioactive when the old element was radioactive. Both these cases have been observed. It has been the claim of skeptics from the beginning that no nuclear reactions are occurring in cold fusion experiments. The skeptics have been proven wrong in this case. No scientific case can be made for suppressing the evidence of nuclear transmutations or the conclusion this evidence points to. Ron Marshall ( talk) 21:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The cold fusion article as of 06:09, 29 September 2006 is shown in the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cold_fusion&oldid=78453163 before it was trashed by ScienceApologist and others.
The nuclear transmutations section:
Nuclear transmutations have been reported in many cold fusion experiments since 1992. These reactions (which may be a nuclear fusion or nuclear fission reaction) result in the transformation of a chemical element into another. If one accepts that nuclear transmutations are in fact observed in these experiments, he would have to accept that nuclear reactions take place in cold fusion experiments. He would also have to accept that an apparently enormous Coulomb barrier can be overcome, and that the released energy can be converted to heat.
Tadahiko Mizuno is a prominent nuclear transmutation experimenter, and was among the first to contribute several papers and a book on the subject. [5] [6]
Nuclear transmutation experiments have been reviewed by Dr. Miley. [7], a recognized researcher in "Hot Fusion" for his contributions to Inertial electrostatic confinement. [8] He reports that several dozen laboratories are studying these effects. Some experiments result in the creation of only a few elements, while others result in a wide variety of elements from the periodic table. Calcium, copper, zinc, and iron were the most commonly reported elements. Lanthanides were also found: this is significant since they are unlikely to enter as impurities. In addition, the isotopic ratios of the observed elements differ from their natural isotopic ratio or natural abundance. Many elements have multiple isotopes and the percentages of the different isotopes are constant on earth within one tenth of one percent. In general it requires gaseous diffusion, thermal diffusion, electromagnetic separation or other exotic processes of isotope separation or a nuclear reaction to change an element from its natural isotope ratio. The presence of an unnatural isotope ratio makes contamination an implausible explanation. Some experiments reported both transmutations and excess heat, but the correlation between the two effects has not been established. Radiations have also been reported. Miley also reviews possible theories to explain these observations. [9] Ron Marshall ( talk) 03:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
So far the clearest evidence for transmutation has come from an experiment made by Iwamura and associates, and published in 2002 in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics (one of the top physics journals in Japan). [10] Instead of using electrolysis, they forced deuterium gas to permeate through a thin layer of caesium (also known as cesium) deposited on calcium oxide and palladium, while periodically analyzing the nature of the surface through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. As the deuterium gas permeated over a period of a week, the amount of caesium progressively decreased while the amount of praseodymium increased, so that caesium appeared to be transmuted into praseodymium. When caesium was replaced by strontium, it was transmuted into molybdenum with anomalous isotopic composition. In both cases this represents an addition of four deuterium nuclei to the original element. They have produced these results six times, and reproducibility was good. The energy released by these transmutations was too low to be observed as heat. No gamma rays were observed. When the calcium oxide was removed or when the deuterium gas was replaced by hydrogen, no transmutation was observed. The authors analyzed, and then rejected, the possibility to explain these various observations by contaminations or migration of impurities from the palladium interior. The experiment was replicated by researchers from Osaka University using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry to analyze the nature of the surface (the Pd complex samples were provided by Iwamura). [11]
In later similar experiments by Iwamura Barium 138 was transmuted to Samarium 150 and Barium 137 was transmuted into Samarium 149. The Barium 138 experiment used a natural isotope ratio of Barium. The Barium 137 experiment used a Barium 137 enriched isotope ratio. These transmutations represent an addition of six deuterium nuclei. [12]
While recognizing the quality of the experiment, a 2004 DOE panelist said that, from a nuclear physics perspective, such conclusions of transmutations are "not to be believed". Fusing 2 deuterons is difficult enough; merging four deuterons with a heavy nucleus such as Palladium [ sic] is not to be believed, especially when no evidence is presented for any nuclear products with intermediate atomic mass such as Yttrium, Zirconium, and Niobium. The panelist suggested that the observation could be explained by the migration of the anomalous elements from the interior of the Palladium. [13]
Cold fusion researchers responded that such migration is not possible:
They say that, since the initial element disappears, the "migration explanation" would imply that the element applied to the surface migrates toward the interior, while the anomalous element migrates in the opposite direction toward the surface. This would violate as many expected behaviors as does cold fusion but in a different field of science: therefore, the Iwamura results justify additional research to understand what's happening. They also said such explanations are mere hand waving, and that this kind of reasoning is typical of most reviews. [14]
Bush and Eagleton have reported the appearance of radioactive isotopes with an average half-life of 3.8 days in electrolytic cells, an observation that is difficult to explain by contamination or migration. [15]
Attempts to find at least partial theoretical explanations are being made by Takahashi and others. One proposal by Takahashi to explain the wide range of elements generated is that fission of palladium is initiated by high energy photons, and suggests potential applications in the treatment of nuclear wastes by transmutation. [16] [17]
The current article should contain a summary on nuclear transmutations in the introduction and a section on nuclear transmutations. Ron Marshall ( talk) 04:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
We need a cite-able reference for the Mitchell Swartz theory. The reference given is to a 1955 Phys Rev article. JohnAspinall 15:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
There are a lot of problems with the following text:
These theories are not only "contrary" to conventional physics: there are observations available which show them to be incorrect. In particular, the idea that a neutron with its extremely short lifetime can be involved in low-density fusion at low temperatures is easy to refute with a back of the envelope calculation where you take the fusion cross-section as roughly that of the nucleus, multiplied by the density of the material (assuming it to be all neutrons and nuclei) and multiplying that by the velocity of the particles (assuming roughly that v is on the order of kT/m) doing this yields about one contact per 105 seconds which is much larger than the hundreds of seconds that neutrons can survive. Polyneutrons have zero mainstream support and energy levels below ground is patent pseudoscience. Why are we including such garbage in the article?
This paragraph is at least slightly more plausible, but still suffers from presentation of ideas that are really far out there without proper contextualization.
The only source for this is from Infinte Energy magazine (not a reliable source). I suggest removing the entire speculative paragraph as it represents original research.
In fact, all these paragraphs are very close to original research and I have therefore removed them from the article.
ScienceApologist 20:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure, but it looks like some of the good (peer reviewed) suggestions were removed and the pseudo science ones were left in.
Look at this list from a month ago. That is more acceptable, minus a few offending bullet points, is it not?
MigFP 20:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC) sock
This site describes a book on heavy electrons http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/EngineeringTechnology/MaterialsScience/?view=usa&ci=019851767X Ron Marshall ( talk) 21:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The article contained a sentence 'the US Patent Office has approved a patent relating to cold fusion'. The patent cited is about an improved electrolysis device. It is not related to cold fusion, and so I have removed the reference. User:Pcarbonn has disputed this based on his reading of the patent ( here). While the patent description references various cold fusion articles, the term 'fusion' occurs nowhere in the patent itself, which refers only to electrolysis. Claiming that this is the Patent Office approving something related to cold fusion is like saying that patenting a better magnetic alloy is related to perpetual motion. Michaelbusch ( talk) 22:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Sample text: "2. Description of the Related Art
Since 1989, scientists have demonstrated that liquid and gaseous electrolysis processes, though not yet completely understood, may be able to address future heating and electrical power requirements. For example, it has been readily demonstrated that electrolysis of many fluids results in heat generation that can be employed for other purposes, e.g., heating or generation of electricity.
A growing need has developed for compact, reliable, rugged and self-contained power sources providing heat and/or electricity in applications such as mobile vehicles, trailers, and equipment support units. There is a concurrent need for reliable, rugged and self-contained power sources providing heat and/or electricity for larger stationary power requirements. A sense of urgency for such new power sources has resulted from the realization that fossil fuels are in limited supply. It will be appreciated that nuclear fission power plants are not an acceptable alternative due to the dangers associated with uncontrolled releases of fission products and the enormous environmental and political problems associated with waste disposal.
Early attempts to develop the needed energy production apparatus focused on energy production using nuclear batteries. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,290,522; 3,409,820, and 4,835,433, which patents are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. A radiation source was required, and radiation from this source which was absorbed in a potential barrier, e.g., p-n-p junction or metal-semiconductor contact, gave rise to electron-hole pairs that flowed as electricity due to the beta voltaic or Volta effect. Efficiencies on the order of about 25% were demonstrated.
In their now famous (or infamous) paper, Pons and Fleischmann reported excess heat in heavy water, palladium apparatus. See Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, "Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium," submitted to the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Mar. 11, 1989. Due to the amount of heat produced per unit volume of cathode material, the energy measured in these types of apparatus has generally been considered to be from a nuclear process. Measurements of helium and tritium produced have given credibility to methods where heat is produced.
Recently, engineered devices based upon these results have been built with the objective of investigating the production of heat and by-products over extended periods of time. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,273,635 and 5,318,675, which patents are incorporated herein for all purposes, as well as Great Britain Patent No. 2 231 195, EP 0 568 118 and WO95/20816 have been granted for or described such devices, respectively. As a result, problems with the state of the art of methods of liquid and gaseous electrolysis have begun to be addressed by investigators with improved consistency. It will also be appreciated that problems associated with such systems include: hydrogen recombination with oxygen, with the potential for explosion; the relatively slow loading of hydrogen into cathodes; inefficient designs; and, the potential dangers of loaded, pressurized bulk material." Ron Marshall ( talk) 23:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
For information, this discussion is about this diff. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
There is a disagreement on the relevance of this paragraph:
This paragraph is sourced by a reliable, notable source: the 2004 DOE panel. It would not be difficult to show many other sources discussing the lack of a theory as a reason to reject cold fusion. So why do you want it remove ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 22:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I have now started a list of deletion of properly sourced statements done by Michaelbusch on his talk page. Feel free to add comment there on his pattern of behavior. Pcarbonn ( talk) 06:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Please note that I have also raised a wikiquette alert. Pcarbonn ( talk) 06:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
For the benefit of clarity, here is the full source for that statement:
"Cold fusion research : A Report of the Energy Research Advisory Board to the United States Department of Energy". 1989. Retrieved 2007-11-21. "Nuclear fusion at room temperature, of the type discussed in this report, would be contrary to all understanding gained of nuclear reactions in the last half century; it would require the invention of an entirely new nuclear process"" and "the failure of a theory to account for cold fusion can be discounted on the grounds that the correct explanation and theory has not been provided
Pcarbonn (
talk) 06:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Please do not misquote the 2004 DOE panel. Here is the full quote:
I don't see how it could ever support the view that "cold fusion can be discounted because no theory accounting for it has been developed". Please provide adequate quotes in support of your view. Pcarbonn ( talk) 14:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Not so. Here is how the sentence must be understood in its context: 'Likewise the failure of Quantum Mechanics to account for cold fusion can be discounted on the grounds that the correct explanation and theory has not been provided.'. Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC) This clearly says that "the failure of Quantum Mechanics to account for cold fusion can be discounted". Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
In addition, the principle that "the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss experimental evidence" is the basis of the scientific method. Arguing the contrary puts you in the WP:Fringe of science. Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I really don't understand how you could ever come to this conclusion by neutrally reading the quoted statement or the report. I have created a request for comment below. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Michaelbusch, ScienceApologist, could you tell us whether you would accept mediation on this issue ? Thanks. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
(undent)Ron, you are becoming increasingly shrill and adding nothing to the discussion. According to talk page guidelines, we are here to discuss the article not complain about the cabal censoring your favorite pet ideas. This kind of rhetoric will get us nowhere and your inflammatory edits that try to make a point are also not appreciated. Please cease this behavior at once. ScienceApologist ( talk) 19:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Michaelbusch, or someone, keeps deleting important books about cold fusion. Michaelbusch asks: "please explain why these particular references are required." Reasons:
Experts in cold fusion ranging from Storms & Bockris to Arthur C. Clarke recommended these books, and wrote forwards & introductions to the books.
Mallove was published by Wiley, one of the largest and most respected technical publishers. It was widely reviewed and nominated for a Pulitzer prize. Mallove himself played a key role in the history of cold fusion. Mallove purchased the rights to the book and reprinted it, partly because he needed the income, which was considerable.
Dozens of experts contributed to Beaudette. The University of Utah asked for, and accepted, his papers, interviews and the manuscript of this book.
Mizuno is one of Japan's leading cold fusion scientists and electrochemists. He has published over 50 papers, mainly in Japanese, about several different aspects of electrochemistry, including cold fusion. The Japanese edition of this book has sold tens of thousands of copies and the publisher asked him to write a second book, which he did. (It has not been translated into English.)
Contrary to your assertions above, these are not in any sense "self published" books. They were all professional edited and they have all sold thousands of copies.
The fact that you ask why these books are important tells me that you are unfamiliar with the field. Have you even read these books? There are roughly 2,500 researchers in cold fusion listed in the LENR-CANR database. I have met or worked with hundreds of them. I am sure that most of them are familiar with these books, and consider these books important. If you are not an expert in cold fusion, you have no business second-guessing them. Whether you think cold fusion is real or not has no bearing on this issue. If this article was about the Flat Earth theory it would include books that most Flat Earth believers consider important.
PLEASE STOP VANDALIZING THIS PAGE!
- Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Let me add that I have several other books on cold fusion, both pro and con, that do not merit listing in this bibliography for the reasons cited by Michaelbusch; i.e. they are obscure or self-published. Some are pretty good, but obscure. In other words, Michaelbusch's standards for exclusion are reasonable but they do not apply to the books he excluded.
- Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
You wrote:
"If you can provide us with evidence that the references that have been removed are cited in mainstream publications or have received enough notability to make them important for consideration . . ."
I did that! The first message in this section lists the reasons. U. Utah established a special collection for Beaudette's papers and manuscripts. Mallove was reviewed in the New York Times and elsewhere and nominated for a Pulitzer. The forwards and reviews are written by important people such as Clarke. What more do you want? Do the authors have to win a Nobel Prize in literature?
Speaking of which, three of the cold fusion authors do have Nobel laureates, albeit in physics not literature. You call this a "fringe community" but you have no objective basis for saying that. That designation is absurd. There are, as I said, 2,500 authors, and they probably include a large fraction of the world's electrochemists. Authors in our library include Heinz Gerischer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin; Dr. P. K. Iyengar, director of BARC and later chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission; Prof. Melvin Miles, Fellow of China Lake; a retired member of the French Atomic Energy Commission; three of the editors of major plasma fusion journals that I mentioned previously, and many top researchers from U.S. national laboratories. Who the hell are you to claim this is a "fringe community"?!? YOU are the fringe element here! Cold fusion is mainstream. It was replicated in hundreds of labs such as Los Alamos and BARC, and these replications were published in some of the world's top peer-reviewed journals.
Peer-reviewed replications are the only standard of importance in science. Not your opinion or your arbitrary exclusion. You are not a journal editor. The Jap. J. of Applied Physics is Japan's number one journal of physics. It published several of Mizuno's papers (as author and co-author). It published a special issue devoted to cold fusion. His two books were published by one of Japan's largest academic publishers. Therefore, Mizuno is important. What standard do you apply that makes him unimportant? An ouija board?
- Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 15:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
You wrote: "you need to address the fact that the books themselves have not received recognition." Look, for crying out loud, do you speak language? The books HAVE -- I repeat HAVE -- received recognition. They have been nominated for major prizes, reviewed in major newspapers, and sold in much higher numbers than most academic books. They have been praised by some of the most prestigious scientists in the world, and attacked by some of the leading opponents of cold fusion. The original manuscript of one has been acquired by U. Utah, which is one of the largest university libraries in the world, and the place where cold fusion was discovered. What more can you ask for?!? What standards do you have in mind? Are you expecting an endorsement from the Scientific American? No doubt you have dreamed up some new, arbitrary standard of "recognition." You should at least tell us how far you have moved the goalposts, and in which direction. No one else uses your imaginary standards of excellence, so please tell us what they are.
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 19:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Ah. I get it. You have declared John Wiley & Sons and Kougakusha to be "vanity presses." They are among the biggest publishers in the world, but not big enough for you. That's hilarious. Why don't you dream up some more outrageous and arbitrary reasons to censor information you don't like?
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 19:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I repeat, Mallove was published by Wiley, and then reprinted by Infinite Energy Press. (That was actually a gift from the Wiley editor to Mallove, because it was a major source of income for him.) Mizuno was published by Kougakusha, and then translated by me, and reprinted by Infinite Energy Press with permission from Kougakusha. Kougakasha does not publish in English. A translation is a reprint. That is to say, publishers and authors usually get royalties from English to Japanese translations, and Infinite Energy pays royalties to Mizuno, not to the translator. I don't know if they pay Kougakusha or not.
In any case, whether these books are published by obscure publishers or major ones, the consensus of opinion by people on both sides of the debate is that these books are important. Supporters recommend these books; skeptics attack them by name; and skeptics like you frantically try to erase them. That proves they are important.
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 21:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Note that the
creation science Wikipedia article includes 17 books by creationists. They come from publishers such as Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, and from several obscure publishers I have never heard of. I think that creationism is bogus science, and I expect ScienceApologist agrees. But neither of us has any right to barge into that article, declare that "Answers in Genesis" is not a legitimate publisher, and start erasing titles. We do not get to decide who is important or legitimate in creationism. Only the creationists do. Obviously they are a "fringe science" but again, that does not give us the right to disrupt their presentation or insert our opinions. That article is about creationism, not what Jed and Mr. Apologist think of creationism.
Note that the creationist bibliography is split between creationist and anti-creationist books. Perhaps we should split the cold fusion bibliography, for clarity.
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 22:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
You need to read the Wikipedia policies on civility and no personal attacks. Currently you are not engaging in proper talk page etiquette and will quickly find yourself losing editing privileges if you keep up this kind of advocacy. ScienceApologist ( talk) 16:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I think this conversation is over. Unless someone has some new information as to the relevance of these few books, I think we should stop with this back-and-forth. We are here to write an encyclopedia, not to decide who is censoring whom. ScienceApologist ( talk) 20:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Editors have conflicting view on it. Please help resolve the dispute. This RFC continues a discussion started here. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:17, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
The title of this section makes no sense, for two reasons:
1. Lack of theory is never a valid reason to reject replicated experimental results. That violates the scientific method at the most fundamental level. When theory conflicts with experiment, theory always yields.
2. The 2004 DoE panel never asserted anything like this. Very few scientists are so ignorant of the scientific method that they would claim this. The only opponent of cold fusion who says this is John Huizenga. The others all claim, falsely, that the effect was never replicated. They pretend that hundreds of peer-reviewed papers do not exist. This is what a few members of the DoE review panel did.
Someguy wrote: "Lack of a theory is a perfectly good reason to dismiss something that's never been observed." That is true, but it has no bearing on this discussion, because cold fusion has been observed thousands of times in hundreds of laboratories, often at very high signal to noise ratios.
I see the level of confusion and scientific illiteracy here remains as high as ever. People who have read nothing and who know nothing feel they have a solemn obligation to trash research and erase the titles of books written by actual scientists about the actual subject. I should stop wasting my time here. I have to hand it to the supporters of cold fusion, who have done a remarkable job holding off the forces of ignorance and censorship, but I still feel it is a futile task. If you want to learn about cold fusion, or any other science, you need to go to legitimate sources of information such as peer-reviewed journals and the books by Storms, Beaudette and the others that the fanatics here are so anxious to erase.
- Jed Rothwell
My quick glance at the article failed to find much significant information about what cold fusion is, which is not surprising since the DOE said:
stated that the effects are not repeatable, the magnitude of the effect has not increased in over a decade of work, and that many of the reported experiments were not well documented.
I hesitate to call this a "controversy", although there is a certainly a scientific dispute. Perhaps this is merely protoscience; I hope so, because cheap energy would benefit the third world tremendously.
But I think what our readers are looking for is research about the "cold fusion" elusive effect. We should be fair to the possibility that it can be / has been produced, while not exaggerating anything. If the mainstream of physics is saying things like, "Sorry, gentlemen, we simply cannot reproduce your results", then the burden is on the proponents. Anyway, we can be neutral here in the contributor club, can't we? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 00:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I know it's extreme, but I have reverted this to the 2004 Featured Article version. The amount of edit warring and POV-pushing that has cgone on here is breathtaking, the hundreds of to-and-fro edits have fragmented the article while obscuring the clarity that was in the original. It would be good, I think, to work back up from this adding new published research available since 2004, measuring every source and sentence against WP:NPOV and WP:RS. What we don't need is conflicted editors promoting thier own commercial interests, so I'm going to ask that Jed Rothwell restrict himself to short, factual statements on this discussion page and resist the temptation to indulge in lengthy segues. Just the facts, please, and only those facts available in rock-solid sources. Guy ( Help!) 20:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest to start from the last stable version, ie. something like this one of end september. It is much expanded compared to the FA, and provides a lot of sources. It was the result of intense discussions, and has been pretty stable for a long time: presumably, it is not so controversial.
If this is not agreable, could we at least use some sections from it, such as the history ? Thanks in advance. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, I do not think you wood come off all them well in a comparison of ethics. Ron Marshall ( talk) 22:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Would you accept a mediation on the following point of dispute: "Which version should we continue editing from: the Featured Article of 2004, or a more recent one, eg. this one" ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 23:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
So, do you accept mediation ? I would hope that the committee will reestablish the principle that wikipedia is based on facts, not opinions, that it will request you to provide sources for your opinions, and that it will be sensitive to the fact that the work of dozens of editors doing two thousands edits over the last 3 years to reflect the latest developments in the field and to provide nearly 100 reliable sources on the subject, after considerable debates on how best to present the subject (see archives), cannot be deleted by the whims of a couple of users unable to provide sources for their views. Pcarbonn ( talk) 09:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
While not perfect, the recent version is a perfectly good basis to continue editing the cold fusion article towards feature article status. It is well supported by the most reliable sources available, in particular regarding the recent events in the field such as the 2004 DOE panel, the SPAWAR experiment, and presentations at the annual meetings of the American Physical society and the American Chemical Society.
I'll defend the position that the reversion to the 2004 FA version is requested in violation of the "neutral point of view" and "no original research" policies of wikipedia. It is an attempt to eliminate well sourced evidence for the purpose of advancing a personal opinion. I'll suggest that the best way for the other party to defend its case is to provide relevant sources in support of their point of view.
A good illustration of this issue can be found in the discussion titled " paragraph on theory vs experiment", where the other party is trying to justify the deletion of a well sourced statement. The other party is seen misquoting sources, arguing against the basic tenet of science since Galileo which says that "the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss experimental evidence", and, when it all failed, used their personal opinion to justify it. They failed to respond to the request to support their point of view that cold fusion is dismissed by mainstream science.
The reversion to the 2004 FA version is the same as the deletion of the sentence on theory vs experiment, only on a grander scale. Pcarbonn ( talk) 09:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
By my count, the present version of the article is about 11 screens long, while the last version before the "bold move" was about 28 screens long. I will defend the proposition that, with proper links and modest updating, 11 or so screens is plenty of space to describe cold fusion, and would actually be more useful to users of wikipedia. Perhaps a split off article titled "Proposed Cold Fusion Mechansims" would help? 209.253.120.205 ( talk) 19:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
One last time: do you accept mediation on this issue, or do we go to the arbitration committee ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 16:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I have now created a request for mediation here. I'm not sure whether it is possible to add participants, but feel free to do it if you want/can. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so we're looking at:
Anything else?
ScienceApologist ( talk) 21:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Reverting to the 2004 article is totally unacceptable behavior. I reverted to the September 2006 version so skeptics can see what it feels like. These revisions need to stop until there is full discussion on them. Otherwise non-skeptic revisions will be made without discussion.Ron Marshall (talk) 18:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ron Marshall ( talk • contribs)
[ I have removed an attack from here, if the originator wants to re-state his request in less polemical terms he will be welcome to do so ]
JzG, please explain what do you think is "kooky" about a repository of articles previously published in other venues, mostly conference proceedings or peer-reviewed journals, and republished with permission of the authors. (That is, http://www.lenr-canr.org/) If you think that anything outside Nature and Physical Review Letters is "kooky", then we should just delete this page and be done with it. An encyclopedia writer should at least read things before passing judgement about them, and not follow his "nose" blindly. -- 81.208.60.199 ( talk) 17:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Clearly there have been dozens or hundreds of reports of anamalous temperature increases or neutron emissions occurring while researchers study the electrolysis of D2O. Everyone agrees it would be good if we could get cheap energy this way.
What we do not agree on is the basis for evaluating these experiments. "Your" inability to reproduce "my" experiments is not a disproof of anything, of course. Perhaps the question is more an economic one.
How much money should private investors or foundations allot to this promising new line of research? Should the government subsidize it? Good gosh, man, we are already spending over one billion dollars a year to prove that human-caused global warming threatens the future of the planet! Low-temp nuclear fusion could replace coal power for electricity generation, so why don't we fund cold fusion research?
Anyway, what we as writers here need to do is to describe both sides of the issue fairly. -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 19:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I've temporarily increased the protection level to this page to full protect in the face of continuing instability. Let's please resolve the outstanding issues on the talk page before undertaking massive edits. Ronnotel ( talk) 20:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I wish supporters of the view that cold fusion is still pseudoscience provides source for their personal views, that are at least as reliable as the 2004 DOE panel which says the contrary. -- I don't think that the DOE panel ruled on whether much of what is going on under the umbrella of "cold fusion research" is pseudoscience or not. Certainly there are people promoting pseudoscience as cold fusion and as such there are parts of this subject which are definitely pseudoscience. Nevertheless, there may be isolated researchers doing good work as well. That's what I get from the 2004 report.
ScienceApologist (
talk) 23:09, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
From NPOV Tutorial
A common way of introducing bias is by one-sided selection of information. Information can be cited that supports one view while some important information that opposes it is omitted or even deleted. Such an article complies with Wikipedia:Verifiability but violates NPOV. A Wikipedia article must comply with all three guidelines (i.e. Verifiability, NPOV, and No original research) to be considered compliant.
Some examples of how editors may unwittingly or deliberately present a subject in an unfair way:
Thus, verifiability, proper citation and neutral phrasing are necessary but not sufficient to ensure NPOV. It is important that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner and that each is summarized as if by its proponents to their best ability. Ron Marshall ( talk) 23:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
While wikipedia is not a democracy, it would be interesting to know who would like to continue editing from the 2004 version, and who would like to continue editing from the 2007 version. Discussion on the issue should still continue though.
The 2004 revert was done at the end of September 2006 by ScienceApologist and others. Two years of work were negated for the purpose of information suppression. Now ScienceApologist and others want to negate another year of work for information suppression. This behavior is censorship and it is not NPOV as the description of information suppression above states. Ron Marshall ( talk) 23:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Edit from the 2007 version:
Edit from the 2004 version:
There needs to be a link to go to Adobe ColdFusion. -- H AYSON1991 21:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC) Done Guy ( Help!) 00:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
With due apologies to the few anonymous editors who have been thoughtfully contributing here, I have semiprotected this talk page to prevent the relentless self-promotion and abuse of Jed Rothwell. I can't rangeblock due to likely collateral damage, and he's IP-hopping. The whole talk page will be better off without him right now, I think. Good faith comments for this page posted ot my talk will be brought here as soon as I have time, no doubt other eidtors will be similarly helpful. Jed Rothwell should consider himself topic-banned for a month to let less conflicted editors settle the matter of what to do next. Guy ( Help!) 00:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I have reduced protection level on the article to semi. Let's all please renew our efforts to assume food faith on the part of our fellow editors. I think a very good place to re-start is discussing the To-Do list that was mentioned above. Ronnotel ( talk) 14:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I reverted the inclusion of an overview section. I shall now enumerate my problems with this section:
There is a basic question as to whether we need an overview at all. I'm of the opinion that the lead right now does a decent enough job explaining what cold fusion is and providing the appropriate background. Perhaps one or two more sentences can be added or rearranged, but adding an additional section seems to me to be overkill. However, I have provided explanations below for why each of the individual wordings were problematic as well. ScienceApologist ( talk) 07:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
When water is electrolyzed in a closed cell surrounded by a calorimeter, all energy transfer can be accounted for using the theories of electricity, thermodynamics and chemistry: the electrical input energy, the heat accumulated in the cell, the chemical storage of energy and the heat leaving the cell all balance out. When the cathode is made of palladium and heavy water is used instead of light water, the same conservation of energy should be observed.
This seems to me to be a bit much for the article. Explanations of electrolysis should go on the electrolysis page and not on this page. Mentioning that cold fusion was electrolysis with palladium and heavy water should be sufficient. That would only require one sentence, not a paragraph. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
What Fleischmann and Pons said was that the heat measured by their calorimeter significantly exceeded their expectations in some cases. They calculated a power density over 1 W/cm³ based on the volume of the cathode, a value too high to be explained by chemical reactions alone. [24] They concluded that the effect must be nuclear, although they lacked evidence for it.
A couple problems here: This should be in a section devoted to Fleidshmann and Pons, not in the overview. Also, I'm not too happy about lenr-canr and newenergytimes being used as sources as they have obvious reliability concerns. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Others have tried to replicate their observations. Many failed, but some succeeded, using a variety of setups.
Obvious POV. The idea that "some succeeded" is entirely arguable as seen in the 2004 DOE report, for example. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
They reported high power densities in peer reviewed journals such as the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics [25] and the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. [26]
Highly contentious. First of all, these peer review journals are, as has been said previously, somewhat out-of-the-way. More than this, we shouldn't be reporting only positive results lest we succumb to publication bias. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
In the most recent review of the field by the DoE, some researchers believed that the experimental evidence was sufficient to establish the scientific validity of the excess heat effect. Others rejected the evidence, and the panel was evenly split on the issue. This was a significant change compared to the 1989 DoE panel, which rejected it entirely.
POV-interpretation. The majority of the DOE panel rejected the evidence. To say that "some believed" is to paint a rosier picture than the report gave. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
The search for products of nuclear fusion has resulted in conflicting results, leading two thirds of the 2004 DoE reviewers to reject the possibility of nuclear reactions.
Again, a POV-interpretation. Claiming a controversy of "conflicting results" here is something that isn't sourced. To source this, you will need to find a mainstream, uninvolved scientist who reports that the results are indeed "conflicting".
In 2006, Pamela Mosier-Boss and Stanislaw Szpak, researchers in the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego, reported evidence of high-energy nuclear reactions concentrated near the probe surface. [27] Based on this work, two other teams have reported similar findings at the American Physical Society meeting of March 2007 (sessions A31 and B31). [28]
Problematic. First of all, why is a US Navy scientist reporting in a German journal? Seems supicious. Also, we should not user LENR-CANR: there are other neutral archive servers we can use. Finally, almost anyone can report conference proceedings which are not peer-reviewed and are only subject to minimal oversight. What's important is to document the response at the conference -- but this is almost impossible to do. So we should find a neutral third-party journalist who reported on the session if we want to discuss the APS meeting. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
One reason for many to exclude a nuclear origin for the effect is that current theories in physics cannot explain how fusion could occur under such conditions. However, the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss the reported evidence. [29] Many theories have thus been proposed, in a continuing effort to explain the reported observations.
Ridiculously POV. The statement that "the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss the reported evidence." might as well read: "mainstream skepticism against cold fusion is wrong." That is completely unacceptable for inclusion here. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
The US Patent Office accepted a patent in cold fusion in 2001. [30]
Trivia. The US Patent office accepts a lot of dubious patents. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Still, current knowledge of the effect, if it exists, is insufficient to expect commercial applications soon. The 2004 DoE panel identified several areas that could be further studied using appropriate scientific methods.
Again, POV. First of all, this is a POV explaining away one of the major criticisms of this endeavor: why isn't cold fusion making us energy right now if it exists? Secondly, the stock phrase about the DOE panels recommendation is throwaway and misses the point that the majority of the panel members were dubious as to the very existence of the effect. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
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Hi, folks. A little disambiguation question: there's a Doctor Who novel called Cold Fusion (page at Cold Fusion (Doctor Who)). It's pretty insignificant, but there should be some pointer here towards it, for general disambiguation purposes. Do you think it's better to add it to the existing hatnote, like this:
Or should we create a disambiguation page and just have a standard {{ otheruses}} or {{ otheruses1}} hatnote? — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 18:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, after your edits, the summary of the DOE Panel's conclusions does not correlate with the description at 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion. Only the negative aspects are reported. For instance, there is no mention of positive evidence of excess heat, production of 4He, transmutation and other unexplained effects. I'm going to reword to bring this in line with the detailed article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ronnotel ( talk • contribs) 15:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC).
The report concluded that cold fusion is as it was when the original report came out. While sympathetic to continuing efforts to figure out what's being measured, it's by no means an endorsement. Hasn't changed in over 10 years is the key finding. –M T 07:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I find your logic argumentative. The panel's sole purpose was to investigate Cold fusion, the exact topic of this article. Please see WP:AN/I, you may wish to respond to my complaint. Ronnotel 17:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the conclusion of the report:
As such, it is fairly clear that the conclusion is negative towards cold fusion (which was the finding of the 1989 report). To try to spin it any other way is original research. -- ScienceApologist 20:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Noren. Now we can make progress: your arguments are well sourced, and we have a basis for discussion. However, I still disagree with what you said, so let's try to resolve it.
Here is the problem we face: the last paragraphs of Charge 1 and of Charge 2 seem to say different things. The concluding remark of "Charge Element 1" says: "2/3 of the reviewers commenting on Charge Element 1 did not feel the evidence was convincing for low energy nuclear reactions, one found the evidence convincing, and the remainder indicated they were somewhat convinced." Clearly, this is not the same as "the panel did not find evidence for cold fusion", and so is a direct challenge to your argument. So, either the 2 concluding paragraphs are contradicting each other, or there is subtle difference between the 2. We need to resolve this to be able to agree on the lead section.
I'm open to your suggestion to resolve this contradiction. Here is my proposal. When I read the description of the charges again, I see the following difference: the first charge asks "are the evidences convincing ?", the second one asks "are the evidences convincing beyond doubt". Please tell me if you agree, or if you see another difference between the two that can resolve the apparent contradiction.
If we agree that this is the difference, then we would conclude that this is what the panel said about the evidences: 12 reviewers did not feel the evidence was convincing, 5 reviewers found the evidences somewhat convincing, and one reviewer found them convincing beyond doubt. The preponderence was not convinced beyond doubt; several reviewers did not say whether they were convinced beyond doubt. The 2 concluding paragraphs would then make sense again, without contradiction.
Can we agree that this is what the report says about the evidences ? Or do you have an other proposal to make ? Thanks in advance for your reply. Pcarbonn 21:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Did we reach a consensus ? Here is the summary of the discussion. Feel free to adapt to reflect what was said. We'll adapt the lead section afterwards. Pcarbonn 09:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Scienceapologist wrote: "New Energy times is not a reliable source for who is and isn't working on Cold Fusion. Sorry.)"
That's an unsubstantiated, libelous and POV statement. You should be informed of a few facts.
It's editor, Steven Krivit, has attended and reported from the last three international conferences in Cambridge, Marseilles and Yokohama, respectively. From what I read in the New Energy Times magazine, Krivit and the other reporters who have written for New Energy Times, Lietz and Daviss, seem to know just about everybody involved in the field. Krivit's book explains, on page 162, how he collected the data for that chart. His book also provides additional evidence that he knows who's who in cold fusion, through the many personal communications he has had with these researchers.
In addition, New Energy Times has copies of the most recent abstracts from most of the major conferences. If you look through them, you will see the names and affiliations of the researchers who are contributing papers. So you really needn't even rely on New Energy Times if you would care to take the time and the diligence to go through the abstracts yourself.
Krivit has participated in the scientific process - he has presented in multiple science conferences and will be speaking at the APS conference in March. So go ahead and demonstrate the foundation for your assertion that New Energy Times is not a reliable source.
STemplar 06:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
To wit I cannot think of any reliable source for this kind of information. It would be ridiculous to estimate the number of biologists, for example. Jefffire 18:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this article should be either split up or reordered. Every paragraph seems to contain a mix of "FP 89 experiment" "Whats wrong with FP 89" "New navy research" "Whats wrong with the critics of 89". There seems that in every paragraph, both critisism of the FP 89 experiment and the new Navy experiment seem to "slip" in. This whole article need a new structure:
The current state of this article leaves me in a state of cold confusion. 213.39.136.91 03:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I dispute the following lines: "A 1989 panel organized by the U.S. Department of Energy concluded there was no convincing evidence that useful sources of energy would result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion, but was sympathetic to careful funding of additional research to resolve the controversy. A second DOE panel, convened in 2004, reached similar conclusions to the prior panel."
Because the 2004 DOE panel is cited quasi-verbatim in a different context, these sentences imply that the 2004 DOE panel concluded that there was no convincing evidence that useful sources of energy would result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion. This cannot be true, because the question was not asked to the panelists, and that the summary report does not mention this issue anywhere. In my view, the "reached similar conclusions to the prior panel" sentence in the 2004 report must be understood as refering to the 3 questions asked only. Pcarbonn 11:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I dispute the following lines, used in the overview to describe Mosier-Boss and Szpak's results: "In 2006, these experiments have produced evidence of high-energy nuclear reactions concentrated near the probe surface.[2] Based on this work, two other teams have reported similar findings at the American Physical Society meeting of March 2007 (sessions A31 and B31) although interpretations vary.[3]"
The definite phrasing of the first sentence, combined with the offhand phrasing of "although interpretations vary" at the end of the second, suggests that high energy nuclear reactions are a generally accepted fact. However, if you go read the four references (WP's [2], APS A31, APS B31, and WP's [3]) you get a very different picture.
If I may summarize the four references a little glibly, they say:
If Mosier-Boss and Szpak have eliminated the possibility of chemical etching, then those results should be referenced. If not, then the issue is much more in dispute than the article's phrasing would suggest. JohnAspinall 16:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)JohnAspinall
'By 1991, 92 groups of researchers from 10 different countries had reported excess heat, tritium, neutrons or other nuclear effects. [1] Over 3,000 cold fusion papers have been published including about 1,000 in peer-reviewed journals. (ref) LENR-CANR.org In March 1995, Dr. Edmund Storms compiled a list of 21 published papers reporting excess heat. [2] Articles have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Physical Review A, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy. [3]
Now, I find this text not adequately verified by independent sources. Simply enumerating "92 research groups" is meaningless. If I set up a cold fusion lab in my basement, I could make that number higher. Likewise the 3000/1000 papers reference doesn't evaluate the type and style of cold fusion papers. A great many of them may be reporting negative results, so the snowjob implications are not very well-handled by simply stating a raw number. Why should a compilation of 21 published papers be notable for inclusion in this article? Does Storms hold some sort of weight above the normal evaluative scientist? Likewise, why likst the names of the journals that have published articles on cold fusion (positive or negative). This paragraph serves no purpose other than to pull the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting readers. It is not illustrative of the field or the science or even the papers/research it claims to be discussing. -- ScienceApologist 15:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that STemplar has pointed out that the neutrality and the reliability of this paragraph is very much in question. I will remove the paragraph until he can find independent verification (not from New Energy or the Cold Fusion Society) of its claims. -- ScienceApologist 08:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I found this which I thought might be interesting to use: [1], scroll down to no. 13. -- Guinnog 17:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
A spin-off article Cold fusion history was created back in August but it seems to be less developed than the history section of this article. So it might make sense to merge it back in. The alternative would be to really exploit the spin-off article. (note also that History of cold fusion would be a more appropriate title) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pascal.Tesson ( talk • contribs) 17:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC).
ScienceApologist, you say that "According to Wikipedia, however, it is definitely under the purview of WP:FRINGE." as a justification of your deletion of "Articles on cold fusion have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Physical Review A, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy.". Please provide a clear justification to this. Which criteria for fringe do you think cold fusion meets ? And, assuming that cold fusion meets the criteria, please explain why this sentence would have to be removed according to WP:FRINGE Pcarbonn 15:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
it seems to be a prominent cold fusion theory.: www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ChubbTAtheionband.pdf —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kevin Baas ( talk • contribs) 20:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC).
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Cold_fusion
link to FA version: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cold_fusion&oldid=33756791 Kevin Baas talk 22:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
The American Physical Society's March 13–17, 2006, Baltimore, MD session on cold fusion had 13 presentations. [2] Does anyone know how many this year? James S. 23:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
"A 1989 panel organized by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) comprised of scientists with no specific expertise in stochastic chemistry and a vested monetary interest in protecting their own billion dollar research budgets allocated to hot fusion experiments, concluded that there was no convincing evidence that a low energy nuclear reaction had occurred. Ground breaking advances in science in one field often grow out of experimental results in another field, and the breakthrough in cold fusion was no different. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann were world class experts in the field of electrochemistry, and their experimental results in 1989 had wide ranging implications, reaching into even the field of Physics. Billions of dollars have been been utilized in hot fusion research deployed in experiments with substances in heated states such as plasma. The direct threat to the Physics community that the Fleishmann Pons experiment posed resulted in the swift and total repudiation of the scientific reputations of Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons."
Seriously, what in the world is this? I'm pretty sure stating the only reason cold fusion doesn't work is because that there is some sort of hot fusion funding cartel is a bit biased. (added 17:40, 7 March 2007 by 198.214.186.128)
Frostfex, thanks for your input and your interest in improving this article. Please be aware that just because not everyone shares your opinion on how the text of the article should read that we are all skeptics on the subject of cold fusion. If you read the complete article, I think you'll find that considerable effort has gone into to describing the research you refer to in a fair way. The text in the header was debated at some length to reach what all parties felt was largely free from WP:POV. I encourage you to become familiar with WP policies such as using reliable sources, maintaining a neutral voice, and seeking consensus on major changes. Also, it's helpful if you sign your comments with four ~'s so we can more easily read and understand your arguments. Thanks! Ronnotel 19:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Frostrex: First, I'm not a scientist, just an interested editor with some undergraduate physics as are most of the contributors here. Second, to be an effective contributor, it's important to assume good faith on the part of the other editors. Also, please note that the third paragraph of the lead states
which hardly seems like an attempt to minimize the validity of cold fusion. Ronnotel 20:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
A few months back, I suggested that the image of the CR-39 be promoted to the top of the article given it's significance. The consensus was to wait until the research had been formally published in a reviewed source. That has now happened. Any objections? Ronnotel 20:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I looked at the article and the powerpoint file related to this image, and found no assertion by the authors that the image showed cold fusion in action. Therefore, I propose replacing this image with the previous image of a device, or with an image and caption that is more definitively related to cold fusion. Any objections? 209.253.120.205 14:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
The authors do claim that the picture shows hot spots in a cold fusion cell, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it shows cold fusion. If the authors were confident that nuclear reactions were taking place, they could have easily stated that. The image of the device is more directly linked to cold fusion, and more informative for the casual reader. 209.253.120.205 14:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
The infrared image is strongly linked to excess heat, but the authors do not claim that it shows cold fusion. It is also significant that the article does not identify any proposed nuclear reaction and does not include any discussion of detecting either helium or radiation that the cell may be producing. Placing this image so prominently in a "cold fusion" article implies that there is consensus that the image does show cold fusion in action, which is not supported by the present documentation. Therefore, the current article violates wikipedia's NPOV policy and should be changed. The best option would be to replace the image of an experimental cold fusion device. It may be boring, but it would make this a more useful encyclopedia article. 209.253.120.205 03:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
After following the suggestion to look at the first sentence of the article,
I noticed that it was illogical, so I reverted it to an older definition
added 04:58 22 November 2006. Regarding the comment about
taking the title "cold fusion" literally, I plead guilty. This is an
encyclopedia, so we should be taking the titles of the articles literally
unless there is a very good reason not to. Regarding the comment about the
2004 DOE review, this article is not about the 2004 DOE review, it is about
cold fusion. What they reviewed is irrelevant to the definition of cold
fusion, and how the primary image on this page should be chosen. Regarding
the comment that an electrochemical cell image would not illustrate a
nuclear reaction, I answer that the purpose of this article, especially the
introduction, is to help a wide variety of readers quickly find out about
the issue of cold fusion. Regarding the blue&green CR-39 detector image, it
is completely inappropriate to use such an image for the primary image
unless it has more documentation than the linked New Energy Times article.
The primary image of this page should show something important about the consensus of the field, and one of the most indisputable facts of this field is that electrochemical cells are key to most of the experiments. That is why an electrochemical cell is the best candidate. 209.253.120.205 02:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I have reverted the electrochemical cell as the primary image to bring the article closer to NPOV. Placing the CR-39 image at the top of the article seriously misrepresents the consensus in the field. To demonstrate that there is consensus that the CR-39 image shows cold fusion, much more documentation is needed than New Energy Times articles and APS March meeting abstracts. 209.253.120.205 18:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I see that a few people are working hard to improve this page, and noted the following infobox at the top of the page for talk:vitamin C, which is a form you guys might want to emulate:
{{ Maintained}}
--- Wfaxon 15:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
The following line seems dubious: "Sagan sued Apple over the association of his name with what he considered pseudoscience." Could you provide a source ?
This page here reports on what Carl Sagan thought of cold fusion. It does not mention pseudoscience. Pcarbonn 15:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
The page has changed substantially over the last few months, but so has the status of cold fusion in the research community. With the APS announcement and the upcoming ACS panel, there is renewed interest in cold fusion. However, skepticism within the commnunity still remains and it needs to be reported. The main goal of cold fusion advocates is to attempt to convince the scientific community that this line of research is still worth studying -- even after the problems that it had in the past. The article as it is writtent right now is a bit bullish and written from the perspective of a cold fusion advocate rather than a dispassionate reporter on the current state of the subject. As such, I have placed the POV tag on the article and encourage editors to go through and try to identify and fix the problems that exist with the text.
In particular, we need to be clear that cold fusion is still very much fringe science, even though there are more signs of acceptance today than there were even six months ago.
-- ScienceApologist 19:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
The following postulated reaction has been posted as fact that it doesn't emit any EM-radiation: d+d+d+d -> 8Be -> 2 4He.[33]
Is there any credible proof that such a reaction could even in theory not emit any Gammas? I find that extremely hard to believe, since all nuclear reactions emit EM-Radiation of one or the other form and energy level. And [33] is no credible source. It's just painting in the sky of what might be happening. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dio1982 ( talk • contribs) 13:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC).
I second Dio1982's opinion of the unsuitability of [33] as a credible reference. The rhetoric is not that of an objective analysis. I see sarcasm: "Naturally, this work was ignored", pleading: "While the answers given here may not satisfy everyone", and gaps in logic: "if these claims are false ... a large number of highly trained scientists ... can not be trusted to obtain accurate data".
On the other hand, [33] is not a primary source for the postulated four deuteron reaction. That review references its own references 119 and 120. I suspect that should be 120 and 121, which would point at a pair of papers from Takahashi. The Physics Letters A paper is available online, for a fee, and the abstract is free. I'll return to Takahashi's results in a moment.
Even if such a four deuteron reaction existed, it would also be necessary to explain why the gamma-producing two-particle d+d -> p+t , d+d -> n + 3He, and d+d -> 4He were suppressed. Remember, [33] is trying to explain the absence of gamma rays. Any simple statistical model (such as the model underlying Nuclear_cross_section) would indicate that the probability of three deuterons arriving within the required interaction distance at the same time must be less than the probability of two deuterons arriving within the same distance. And similarly, the probability of a four deuteron reaction must be less than the probability of a three deuteron reaction.
Do Takahashi's results support the explanation of a gamma-free, four-deuteron reaction? No. They may even be considered to support the case against it. Takahashi observes a three-deuteron reaction, at a factor of 10^4 less than the expected two-deuteron reactions. So the gamma-producing two-deuteron reactions haven't been suppressed. Now even a factor of 10^4 less is much greater that the simple statistical model would predict, so Takahashi suggests a mechanism (a "channel") whereby the 3 particle reaction could proceed as a pair of 2 particle reactions. That mechanism starts with a plain old two-deuteron reaction. If the excited 4He hangs around for long enough (before giving off its gamma) to meet up with a third deuteron, then the reaction channel proceeds. But you've still got the other 99.99% of excited 4He's that don't meet up with a third deuteron in time, and give off the gamma ray.
The summary is that Takahashi's results do not support the claims that [33] makes of them. [33] is not a credible reference. JohnAspinall 15:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)JohnAspinall
Critics note that great care must be used to prevent contamination by helium naturally present in atmospheric air.[19]
Actually this is blatently false. If heat is generated in measurable quantities (a few kJ), the produced Helium via a mystic D+D->He-4 reaction would be available in quantities which are above air concentration by at least a factor of a hundred. Air has a concentration of only ~2.2*10^-8 mole He/l. This would be like a punch to the face. Dio1982 23:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi. I think the current version of the page is getting very large and difficult to follow. The Mosier-Boss/Spzak experiment is now starting to rack up a significant number of references, and it's (IMO) a significantly different experiment to Pons-Fleischmann, with different experimental specifics and some different "issues", so "Cold fusion" is no longer synonymous with "the Pons-Fleischmann experiment".
In light of this, several sections that are specific to PF now need to be reorganised or subcategorised. We also need a separate section on MB/S. I think that given the size of the article (which will increase with the new MB/S material), it's probably time for [we might want to consider] all the very specific technical stuff about Pons-Fleischmann to be moved back out to a separate article. At some point, when the MB/S material also achieves critical mass (and gets an agreed name), that should probably [might] be exported to a separate page too, with "cold fusion" becoming the generic parent page.
I'll be doing some editing on the page today (05 May 2007). ErkDemon 14:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
That is all I have to say! Excellent read! Bill Sapperton
Maybe we should have an article on Szpak and Mosier-Boss's codeposition technique, since it was really the turning point for reliability and replicability. They've produced a ton of stuff at SPAWAR/SSC, and it's all on lenr-canr.org. 75.35.79.57 20:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
"The 2004 DoE panel identified several areas that could be further studied using appropriate scientific methods."
This sentance in the article suggests that only "inappropriate" methods have been used so far. Is that true? If not it needs to be changed to this -
"The 2004 DoE panel identified several areas that could be further."
I would agree with User:67.188.7.78's removal of the pop culture section. It was becoming undue weight. If someone wants to resurrect, I would suggest breaking it out into a separate article and linking to it. Ronnotel 12:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
The hoax tag that just appeared seems somewhat disingenuous. It was added by a new account with only two other edits. The call for reliable sources is at odds with the copious references to reliable sources cited in the article. I'm going to remove this tag. Before re-adding it, please provide more evidence that this page is a hoax, including why you think that the supporting literature is inadequate. Ronnotel 18:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed this recently-added paragraph:
The referenced article does not talk about "commercial products soon". If it did, some people knowledgeable in the field would have strong reservation (see New Energy Times' investigation about previous claims of D2Fusion). You may also want to know that D2Fusion is being sold to Enwin Resources Inc. [6]
The second sentence would need a reference, as there are many other possible reasons for the increase of Palladium price. Wikipedia is not a place to distribute speculative rumors. Pcarbonn 09:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
A recent anonymous commentator has added a paragraph in the theory section about "the Little effect", and references a US patent issued on April 25, 2005. Will that commentator please supply the patent number so we can reference this properly? Using the US Patent Office's search engine, I am unable to find any matches on patents issued on 4/25/2005 to inventor "Little". JohnAspinall 15:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
A paragraph in the theory section floats a suggestion whose only reference is an archive of a site called "The HalfBakery". The suggestion, which I'll summarize as "conduction band electrons could shield deuterons more than valence band electrons", should at the very least be presented alongside the mainstream physics which would claim to debunk it. I would prefer to see the paragraph removed completely, but if consensus is to debunk alongside the "half baked" suggestion, I believe all the physics is already well described in WP. Essentially:
JohnAspinall 16:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
To User:Pcarbonn... apart from assuming good faith, you would know that I wasn't using "tactics" if you had read my edit summary.
The original text read "More claims of experimental success were reported, primarily in non-mainstream publications" until User:Donreed changed it to "More claims of experimental success were reported, primarily in non-mainstream publications: that is, not in refereed physics journals" here. That User has now been blocked due to hundreds of unhelpful edits. I was simply returning the text to what it originally said.
You, in fact, have strengthened the cold fusion case by changing it from "some researchers reported successes - mostly in non-mainstream publications" to "some researchers reported successes in peer-reviewed journals."
I have reverted your change. In-line citations should be provided to back up the statement that any of those successes were reported in peer-reviewed journals. In that case, I think that the most informative wording would be "some researchers reported successes - mostly in non-mainstream publications, with a few in peer-reviewed journals." -- David Broadfoot ( talk) 09:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was no consensus to move the page, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 03:38, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I suggest to move the page from "cold fusion" to "low energy nuclear reaction" because it is the proper name as the article intro explains. Also, this is the name used by the 2004 DOE panel. Any comments ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 10:42, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I did not expect a WP:POLL to take place. Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion. Many arguments presented above seem very dubious to me, and I ask that they be supported by WP:Reliable sources. I also ask that they be ignored unless properly sourced. Also, the article would still be available from 'cold fusion' after a rename, thanks to a redirect. Pcarbonn ( talk) 09:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for that. I did not think it would be an issue. So, I removed the tags, and here are the statements I find dubious:
Pcarbonn ( talk) 14:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I expect the closing admin will note both my comments and yours, but I doubt they will discount my comments as you request. But we like to work towards consensus here. So here's my suggestion for a way forward: Now that you've seen what others think of the rename proposal, do you think there's any way you can work towards achieving a rough consensus in support of your view? That should be your goal. Personally I doubt it's achievable, but I could be wrong there. However I'm quite sure that trying to unilaterally impose a whole new set of rules to govern these discussions won't do it. That's been tried before. Andrewa ( talk) 12:45, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Pcarbonn, your edits imply that the Fleischmann-Pons excess heat effects have been credibly replicated. I am highly doubtful, since if that were true, where are the patents and followup peer-reviewed papers optimizing the effect? Where are the devices on sale? What is more likely is that researchers perform different calorimeter experiments that, while they might produce transitory excess heat effects, also fail to produce practical devices. Even if recent, higher quality experiments show promising data, my phrasing is still correct: the failure to replicate the results of the 1989 announcement resulted in cold fusion gaining a reputation as flawed science. If there is a credible report that shows that electrochemical activity causes heat that is most likely due to nuclear reactions, please post it. 209.253.120.205 ( talk) 19:07, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I certainly do want to produce the best encyclopedia possible. To me, this means that cold fusion should be presented as an on-going scientific controversy, not as a topic that has been closed long ago. The 2004 DOE report does recommend further research, after all. The panel was evenly split on the evidence of excess heat: one cannot ignore that. Let's avoid injecting our own personal theory. I'm open to any suggestions to improve the intro in that direction. Pcarbonn ( talk) 22:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Let me add this. You asked for the references for the peer-reviewed journals, and I provided them. You were right to request that. After all, the purpose of wikipedia is to inform, and to do that, "articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" (quote from WP:reliable sources). So, if you hear someone say : "cold fusion is bullocks", you should question him: did he read any of the paper reporting excess heat ? Did he check the facts as extensively as the peers reviewing an article before publication ? Did he spend the time that the DOE panelists spent on looking at the evidence ? If he has, please ask him to publish a paper to document his view. Pcarbonn ( talk) 07:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Please provide a quote supporting your view that these are "shitty peer-review journals". Please explain why Wikipedia would consider these journals as unreliable sources. Please provide quotes from journals that you feel are superior and that would say that the replications have failed, for one reason or another. Pcarbonn ( talk) 20:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Please stop polluting this discussion with your own opinion: they are irrelevant. If I find a WP policy that allows editors to remove irrelevant statements from talk pages, I will remove your statements. Wikipedia is based on facts, not opinion. Please provide quote supporting your view that "What is clear is that this view is being marginalized even as it tries to mitigate its own marginalization". This is not a café: we are writing a reliable encyclopedia. Pcarbonn ( talk) 20:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, in fact, there is a policy allowing one to "Delete material not relevant to improving the article (per the above subsection)" See here. I intend to apply it from now on. Pcarbonn ( talk) 21:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The core of the issue is this: please provide evidence why Wikipedia should consider these journals and the 2004 DOE panel as unreliable sources. Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I have now proposed the following sentence in the intro: "Cold fusion quickly gained a reputation as an example of pathological science after attempts to replicate the effect were unsuccessful." Is the intro OK now ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 16:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The following bibliography entry has been removed, on the ground that it is not a reliable source:
Presumably, it is on the ground that it is self-publishing. Yet, WP policy says: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Mizuno meet this requirement: he has published relevant work in the peer-reviewed Jpn. J. Appl. Phys:
I therefore propose to add it back. Pcarbonn ( talk) 19:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I have removed a number of self-published books from the reference section. In order to include a self-published book we must establish that it has notability outside of the pro-cold fusion community. Even a negative review will suffice. Please see WP:FRINGE. ScienceApologist ( talk) 19:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Here is the guideline for the bibliography section: "Put under this header in a bulleted list that should usually be alphabetized, any books, articles, web pages, et cetera that you recommend as further reading, useful background, or sources of further information to readers." There is no requirement for notability. I will thus revert your change, as the reason for your change is not valid. Pcarbonn ( talk) 21:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Please clarify the substance of your complaint, in view of the guideline for bibliographies. Please clarify why you add "outside of the pro-cold fusion community" when you talk about notability (even if notability is not a requirement). What is the pro-cold fusion community anyway ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. Please clarify the substance of your complaint, in view of the guideline for bibliographies. I do accept that some of the websites you deleted are not recommended reading. I question your position that the books you deleted are not "further reading, useful background, or sources of further information to readers", especially when the author has been published in a neutral, peer-reviewed journal. Pcarbonn ( talk) 16:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Here is what WP:verifiability says on self-published sources: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I argue that Mizuno meets the requirements for a source to be quoted on CF, and can thus be recommended as further reading on this subject. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
He has published many papers on cold fusion, some in non-mainstream papers, others in neutral peer-review journal. He has not one but several papers in JJAP, and one in "Int. J. Soc. Mat. Eng. Resources", titled "Confirmation of the changes of isotopic distribution for the elements on palladium cathode after strong electrolysis in D2O solutions". See bibliography here. Wouldn't these qualify ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 20:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Who said that his book was a review ?? He is an expert in the field, as shown by his numerous publications. Why would a book he writes on his subject not be recommendable ?? Also, let's be careful to avoid Anglo-American focus and systematic bias Pcarbonn ( talk) 09:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I cannot answer that question, but this is putting a very high criteria for a "See also" section. Could you provide notable reviews for the book that are still in the bibliography section ? If so, please do it. I don't see why we would need to apply double standard in a science that is not fringe, but a valid scientific controversy. Pcarbonn ( talk) 16:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I don't see why we would apply double standard even if it was fringe. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
In addition, I have an issue of NPOV in the current bibliography, because of undue weight. The balance of papers in peer-reviewed journals is largely in favor of the existence of an anomalous phenomena; scientific papers that challenge its existence are almost non-existent. The bibliography should reflect that. Pcarbonn ( talk) 19:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I actually think the references and bibliography look pretty good. They list articles and magazines which report cold fusion-related success, as well as articles and books critical of cold fusion's prospects. I certainly don't see any reason to remove any of the books from the list.
209.253.120.205 (
talk) 23:11, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I just heard about the discussion happening here. Looking over it reveals to me that ScienceApologist did a good job raising the citation standards on this article, but is now being a tyrant by trying to extend his 'victory' inappropriately. You fought a good fight, stop being belligerent. Shpoffo ( talk) 06:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's the deal: There are a lot of books out there about a lot of subjects. Let's keep the books that Wikipedia references in controversial articles of the highest quality and published by groups that are univerisally considered respectable. That means avoiding publishing outfits such as Infinite Energy Press, Pacific Oaks Press, and Oak Grove Press as these are simply vanity publishing companies. Such companies have no consistent distribution process, no respect within the reference community, nor is there any real visibility for the books that they publish outside the singular fringe communities that are interested in the subject of cold fusion. ScienceApologist 16:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Although the popular media have referred to it as Pons-Fleischmann for quite some time now, it seems that very few people realize that there was a third author (Hawkins). Perhaps luckily for him, his name was left off the original paper, but this was corrected in the errata. See page 8 of this document. I believe Hawkins should be discussed in this article, alongside Pons and Fleischmann. Thoughts? Ben Hocking ( talk| contribs) 18:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
1) [8] Cornell collection on Cold Fusion.
2) Above reference has Steven Jones research on muon-catalyzed fusion which causes the deuterium nuclei to approach the neutron capture radius of deuterium and fuse. "submitted their proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy, which asked nuclear physicist Steven Jones at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, to review it. Jones had been one of the leaders in research on muon-catalyzed fusion (the "well-known" form of room temperature fusion) throughout the 1980s, but he was now working on new ways of creating fusion through electrolysis--what he called "piezonuclear fusion." Though Jones had been working on piezonuclear fusion since 1986, only by the fall of 1988 had his team developed a neutron detector sufficiently sensitive to measure the low levels of neutrons produced by his experiments. Pons and Fleischmann, who said they had begun working on their electrochemical experiments around 1984 and had been funding the research from their own pockets, also reinvigorated their research program in the fall of 1988, hiring one of Pons's graduate students, Marvin Hawkins, to design, build, and run new cells and to begin to study the nuclear aspects of their apparatus."
3) My experience ranges from Contract Testing Lab to Plating Chemist. Occam's Razor. The conditions of reaction contradict intent. Common plating problem is hydrogen injected into metal lattice weakening it. High hydrogen ion concentration, pH=-2 (dilute sulfuric acid), is most favorable for generating hydrogen. Lithium Hydroxide solution, pH=14, has very low hydrogen concentration. Raising cell voltage to create the "required" minimum Deuterium flux at the Palladium surface would actually drive Lithium into the Palladium. Lithium 6 isotope has a neutron absorbtion radius much larger than Deuterium. The reaction product Li 7m (metastable, excess energy) gives alpha plus Tritium (this is DOE breeder reactor formula for tritium production). Li 7 + neutron > Li 8 > (Be 8) > 2 alpha. The Deuterium reaction is reported to work with Lithium Hydroxide but not Sodium Hydroxide, although Borate (Boron 10 has a huge neutron capture radius) improves the reaction?
4) Palladium disks used to purify hi pressure hydrogen for GC-FID analysis. Palladium disk is alloyed with 5% Silver because pure Palladium shatters after reacts with Hydrogen with acompanying phase change.
5) By the way Be 8 decomposition does not generate a gamma because the alpha are emitted in opposite directions therefore all the energy of reaction.
Shjacks45 ( talk) 08:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
From the requested move discussion section above:
and above that:
This was all as follow-up to Pcarbonn's suggestion that my vote in the rename survey should be ignored unless properly sourced. This most recent request doesn't seem to be about the rename, so let's have a new section.
I don't think there's anything in these rules that should encourage one party in a heated discussion to unilaterally delete comments made by another. I'd recommend that you look beyond what is allowed. Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are designed to work towards consensus, and don't work well at all when winning an argument becomes the objective, however correct the cause may be. You might also look at User:Andrewa/creed for where I'm coming from in all of this. Andrewa ( talk) 15:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I dispute the presentation of the Widom Larsen theory as using conventional quantum mechanics. In mainstream physics, so-called heavy electrons appear in the theory of heavy electron superconductors. I believe (but I welcome expert guidance here) that the "heavy" electron is a calculational artifact, designed to express the dynamics of the collective motion of electrons. In some ways it is similar to the reduced_mass of classical dynamics. I do not believe that any mainstream physics publication has ever suggested that a single electron, the particle that would participate in Widom and Larsen's proposed reaction, ever gains mass. JohnAspinall 20:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Information and relevance of nuclear transmutations with unnatural isotope ratios have been suppressed in this article. There are other problems I will address over time. Ron Marshall
In October of 2006 the cold fusion article was trashed by self appointed censors of science in order to suppress information about transmutation and other positive evidence. The only references in the current article are "Although there appears to be evidence of anomalous transmutations and isotope shifts near the cathode surface in some experiments, cold fusion researchers generally consider that these anomalies are not the ash associated with the primary excess heat effect.[21]" and "To address the nuclear products issue, and because transmutations products have been reported, it has been suggested that fusion occurs between one or more deuterium and palladium, and is followed by a fission of the resulting nucleus."
The first remark is misleading and the second is inadequate.
Many experimenters have found transmutations with unnatural isotope ratios since 1992. Usually the result produces several elements spread over the atomic weight scale. Some experiments show direct conversion from one element to another. The unnatural isotope ratio proves that the result cannot be caused by contamination. A transmutation is a nuclear reaction. Transmutations prove that nuclear reactions are happening in cold fusion experiments beyond a reasonable doubt. This is true whether or not transmutations are the primary source of heat. Ron Marshall 19:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC) Ron Marshall
I will provide links, however a major part of the evidence is the state of the article at this point. This statement does not look logical to me "although I deem your statements nonsensical at the moment, because the presence of radioactivity in an experiment in no way implies fusion". Radioactivity could imply fusion. Whether or not deuterium fusion is going on is one question. Whether or not any nuclear reaction is going on is another question. When an element is changed to another element protons are added or removed from the nucleus. You change a nucleus and you have a nuclear reaction by definition. Changing an isotope means adding or removing neutrons, also a nuclear reaction. The new element could be radioactive when the old element was not. The new element could be not radioactive when the old element was radioactive. Both these cases have been observed. It has been the claim of skeptics from the beginning that no nuclear reactions are occurring in cold fusion experiments. The skeptics have been proven wrong in this case. No scientific case can be made for suppressing the evidence of nuclear transmutations or the conclusion this evidence points to. Ron Marshall ( talk) 21:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The cold fusion article as of 06:09, 29 September 2006 is shown in the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cold_fusion&oldid=78453163 before it was trashed by ScienceApologist and others.
The nuclear transmutations section:
Nuclear transmutations have been reported in many cold fusion experiments since 1992. These reactions (which may be a nuclear fusion or nuclear fission reaction) result in the transformation of a chemical element into another. If one accepts that nuclear transmutations are in fact observed in these experiments, he would have to accept that nuclear reactions take place in cold fusion experiments. He would also have to accept that an apparently enormous Coulomb barrier can be overcome, and that the released energy can be converted to heat.
Tadahiko Mizuno is a prominent nuclear transmutation experimenter, and was among the first to contribute several papers and a book on the subject. [5] [6]
Nuclear transmutation experiments have been reviewed by Dr. Miley. [7], a recognized researcher in "Hot Fusion" for his contributions to Inertial electrostatic confinement. [8] He reports that several dozen laboratories are studying these effects. Some experiments result in the creation of only a few elements, while others result in a wide variety of elements from the periodic table. Calcium, copper, zinc, and iron were the most commonly reported elements. Lanthanides were also found: this is significant since they are unlikely to enter as impurities. In addition, the isotopic ratios of the observed elements differ from their natural isotopic ratio or natural abundance. Many elements have multiple isotopes and the percentages of the different isotopes are constant on earth within one tenth of one percent. In general it requires gaseous diffusion, thermal diffusion, electromagnetic separation or other exotic processes of isotope separation or a nuclear reaction to change an element from its natural isotope ratio. The presence of an unnatural isotope ratio makes contamination an implausible explanation. Some experiments reported both transmutations and excess heat, but the correlation between the two effects has not been established. Radiations have also been reported. Miley also reviews possible theories to explain these observations. [9] Ron Marshall ( talk) 03:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
So far the clearest evidence for transmutation has come from an experiment made by Iwamura and associates, and published in 2002 in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics (one of the top physics journals in Japan). [10] Instead of using electrolysis, they forced deuterium gas to permeate through a thin layer of caesium (also known as cesium) deposited on calcium oxide and palladium, while periodically analyzing the nature of the surface through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. As the deuterium gas permeated over a period of a week, the amount of caesium progressively decreased while the amount of praseodymium increased, so that caesium appeared to be transmuted into praseodymium. When caesium was replaced by strontium, it was transmuted into molybdenum with anomalous isotopic composition. In both cases this represents an addition of four deuterium nuclei to the original element. They have produced these results six times, and reproducibility was good. The energy released by these transmutations was too low to be observed as heat. No gamma rays were observed. When the calcium oxide was removed or when the deuterium gas was replaced by hydrogen, no transmutation was observed. The authors analyzed, and then rejected, the possibility to explain these various observations by contaminations or migration of impurities from the palladium interior. The experiment was replicated by researchers from Osaka University using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry to analyze the nature of the surface (the Pd complex samples were provided by Iwamura). [11]
In later similar experiments by Iwamura Barium 138 was transmuted to Samarium 150 and Barium 137 was transmuted into Samarium 149. The Barium 138 experiment used a natural isotope ratio of Barium. The Barium 137 experiment used a Barium 137 enriched isotope ratio. These transmutations represent an addition of six deuterium nuclei. [12]
While recognizing the quality of the experiment, a 2004 DOE panelist said that, from a nuclear physics perspective, such conclusions of transmutations are "not to be believed". Fusing 2 deuterons is difficult enough; merging four deuterons with a heavy nucleus such as Palladium [ sic] is not to be believed, especially when no evidence is presented for any nuclear products with intermediate atomic mass such as Yttrium, Zirconium, and Niobium. The panelist suggested that the observation could be explained by the migration of the anomalous elements from the interior of the Palladium. [13]
Cold fusion researchers responded that such migration is not possible:
They say that, since the initial element disappears, the "migration explanation" would imply that the element applied to the surface migrates toward the interior, while the anomalous element migrates in the opposite direction toward the surface. This would violate as many expected behaviors as does cold fusion but in a different field of science: therefore, the Iwamura results justify additional research to understand what's happening. They also said such explanations are mere hand waving, and that this kind of reasoning is typical of most reviews. [14]
Bush and Eagleton have reported the appearance of radioactive isotopes with an average half-life of 3.8 days in electrolytic cells, an observation that is difficult to explain by contamination or migration. [15]
Attempts to find at least partial theoretical explanations are being made by Takahashi and others. One proposal by Takahashi to explain the wide range of elements generated is that fission of palladium is initiated by high energy photons, and suggests potential applications in the treatment of nuclear wastes by transmutation. [16] [17]
The current article should contain a summary on nuclear transmutations in the introduction and a section on nuclear transmutations. Ron Marshall ( talk) 04:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
We need a cite-able reference for the Mitchell Swartz theory. The reference given is to a 1955 Phys Rev article. JohnAspinall 15:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
There are a lot of problems with the following text:
These theories are not only "contrary" to conventional physics: there are observations available which show them to be incorrect. In particular, the idea that a neutron with its extremely short lifetime can be involved in low-density fusion at low temperatures is easy to refute with a back of the envelope calculation where you take the fusion cross-section as roughly that of the nucleus, multiplied by the density of the material (assuming it to be all neutrons and nuclei) and multiplying that by the velocity of the particles (assuming roughly that v is on the order of kT/m) doing this yields about one contact per 105 seconds which is much larger than the hundreds of seconds that neutrons can survive. Polyneutrons have zero mainstream support and energy levels below ground is patent pseudoscience. Why are we including such garbage in the article?
This paragraph is at least slightly more plausible, but still suffers from presentation of ideas that are really far out there without proper contextualization.
The only source for this is from Infinte Energy magazine (not a reliable source). I suggest removing the entire speculative paragraph as it represents original research.
In fact, all these paragraphs are very close to original research and I have therefore removed them from the article.
ScienceApologist 20:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure, but it looks like some of the good (peer reviewed) suggestions were removed and the pseudo science ones were left in.
Look at this list from a month ago. That is more acceptable, minus a few offending bullet points, is it not?
MigFP 20:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC) sock
This site describes a book on heavy electrons http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/EngineeringTechnology/MaterialsScience/?view=usa&ci=019851767X Ron Marshall ( talk) 21:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The article contained a sentence 'the US Patent Office has approved a patent relating to cold fusion'. The patent cited is about an improved electrolysis device. It is not related to cold fusion, and so I have removed the reference. User:Pcarbonn has disputed this based on his reading of the patent ( here). While the patent description references various cold fusion articles, the term 'fusion' occurs nowhere in the patent itself, which refers only to electrolysis. Claiming that this is the Patent Office approving something related to cold fusion is like saying that patenting a better magnetic alloy is related to perpetual motion. Michaelbusch ( talk) 22:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Sample text: "2. Description of the Related Art
Since 1989, scientists have demonstrated that liquid and gaseous electrolysis processes, though not yet completely understood, may be able to address future heating and electrical power requirements. For example, it has been readily demonstrated that electrolysis of many fluids results in heat generation that can be employed for other purposes, e.g., heating or generation of electricity.
A growing need has developed for compact, reliable, rugged and self-contained power sources providing heat and/or electricity in applications such as mobile vehicles, trailers, and equipment support units. There is a concurrent need for reliable, rugged and self-contained power sources providing heat and/or electricity for larger stationary power requirements. A sense of urgency for such new power sources has resulted from the realization that fossil fuels are in limited supply. It will be appreciated that nuclear fission power plants are not an acceptable alternative due to the dangers associated with uncontrolled releases of fission products and the enormous environmental and political problems associated with waste disposal.
Early attempts to develop the needed energy production apparatus focused on energy production using nuclear batteries. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,290,522; 3,409,820, and 4,835,433, which patents are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. A radiation source was required, and radiation from this source which was absorbed in a potential barrier, e.g., p-n-p junction or metal-semiconductor contact, gave rise to electron-hole pairs that flowed as electricity due to the beta voltaic or Volta effect. Efficiencies on the order of about 25% were demonstrated.
In their now famous (or infamous) paper, Pons and Fleischmann reported excess heat in heavy water, palladium apparatus. See Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, "Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium," submitted to the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Mar. 11, 1989. Due to the amount of heat produced per unit volume of cathode material, the energy measured in these types of apparatus has generally been considered to be from a nuclear process. Measurements of helium and tritium produced have given credibility to methods where heat is produced.
Recently, engineered devices based upon these results have been built with the objective of investigating the production of heat and by-products over extended periods of time. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,273,635 and 5,318,675, which patents are incorporated herein for all purposes, as well as Great Britain Patent No. 2 231 195, EP 0 568 118 and WO95/20816 have been granted for or described such devices, respectively. As a result, problems with the state of the art of methods of liquid and gaseous electrolysis have begun to be addressed by investigators with improved consistency. It will also be appreciated that problems associated with such systems include: hydrogen recombination with oxygen, with the potential for explosion; the relatively slow loading of hydrogen into cathodes; inefficient designs; and, the potential dangers of loaded, pressurized bulk material." Ron Marshall ( talk) 23:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
For information, this discussion is about this diff. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
There is a disagreement on the relevance of this paragraph:
This paragraph is sourced by a reliable, notable source: the 2004 DOE panel. It would not be difficult to show many other sources discussing the lack of a theory as a reason to reject cold fusion. So why do you want it remove ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 22:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I have now started a list of deletion of properly sourced statements done by Michaelbusch on his talk page. Feel free to add comment there on his pattern of behavior. Pcarbonn ( talk) 06:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Please note that I have also raised a wikiquette alert. Pcarbonn ( talk) 06:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
For the benefit of clarity, here is the full source for that statement:
"Cold fusion research : A Report of the Energy Research Advisory Board to the United States Department of Energy". 1989. Retrieved 2007-11-21. "Nuclear fusion at room temperature, of the type discussed in this report, would be contrary to all understanding gained of nuclear reactions in the last half century; it would require the invention of an entirely new nuclear process"" and "the failure of a theory to account for cold fusion can be discounted on the grounds that the correct explanation and theory has not been provided
Pcarbonn (
talk) 06:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Please do not misquote the 2004 DOE panel. Here is the full quote:
I don't see how it could ever support the view that "cold fusion can be discounted because no theory accounting for it has been developed". Please provide adequate quotes in support of your view. Pcarbonn ( talk) 14:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Not so. Here is how the sentence must be understood in its context: 'Likewise the failure of Quantum Mechanics to account for cold fusion can be discounted on the grounds that the correct explanation and theory has not been provided.'. Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC) This clearly says that "the failure of Quantum Mechanics to account for cold fusion can be discounted". Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
In addition, the principle that "the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss experimental evidence" is the basis of the scientific method. Arguing the contrary puts you in the WP:Fringe of science. Pcarbonn ( talk) 15:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I really don't understand how you could ever come to this conclusion by neutrally reading the quoted statement or the report. I have created a request for comment below. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Michaelbusch, ScienceApologist, could you tell us whether you would accept mediation on this issue ? Thanks. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
(undent)Ron, you are becoming increasingly shrill and adding nothing to the discussion. According to talk page guidelines, we are here to discuss the article not complain about the cabal censoring your favorite pet ideas. This kind of rhetoric will get us nowhere and your inflammatory edits that try to make a point are also not appreciated. Please cease this behavior at once. ScienceApologist ( talk) 19:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Michaelbusch, or someone, keeps deleting important books about cold fusion. Michaelbusch asks: "please explain why these particular references are required." Reasons:
Experts in cold fusion ranging from Storms & Bockris to Arthur C. Clarke recommended these books, and wrote forwards & introductions to the books.
Mallove was published by Wiley, one of the largest and most respected technical publishers. It was widely reviewed and nominated for a Pulitzer prize. Mallove himself played a key role in the history of cold fusion. Mallove purchased the rights to the book and reprinted it, partly because he needed the income, which was considerable.
Dozens of experts contributed to Beaudette. The University of Utah asked for, and accepted, his papers, interviews and the manuscript of this book.
Mizuno is one of Japan's leading cold fusion scientists and electrochemists. He has published over 50 papers, mainly in Japanese, about several different aspects of electrochemistry, including cold fusion. The Japanese edition of this book has sold tens of thousands of copies and the publisher asked him to write a second book, which he did. (It has not been translated into English.)
Contrary to your assertions above, these are not in any sense "self published" books. They were all professional edited and they have all sold thousands of copies.
The fact that you ask why these books are important tells me that you are unfamiliar with the field. Have you even read these books? There are roughly 2,500 researchers in cold fusion listed in the LENR-CANR database. I have met or worked with hundreds of them. I am sure that most of them are familiar with these books, and consider these books important. If you are not an expert in cold fusion, you have no business second-guessing them. Whether you think cold fusion is real or not has no bearing on this issue. If this article was about the Flat Earth theory it would include books that most Flat Earth believers consider important.
PLEASE STOP VANDALIZING THIS PAGE!
- Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Let me add that I have several other books on cold fusion, both pro and con, that do not merit listing in this bibliography for the reasons cited by Michaelbusch; i.e. they are obscure or self-published. Some are pretty good, but obscure. In other words, Michaelbusch's standards for exclusion are reasonable but they do not apply to the books he excluded.
- Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
You wrote:
"If you can provide us with evidence that the references that have been removed are cited in mainstream publications or have received enough notability to make them important for consideration . . ."
I did that! The first message in this section lists the reasons. U. Utah established a special collection for Beaudette's papers and manuscripts. Mallove was reviewed in the New York Times and elsewhere and nominated for a Pulitzer. The forwards and reviews are written by important people such as Clarke. What more do you want? Do the authors have to win a Nobel Prize in literature?
Speaking of which, three of the cold fusion authors do have Nobel laureates, albeit in physics not literature. You call this a "fringe community" but you have no objective basis for saying that. That designation is absurd. There are, as I said, 2,500 authors, and they probably include a large fraction of the world's electrochemists. Authors in our library include Heinz Gerischer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin; Dr. P. K. Iyengar, director of BARC and later chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission; Prof. Melvin Miles, Fellow of China Lake; a retired member of the French Atomic Energy Commission; three of the editors of major plasma fusion journals that I mentioned previously, and many top researchers from U.S. national laboratories. Who the hell are you to claim this is a "fringe community"?!? YOU are the fringe element here! Cold fusion is mainstream. It was replicated in hundreds of labs such as Los Alamos and BARC, and these replications were published in some of the world's top peer-reviewed journals.
Peer-reviewed replications are the only standard of importance in science. Not your opinion or your arbitrary exclusion. You are not a journal editor. The Jap. J. of Applied Physics is Japan's number one journal of physics. It published several of Mizuno's papers (as author and co-author). It published a special issue devoted to cold fusion. His two books were published by one of Japan's largest academic publishers. Therefore, Mizuno is important. What standard do you apply that makes him unimportant? An ouija board?
- Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 15:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
You wrote: "you need to address the fact that the books themselves have not received recognition." Look, for crying out loud, do you speak language? The books HAVE -- I repeat HAVE -- received recognition. They have been nominated for major prizes, reviewed in major newspapers, and sold in much higher numbers than most academic books. They have been praised by some of the most prestigious scientists in the world, and attacked by some of the leading opponents of cold fusion. The original manuscript of one has been acquired by U. Utah, which is one of the largest university libraries in the world, and the place where cold fusion was discovered. What more can you ask for?!? What standards do you have in mind? Are you expecting an endorsement from the Scientific American? No doubt you have dreamed up some new, arbitrary standard of "recognition." You should at least tell us how far you have moved the goalposts, and in which direction. No one else uses your imaginary standards of excellence, so please tell us what they are.
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 19:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Ah. I get it. You have declared John Wiley & Sons and Kougakusha to be "vanity presses." They are among the biggest publishers in the world, but not big enough for you. That's hilarious. Why don't you dream up some more outrageous and arbitrary reasons to censor information you don't like?
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 19:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I repeat, Mallove was published by Wiley, and then reprinted by Infinite Energy Press. (That was actually a gift from the Wiley editor to Mallove, because it was a major source of income for him.) Mizuno was published by Kougakusha, and then translated by me, and reprinted by Infinite Energy Press with permission from Kougakusha. Kougakasha does not publish in English. A translation is a reprint. That is to say, publishers and authors usually get royalties from English to Japanese translations, and Infinite Energy pays royalties to Mizuno, not to the translator. I don't know if they pay Kougakusha or not.
In any case, whether these books are published by obscure publishers or major ones, the consensus of opinion by people on both sides of the debate is that these books are important. Supporters recommend these books; skeptics attack them by name; and skeptics like you frantically try to erase them. That proves they are important.
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 21:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Note that the
creation science Wikipedia article includes 17 books by creationists. They come from publishers such as Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, and from several obscure publishers I have never heard of. I think that creationism is bogus science, and I expect ScienceApologist agrees. But neither of us has any right to barge into that article, declare that "Answers in Genesis" is not a legitimate publisher, and start erasing titles. We do not get to decide who is important or legitimate in creationism. Only the creationists do. Obviously they are a "fringe science" but again, that does not give us the right to disrupt their presentation or insert our opinions. That article is about creationism, not what Jed and Mr. Apologist think of creationism.
Note that the creationist bibliography is split between creationist and anti-creationist books. Perhaps we should split the cold fusion bibliography, for clarity.
- Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.247.224.24 ( talk) 22:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
You need to read the Wikipedia policies on civility and no personal attacks. Currently you are not engaging in proper talk page etiquette and will quickly find yourself losing editing privileges if you keep up this kind of advocacy. ScienceApologist ( talk) 16:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I think this conversation is over. Unless someone has some new information as to the relevance of these few books, I think we should stop with this back-and-forth. We are here to write an encyclopedia, not to decide who is censoring whom. ScienceApologist ( talk) 20:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Editors have conflicting view on it. Please help resolve the dispute. This RFC continues a discussion started here. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:17, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
The title of this section makes no sense, for two reasons:
1. Lack of theory is never a valid reason to reject replicated experimental results. That violates the scientific method at the most fundamental level. When theory conflicts with experiment, theory always yields.
2. The 2004 DoE panel never asserted anything like this. Very few scientists are so ignorant of the scientific method that they would claim this. The only opponent of cold fusion who says this is John Huizenga. The others all claim, falsely, that the effect was never replicated. They pretend that hundreds of peer-reviewed papers do not exist. This is what a few members of the DoE review panel did.
Someguy wrote: "Lack of a theory is a perfectly good reason to dismiss something that's never been observed." That is true, but it has no bearing on this discussion, because cold fusion has been observed thousands of times in hundreds of laboratories, often at very high signal to noise ratios.
I see the level of confusion and scientific illiteracy here remains as high as ever. People who have read nothing and who know nothing feel they have a solemn obligation to trash research and erase the titles of books written by actual scientists about the actual subject. I should stop wasting my time here. I have to hand it to the supporters of cold fusion, who have done a remarkable job holding off the forces of ignorance and censorship, but I still feel it is a futile task. If you want to learn about cold fusion, or any other science, you need to go to legitimate sources of information such as peer-reviewed journals and the books by Storms, Beaudette and the others that the fanatics here are so anxious to erase.
- Jed Rothwell
My quick glance at the article failed to find much significant information about what cold fusion is, which is not surprising since the DOE said:
stated that the effects are not repeatable, the magnitude of the effect has not increased in over a decade of work, and that many of the reported experiments were not well documented.
I hesitate to call this a "controversy", although there is a certainly a scientific dispute. Perhaps this is merely protoscience; I hope so, because cheap energy would benefit the third world tremendously.
But I think what our readers are looking for is research about the "cold fusion" elusive effect. We should be fair to the possibility that it can be / has been produced, while not exaggerating anything. If the mainstream of physics is saying things like, "Sorry, gentlemen, we simply cannot reproduce your results", then the burden is on the proponents. Anyway, we can be neutral here in the contributor club, can't we? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 00:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I know it's extreme, but I have reverted this to the 2004 Featured Article version. The amount of edit warring and POV-pushing that has cgone on here is breathtaking, the hundreds of to-and-fro edits have fragmented the article while obscuring the clarity that was in the original. It would be good, I think, to work back up from this adding new published research available since 2004, measuring every source and sentence against WP:NPOV and WP:RS. What we don't need is conflicted editors promoting thier own commercial interests, so I'm going to ask that Jed Rothwell restrict himself to short, factual statements on this discussion page and resist the temptation to indulge in lengthy segues. Just the facts, please, and only those facts available in rock-solid sources. Guy ( Help!) 20:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest to start from the last stable version, ie. something like this one of end september. It is much expanded compared to the FA, and provides a lot of sources. It was the result of intense discussions, and has been pretty stable for a long time: presumably, it is not so controversial.
If this is not agreable, could we at least use some sections from it, such as the history ? Thanks in advance. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, I do not think you wood come off all them well in a comparison of ethics. Ron Marshall ( talk) 22:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Would you accept a mediation on the following point of dispute: "Which version should we continue editing from: the Featured Article of 2004, or a more recent one, eg. this one" ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 23:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
So, do you accept mediation ? I would hope that the committee will reestablish the principle that wikipedia is based on facts, not opinions, that it will request you to provide sources for your opinions, and that it will be sensitive to the fact that the work of dozens of editors doing two thousands edits over the last 3 years to reflect the latest developments in the field and to provide nearly 100 reliable sources on the subject, after considerable debates on how best to present the subject (see archives), cannot be deleted by the whims of a couple of users unable to provide sources for their views. Pcarbonn ( talk) 09:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
While not perfect, the recent version is a perfectly good basis to continue editing the cold fusion article towards feature article status. It is well supported by the most reliable sources available, in particular regarding the recent events in the field such as the 2004 DOE panel, the SPAWAR experiment, and presentations at the annual meetings of the American Physical society and the American Chemical Society.
I'll defend the position that the reversion to the 2004 FA version is requested in violation of the "neutral point of view" and "no original research" policies of wikipedia. It is an attempt to eliminate well sourced evidence for the purpose of advancing a personal opinion. I'll suggest that the best way for the other party to defend its case is to provide relevant sources in support of their point of view.
A good illustration of this issue can be found in the discussion titled " paragraph on theory vs experiment", where the other party is trying to justify the deletion of a well sourced statement. The other party is seen misquoting sources, arguing against the basic tenet of science since Galileo which says that "the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss experimental evidence", and, when it all failed, used their personal opinion to justify it. They failed to respond to the request to support their point of view that cold fusion is dismissed by mainstream science.
The reversion to the 2004 FA version is the same as the deletion of the sentence on theory vs experiment, only on a grander scale. Pcarbonn ( talk) 09:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
By my count, the present version of the article is about 11 screens long, while the last version before the "bold move" was about 28 screens long. I will defend the proposition that, with proper links and modest updating, 11 or so screens is plenty of space to describe cold fusion, and would actually be more useful to users of wikipedia. Perhaps a split off article titled "Proposed Cold Fusion Mechansims" would help? 209.253.120.205 ( talk) 19:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
One last time: do you accept mediation on this issue, or do we go to the arbitration committee ? Pcarbonn ( talk) 16:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I have now created a request for mediation here. I'm not sure whether it is possible to add participants, but feel free to do it if you want/can. Pcarbonn ( talk) 17:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so we're looking at:
Anything else?
ScienceApologist ( talk) 21:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Reverting to the 2004 article is totally unacceptable behavior. I reverted to the September 2006 version so skeptics can see what it feels like. These revisions need to stop until there is full discussion on them. Otherwise non-skeptic revisions will be made without discussion.Ron Marshall (talk) 18:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ron Marshall ( talk • contribs)
[ I have removed an attack from here, if the originator wants to re-state his request in less polemical terms he will be welcome to do so ]
JzG, please explain what do you think is "kooky" about a repository of articles previously published in other venues, mostly conference proceedings or peer-reviewed journals, and republished with permission of the authors. (That is, http://www.lenr-canr.org/) If you think that anything outside Nature and Physical Review Letters is "kooky", then we should just delete this page and be done with it. An encyclopedia writer should at least read things before passing judgement about them, and not follow his "nose" blindly. -- 81.208.60.199 ( talk) 17:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Clearly there have been dozens or hundreds of reports of anamalous temperature increases or neutron emissions occurring while researchers study the electrolysis of D2O. Everyone agrees it would be good if we could get cheap energy this way.
What we do not agree on is the basis for evaluating these experiments. "Your" inability to reproduce "my" experiments is not a disproof of anything, of course. Perhaps the question is more an economic one.
How much money should private investors or foundations allot to this promising new line of research? Should the government subsidize it? Good gosh, man, we are already spending over one billion dollars a year to prove that human-caused global warming threatens the future of the planet! Low-temp nuclear fusion could replace coal power for electricity generation, so why don't we fund cold fusion research?
Anyway, what we as writers here need to do is to describe both sides of the issue fairly. -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 19:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I've temporarily increased the protection level to this page to full protect in the face of continuing instability. Let's please resolve the outstanding issues on the talk page before undertaking massive edits. Ronnotel ( talk) 20:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I wish supporters of the view that cold fusion is still pseudoscience provides source for their personal views, that are at least as reliable as the 2004 DOE panel which says the contrary. -- I don't think that the DOE panel ruled on whether much of what is going on under the umbrella of "cold fusion research" is pseudoscience or not. Certainly there are people promoting pseudoscience as cold fusion and as such there are parts of this subject which are definitely pseudoscience. Nevertheless, there may be isolated researchers doing good work as well. That's what I get from the 2004 report.
ScienceApologist (
talk) 23:09, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
From NPOV Tutorial
A common way of introducing bias is by one-sided selection of information. Information can be cited that supports one view while some important information that opposes it is omitted or even deleted. Such an article complies with Wikipedia:Verifiability but violates NPOV. A Wikipedia article must comply with all three guidelines (i.e. Verifiability, NPOV, and No original research) to be considered compliant.
Some examples of how editors may unwittingly or deliberately present a subject in an unfair way:
Thus, verifiability, proper citation and neutral phrasing are necessary but not sufficient to ensure NPOV. It is important that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner and that each is summarized as if by its proponents to their best ability. Ron Marshall ( talk) 23:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
While wikipedia is not a democracy, it would be interesting to know who would like to continue editing from the 2004 version, and who would like to continue editing from the 2007 version. Discussion on the issue should still continue though.
The 2004 revert was done at the end of September 2006 by ScienceApologist and others. Two years of work were negated for the purpose of information suppression. Now ScienceApologist and others want to negate another year of work for information suppression. This behavior is censorship and it is not NPOV as the description of information suppression above states. Ron Marshall ( talk) 23:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Edit from the 2007 version:
Edit from the 2004 version:
There needs to be a link to go to Adobe ColdFusion. -- H AYSON1991 21:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC) Done Guy ( Help!) 00:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
With due apologies to the few anonymous editors who have been thoughtfully contributing here, I have semiprotected this talk page to prevent the relentless self-promotion and abuse of Jed Rothwell. I can't rangeblock due to likely collateral damage, and he's IP-hopping. The whole talk page will be better off without him right now, I think. Good faith comments for this page posted ot my talk will be brought here as soon as I have time, no doubt other eidtors will be similarly helpful. Jed Rothwell should consider himself topic-banned for a month to let less conflicted editors settle the matter of what to do next. Guy ( Help!) 00:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I have reduced protection level on the article to semi. Let's all please renew our efforts to assume food faith on the part of our fellow editors. I think a very good place to re-start is discussing the To-Do list that was mentioned above. Ronnotel ( talk) 14:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I reverted the inclusion of an overview section. I shall now enumerate my problems with this section:
There is a basic question as to whether we need an overview at all. I'm of the opinion that the lead right now does a decent enough job explaining what cold fusion is and providing the appropriate background. Perhaps one or two more sentences can be added or rearranged, but adding an additional section seems to me to be overkill. However, I have provided explanations below for why each of the individual wordings were problematic as well. ScienceApologist ( talk) 07:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
When water is electrolyzed in a closed cell surrounded by a calorimeter, all energy transfer can be accounted for using the theories of electricity, thermodynamics and chemistry: the electrical input energy, the heat accumulated in the cell, the chemical storage of energy and the heat leaving the cell all balance out. When the cathode is made of palladium and heavy water is used instead of light water, the same conservation of energy should be observed.
This seems to me to be a bit much for the article. Explanations of electrolysis should go on the electrolysis page and not on this page. Mentioning that cold fusion was electrolysis with palladium and heavy water should be sufficient. That would only require one sentence, not a paragraph. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
What Fleischmann and Pons said was that the heat measured by their calorimeter significantly exceeded their expectations in some cases. They calculated a power density over 1 W/cm³ based on the volume of the cathode, a value too high to be explained by chemical reactions alone. [24] They concluded that the effect must be nuclear, although they lacked evidence for it.
A couple problems here: This should be in a section devoted to Fleidshmann and Pons, not in the overview. Also, I'm not too happy about lenr-canr and newenergytimes being used as sources as they have obvious reliability concerns. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Others have tried to replicate their observations. Many failed, but some succeeded, using a variety of setups.
Obvious POV. The idea that "some succeeded" is entirely arguable as seen in the 2004 DOE report, for example. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
They reported high power densities in peer reviewed journals such as the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics [25] and the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. [26]
Highly contentious. First of all, these peer review journals are, as has been said previously, somewhat out-of-the-way. More than this, we shouldn't be reporting only positive results lest we succumb to publication bias. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
In the most recent review of the field by the DoE, some researchers believed that the experimental evidence was sufficient to establish the scientific validity of the excess heat effect. Others rejected the evidence, and the panel was evenly split on the issue. This was a significant change compared to the 1989 DoE panel, which rejected it entirely.
POV-interpretation. The majority of the DOE panel rejected the evidence. To say that "some believed" is to paint a rosier picture than the report gave. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
The search for products of nuclear fusion has resulted in conflicting results, leading two thirds of the 2004 DoE reviewers to reject the possibility of nuclear reactions.
Again, a POV-interpretation. Claiming a controversy of "conflicting results" here is something that isn't sourced. To source this, you will need to find a mainstream, uninvolved scientist who reports that the results are indeed "conflicting".
In 2006, Pamela Mosier-Boss and Stanislaw Szpak, researchers in the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego, reported evidence of high-energy nuclear reactions concentrated near the probe surface. [27] Based on this work, two other teams have reported similar findings at the American Physical Society meeting of March 2007 (sessions A31 and B31). [28]
Problematic. First of all, why is a US Navy scientist reporting in a German journal? Seems supicious. Also, we should not user LENR-CANR: there are other neutral archive servers we can use. Finally, almost anyone can report conference proceedings which are not peer-reviewed and are only subject to minimal oversight. What's important is to document the response at the conference -- but this is almost impossible to do. So we should find a neutral third-party journalist who reported on the session if we want to discuss the APS meeting. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
One reason for many to exclude a nuclear origin for the effect is that current theories in physics cannot explain how fusion could occur under such conditions. However, the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss the reported evidence. [29] Many theories have thus been proposed, in a continuing effort to explain the reported observations.
Ridiculously POV. The statement that "the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss the reported evidence." might as well read: "mainstream skepticism against cold fusion is wrong." That is completely unacceptable for inclusion here. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
The US Patent Office accepted a patent in cold fusion in 2001. [30]
Trivia. The US Patent office accepts a lot of dubious patents. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Still, current knowledge of the effect, if it exists, is insufficient to expect commercial applications soon. The 2004 DoE panel identified several areas that could be further studied using appropriate scientific methods.
Again, POV. First of all, this is a POV explaining away one of the major criticisms of this endeavor: why isn't cold fusion making us energy right now if it exists? Secondly, the stock phrase about the DOE panels recommendation is throwaway and misses the point that the majority of the panel members were dubious as to the very existence of the effect. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
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