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Here is my attempt at paraphrasing the abstracts:
Combined:
Ok? 76.246.148.242 ( talk) 05:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
There are many ways to address this problem; I'd like for people to figure out the best way. I'm thinking of making a post on WP:VPP for the purpose of addressing the top-down issue: what is Wikipedia good for? What do we want to be known for? Wikipedia will always be a fantastic place to get high-quality information on military history, roads, national parks, and many other subjects where the wikiprojects have a history of cranking out high-quality information and successfully dealing with vandalism. The question is, will Wikipedia ever be a good place for people to come for information on Cold fusion? Until today, I was hopeful that the answer was "yes", but I don't know the answer now. Pierre/Pcarbonn and I were the only two editors who were looking at this article very carefully, sentence by sentence and ref by ref, during the WP:GAN, and now he's saying that he's fine with shifting the lead from saying that cold fusion is undecided to saying it's been decided.
I haven't been willing to keep up with the cold fusion debate since the early 90s, and I'm still not; it should be obvious to anyone reading this article that scientists appear not to have been in a hurry to decide the issue over the last 19 years, and that almost certainly implies disinformation as well as neglect, and there is not the slightest sign of consensus among scientists as to which information is disinformation and which is real. Wikipedia is not going to magically generate a solution that has escaped chemists and physicists. It's true that there is movement recently; it's not out of the question that at least some questions will be answered to everyone's satisfaction some time this year, but we'll have to wait until that happens before we can write about it in Wikipedia.
In the meantime, what's the goal for this article? Since cold fusion continues to occasionally be a news story (some people were replying to the Arata story at physorg.com this week implying they were getting their information about cold fusion from Wikipedia), how this article reads will affect Wikipedia's reputation in the world. Do we want people reading this article to read whatever the latest anonymous edit says is true about the cold fusion controversy? The most contentious issue in all of Wikipedia is: stability or change? Open or closed? It's possible that the appropriate answer to these questions for Cold fusion is different than for many other articles. I'd like to hear your thoughts. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 16:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I made some changes to the lead. As noted in my edit summary, I think that changes to the lead on the 29th were not in line with the results of the recent mediation, or the WP:GAN review, or NPOV, or scientific consensus; I'm attempting to fix that. One change that proponents will like comes from WP:LEAD; if alternate names for the subject of the article appear in the lead section, then they're supposed to be in the first sentence in bold, and I don't think we can argue that "low energy nuclear reactions" and "condensed matter nuclear science" are not alternate terms for "cold fusion"; they are. But the main problem that needed fixing was the assertion that there are explanations of "cold fusion" that use "textbook physics"; this completely and thoroughly misrepresented the position of the vast majority of physicists and chemists.
The recent mediation suggested that the issue has not been settled, that is, most scientists believe that cold fusion is a series of experimental errors and/or invalid conclusions (although to be fair, most of them simply haven't paid much attention), but a significant number believe that it's a demonstration of fusion at ordinary temperatures and pressures, and others say they don't know. Given that the current consensus on Wikipedia is that the matter hasn't been settled, NPOV requires that we not "get in the way" of letting both sides tell their story, even though this will annoy the heck out of some proponents and some skeptics. Here's the point that some of the proponents are missing: you don't get to decide which experiments are relevant to cold fusion and which aren't. I know that some of you much prefer to look at recent experiments instead of the whole body of experiments in quantum physics; I know that some of you claim that if someone doesn't succeed in getting 95% loading of deuterium into their cathode, that means that nothing they have to say has any relevance to cold fusion. You make some good points, and we sketch the arguments in this article and point to very good references so that people can follow up these threads. But the fact that you think you know what's relevant and what's not doesn't end the argument. NPOV on Wikipedia requires that, if a significant number of people think that little green men have invaded, we have to let them tell their story; we can rebut, but we can't undercut; so NPOV sure as heck means that if 9999 out of 10000 scientists believe something, we have to let them tell their story, and their story is that millions of atoms don't spontaneously interact coherently at room temperature. They believe this is established by a century of experimentation and theory. They also believe in conservation of energy and momentum, and given those beliefs, they don't see a way to get fusion creating helium without energetic particles...at any temperature, much less ordinary temperatures. I know that some of you believe that none of their experiments and nothing they say is relevant to the current controversy, but NPOV requires us to represent their position, anyway.
As long as we clearly represent the position of both sides, I'm fine with tweaks to the lead; I gave it a shot. I don't expect everyone who wants to contribute to Wikipedia to know all the Wikipedia policies and guidelines; in fact, if you have something to contribute, I'd prefer you not worry too much about it, as long as you are willing to collaborate with experienced and trusted Wikipedians. It basically just comes down to: help Wikipedia, good; hurt Wikipedia, bad. The changes to the lead on the 29th that said that cold fusion was settled and established and followed "textbook physics" hurt Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm concerned that the last paragraph of the intro seems to imply that proof of cold fusion is widely accepted by experts in the field. However, that would contradict the very first sentence of the reference that seems to be the source for that paragraph:
Seventeen years after the announcement by Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the discovery of cold fusion in March 1989, the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme.
For comparison, here is the current version of that paragraph:
Since then, several reviews of the field published in peer-reviewed journals have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments which result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics.
Specifically, my concern is that a reader would interpret "several reviews... published..." to mean that those reviews are representative of the scientific community, in contradiction of the above quote.
Can we find a way to rephrase things so we won't risk misleading our readers? Also, I think it's important that we include plenty of citations in this article, including (especially?) in the intro. Finally, I'd recommend that we try to focus these discussions on how best to represent the literature, rather than trying to determine whether cold fusion is true/false, good/bad science, etc. Just my 2 cents, Gnixon ( talk) 05:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
"As of 2006, some in the scientific community do not accept cold fusion or CMNS as genunie." is what I added to the intro and will to the supporting mention. 76.240.228.188 ( talk) 07:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I know everyone is a bit tired out. I'm going to make some minor style fixes today...we forgot to italicize journal names for instance...but I'll leave the fixes that will be needed for WP:FAC until we seem to have renewed interest from a number of editors. I suggest we just add anything that doesn't need to be fixed right away to this list. We can start with this feedback from G-Guy's talk page:
Pierre, I'm not saying that there is some kind of iron rule that we have to wait for X different opinions before we can proceed. I'm saying that the spirit of WP:CONSENSUS is that, when this article has been the subject of a lot of trips to WP:ANI, and when it largely represented the position of the skeptics back when it was a featured article two years ago, we can't rush to WP:FAC. We have to acknowledge that sometimes people who cared in the past might care again in the future, and give them a chance to have their input. I know that you feel that there are serious deficiencies with the input of some of the skeptics, but that doesn't change the fact that we are required to be patient and give everyone lots of time. Besides, if we don't, that will just land us at WP:FAR later on, even if the article does pass WP:FAC. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 15:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
When I was a featured article reviewer, I would need a really good reason to even consider passing something with an open {{
todo}}
list. That's the first and best place to start right now..
76.246.148.242 (
talk)
04:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
This is what the contents was when I started:
* 1 Ongoing controversy o 1.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result o 1.2 Missing nuclear products o 1.3 Lack of theoretical explanations * 2 Experimental reports o 2.1 Excess heat o 2.2 Nuclear products o 2.3 Nuclear transmutations o 2.4 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment * 3 History o 3.1 Early work o 3.2 Pre-announcement and announcement o 3.3 Post-announcement o 3.4 Moving beyond the initial controversy * 4 Notes * 5 References * 6 Bibliography * 7 Further reading
That seemed absurdly anti-chronological to me. This is what the contents is now:
* 1 Experimental reports o 1.1 Excess heat o 1.2 Nuclear products o 1.3 Nuclear transmutations * 2 History o 2.1 Early work o 2.2 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment + 2.2.1 Pre-announcement and announcement + 2.2.2 Post-announcement o 2.3 Controversy + 2.3.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result + 2.3.2 Missing nuclear products + 2.3.3 Lack of theoretical explanations o 2.4 Beyond the controversy * 3 Notes * 4 References * 5 Bibliography * 6 Further reading
That, as I understand it, may be how Pcarbonn wants it. This is, I believe, how Noren wants it:
* 1 Early work * 2 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment o 2.1 Pre-announcement and announcement o 2.2 Post-announcement * 3 Controversy o 3.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result o 3.2 Missing nuclear products o 3.3 Lack of theoretical explanations * 4 Beyond the controversy * 5 Experimental reports o 5.1 Excess heat o 5.2 Nuclear products o 5.3 Nuclear transmutations * 6 Notes * 7 References * 8 Bibliography * 9 Further reading
I have to go with Noren on this one. What do other people think? 76.246.148.242 ( talk) 06:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I really think the article would be easier to read if it were more chronological and less disjointed. I strongly dislike using the phrase "beyond the controversy" because the controversy has not gone away at all. Placing a "Beyond the controversy" section just after a "Controversy" section as in the current article strongly suggests that the controversy in the past, which is simply not true. Here is my proposal which incorporates these ideas:
* 1 History 1.1 Early work 1.2 Fleischmann-Pons announcement 1.3 Reaction to the announcement 1.4 Developments after 1989 1.5 2004 DOE panel 1.6 Recent developments * 2 Evidence for cold fusion 2.1 Excess heat 2.2 Nuclear products 2.3 Nuclear transmutations * 3 Incompatibilities with established physics
The basic cell description would be in section 1.2, near the top of the page as it should be. Criticism of experiments (reproducibility, contamination, etc.) would be placed just after the results are presented in sections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. The current "lack of theoretical explanations" section would be moved and become section 3. Any thoughts? 209.253.120.198 ( talk) 12:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
There are many ways to address this problem; I'd like for people to figure out the best way. I'm thinking of making a post on WP:VPP for the purpose of addressing the top-down issue: what is Wikipedia good for? What do we want to be known for? Wikipedia will always be a fantastic place to get high-quality information on military history, roads, national parks, and many other subjects where the wikiprojects have a history of cranking out high-quality information and successfully dealing with vandalism. The question is, will Wikipedia ever be a good place for people to come for information on Cold fusion? Until today, I was hopeful that the answer was "yes", but I don't know the answer now. Pierre/Pcarbonn and I were the only two editors who were looking at this article very carefully, sentence by sentence and ref by ref, during the WP:GAN, and now he's saying that he's fine with shifting the lead from saying that cold fusion is undecided to saying it's been decided.
I haven't been willing to keep up with the cold fusion debate since the early 90s, and I'm still not; it should be obvious to anyone reading this article that scientists appear not to have been in a hurry to decide the issue over the last 19 years, and that almost certainly implies disinformation as well as neglect, and there is not the slightest sign of consensus among scientists as to which information is disinformation and which is real. Wikipedia is not going to magically generate a solution that has escaped chemists and physicists. It's true that there is movement recently; it's not out of the question that at least some questions will be answered to everyone's satisfaction some time this year, but we'll have to wait until that happens before we can write about it in Wikipedia.
In the meantime, what's the goal for this article? Since cold fusion continues to occasionally be a news story (some people were replying to the Arata story at physorg.com this week implying they were getting their information about cold fusion from Wikipedia), how this article reads will affect Wikipedia's reputation in the world. Do we want people reading this article to read whatever the latest anonymous edit says is true about the cold fusion controversy? The most contentious issue in all of Wikipedia is: stability or change? Open or closed? It's possible that the appropriate answer to these questions for Cold fusion is different than for many other articles. I'd like to hear your thoughts. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 16:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I made some changes to the lead. As noted in my edit summary, I think that changes to the lead on the 29th were not in line with the results of the recent mediation, or the WP:GAN review, or NPOV, or scientific consensus; I'm attempting to fix that. One change that proponents will like comes from WP:LEAD; if alternate names for the subject of the article appear in the lead section, then they're supposed to be in the first sentence in bold, and I don't think we can argue that "low energy nuclear reactions" and "condensed matter nuclear science" are not alternate terms for "cold fusion"; they are. But the main problem that needed fixing was the assertion that there are explanations of "cold fusion" that use "textbook physics"; this completely and thoroughly misrepresented the position of the vast majority of physicists and chemists.
The recent mediation suggested that the issue has not been settled, that is, most scientists believe that cold fusion is a series of experimental errors and/or invalid conclusions (although to be fair, most of them simply haven't paid much attention), but a significant number believe that it's a demonstration of fusion at ordinary temperatures and pressures, and others say they don't know. Given that the current consensus on Wikipedia is that the matter hasn't been settled, NPOV requires that we not "get in the way" of letting both sides tell their story, even though this will annoy the heck out of some proponents and some skeptics. Here's the point that some of the proponents are missing: you don't get to decide which experiments are relevant to cold fusion and which aren't. I know that some of you much prefer to look at recent experiments instead of the whole body of experiments in quantum physics; I know that some of you claim that if someone doesn't succeed in getting 95% loading of deuterium into their cathode, that means that nothing they have to say has any relevance to cold fusion. You make some good points, and we sketch the arguments in this article and point to very good references so that people can follow up these threads. But the fact that you think you know what's relevant and what's not doesn't end the argument. NPOV on Wikipedia requires that, if a significant number of people think that little green men have invaded, we have to let them tell their story; we can rebut, but we can't undercut; so NPOV sure as heck means that if 9999 out of 10000 scientists believe something, we have to let them tell their story, and their story is that millions of atoms don't spontaneously interact coherently at room temperature. They believe this is established by a century of experimentation and theory. They also believe in conservation of energy and momentum, and given those beliefs, they don't see a way to get fusion creating helium without energetic particles...at any temperature, much less ordinary temperatures. I know that some of you believe that none of their experiments and nothing they say is relevant to the current controversy, but NPOV requires us to represent their position, anyway.
As long as we clearly represent the position of both sides, I'm fine with tweaks to the lead; I gave it a shot. I don't expect everyone who wants to contribute to Wikipedia to know all the Wikipedia policies and guidelines; in fact, if you have something to contribute, I'd prefer you not worry too much about it, as long as you are willing to collaborate with experienced and trusted Wikipedians. It basically just comes down to: help Wikipedia, good; hurt Wikipedia, bad. The changes to the lead on the 29th that said that cold fusion was settled and established and followed "textbook physics" hurt Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm concerned that the last paragraph of the intro seems to imply that proof of cold fusion is widely accepted by experts in the field. However, that would contradict the very first sentence of the reference that seems to be the source for that paragraph:
Seventeen years after the announcement by Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the discovery of cold fusion in March 1989, the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme.
For comparison, here is the current version of that paragraph:
Since then, several reviews of the field published in peer-reviewed journals have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments which result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics.
Specifically, my concern is that a reader would interpret "several reviews... published..." to mean that those reviews are representative of the scientific community, in contradiction of the above quote.
Can we find a way to rephrase things so we won't risk misleading our readers? Also, I think it's important that we include plenty of citations in this article, including (especially?) in the intro. Finally, I'd recommend that we try to focus these discussions on how best to represent the literature, rather than trying to determine whether cold fusion is true/false, good/bad science, etc. Just my 2 cents, Gnixon ( talk) 05:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
"As of 2006, some in the scientific community do not accept cold fusion or CMNS as genunie." is what I added to the intro and will to the supporting mention. 76.240.228.188 ( talk) 07:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree pretty much with Smokefoot. The absence of negative criticism is the later sections is a little much--the An effort should be made to find not just "an overview of current thinking that leaves the door open to the Widon-Larsen theory and any other current CF theories." but also an overview of current thinking that explains why almost no active scientist in the field considers the current theories worth the investigating. If there are none, for whatever reason, then it should be said that no current scientific papers in the major journals of the field (listing them) discuss the subject, if that's the case.
There are peer-reviewed journals of every sort, from excellent to disreputable. The standards of some are to take essentially every paper they can get, or at least any that supports the premise of the editor. If the publishers chooses to say that manuscripts are reviewed independently, it's called a peer reviewed journal. Current Science, for example, has a remarkably flexible policy. That said, a few of the journals using the reference section to report the research are fairly reputable. I'm going to look at this factor in some more detail.
I have changed "Beyond the controversy" to "Further controversy" as being more descriptive. The section talks not about how the dispute has been resolved, but about how it has continued. DGG ( talk) 15:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
17:18 2 June. Smokefoot changed Oriani's descriptor from "physcial chemistry" to "materials science." I have a copy of Oriani's CV. It states that he obtained his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1948 from Princeton University.
Also, I knew that Huggins was back at Stanford so I requested a clarification from him today. His reply: "I took early retirement from Stanford in 1991. But after 16 years in Germany, I came back to Stanford in September 2007."
StevenBKrivit ( talk) 06:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems like the most relevant thing would be to describe Oriani's position at the time he published the result. How about "The first ... was published by Oriani in XXX, while he was a professor of XXX at XXX"? Smoke, can you provide a source indicating that he would have been a professor of materials science? Gnixon ( talk) 18:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
http://www.cems.umn.edu/about/people/facdetail.php?cemsid=20161 Two papers say from the 1990's have these addresses "Corrosion Research Center, University of Minnesota, 112 Amundson Hall, 221 Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S." "112 Amundson Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S.A." Unfortunately most of his work is published in Fusion Technology, which I cannot access on-line. Re the Galileo reference: The fact that proponents are dead or retired is not a slap against CF, but it would be helpful to this article to identify distinguished, non-dead, non-retired pro-CF scientists. Something to work on.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 23:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
In a letter to Science, Oriani's address was given as "Corrosion Research Center, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences, Institute of Technology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455." Assuming "professor" is accurate, can we agree to call him "professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences at the University of Minnesota," as above? Or, given the unwieldy department name, would it be better to simply call him "professor at the University of Minnesota," and give details in the citation? Gnixon ( talk) 05:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I have reinserted the to do list. Let's discuss what it should contain. Here is my proposal:
Pcarbonn ( talk) 10:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I am adding to the to-do list: describe the typical and best research results reported in the literature reviews as total input-to-output power ratios. 76.240.228.89 ( talk) 18:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
First I will admit that I am concerned that the thrust of the article legitimizes pseudoscience. Having described myself as "concerned," I have three areas that might merit revising, editing, or expanding:
Otherwise, I am leaving this article alone for a while.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 02:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Now we just need someone to do the grunt work of adding citations.... (assuming this version is acceptable) Gnixon ( talk) 01:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be some debate over the last paragraph of the lead, which describes recent reviews of cold fusion research. Here I propose a list of tasks that may lead to a resolution, along with some attempts by me to address those tasks ( Gnixon ( talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)):
Given my tentative answers to the above, here's a quick shot at a paragraph:
In contrast to the 2004 DOE report, a 2007 review by Jean-Paul Biberian, a cold fusion researcher, concluded, "After 15 years of intense work by hundreds of scientists in 15 countries, the proof that nuclear reactions not predicted by current theories occur in solids, during electrolysis, gas loading and gas discharge, has been established. [There is] convincing experimental data proving excess heat and helium production, tritium and neutron detection, X-rays and transmutation."
The long quote might be better in a "blockquote" template, or it might be better to use several shorter quotes. Gnixon ( talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
This article has a history of new account edits and IP edits designed to change the lead section to push POV. That caused a lot of trouble, and one of the responses was to have a mediation that settled the issue: this article should not push one POV in the lead section, such as the POV that the cold fusion position has been the increasingly dominant position. Unless someone wants to have another mediation, that's the clear consensus, and if someone contradicts that, I will change it. If they change it back, then we'll consider WP:3RR, WP:ANI, or semi-protection, depending on who's doing it and how persistent they are. It might be helpful to have a notice either on the article page or this talk page concerning the bottom-line results of the mediation; that might mean that people would be less tempted to try it, but this page has a long history of people hiding behind IP edits and new accounts and not caring much what the consensus is, so stronger measures might be necessary. Of course, I don't know if Zillionical is a new account here to push a POV; I'm required to assume good faith towards all new users. And that is exactly what previous POV-pushers counted on, so we have to be a little bit careful here not to reward people with changing the POV, even for a few days. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 16:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems like the Hubler review is confusing the issue (at least it's confusing me). Can we make any progress on understanding it or putting it in context? Gnixon ( talk) 19:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
"Since 2007, literature reviews have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments that result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. The reviews state that although many explanations have been proposed, several of which do not use new physics, none is yet satisfactory. There have been two peer-reviewed literature reviews since 2004 in support of cold fusion"
(There's no need to revert when someone de-indents, Pierre; not everyone likes to indent 9 times.) I support your logic; and I am just as disappointed as you are that various US government departments aren't willing to admit funding. But what might or might not be in their heads isn't relevant to
UNDUE; we can only report on what they are or aren't saying in reliable sources, not why. Are there any government agencies, anywhere, that are currently supporting work in cold fusion, on the record? - Dan
Dank55 (
talk)(
mistakes)
16:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I see he's a German user; I'll talk with him about how de.WP handles these issues, perhaps I can learn something. I don't think we can have an extra paragraph in the lead discussing 4 or 5 different ideas about tabletop fusion because: 1. That's more paragraphs than usual in a lead section; see WP:LEAD. 2. Adding new links in the lead is an open invitation to what are called "POV-forks"; that is, it's common in contentious articles for people who don't like the result to add a link in the lead section to a brand-new page where they say the things that people didn't want them to say in the contentious article. That won't necessarily happen, and I don't know Edoe2 and of course I AGF, it's just a very bad strategy in contentious articles to have links to miscellaneous "other topics" in the lead. 3. We got consensus to remove the extra section that used to deal with some of these other topics. This article is just about cold fusion, and we're having a hard enough time with just that, without bringing in other topics that don't really enlighten the discussion (such as muon-catalyzed fusion) or might be contentious in their own right.
As always, feel free to revert me if anyone disagrees, but give your reasons here, please. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
The point is, the physical community is giving the cold fusion enthusiasts the benefit of doubt that some unknown physics might be happening, enabling fusion to happen. But why the hell is there no trace of the products of said fusion?
The 23.8MeV net energy potential of a D + D -> He reaction is very real and it needs to be somehow brought out of the nucleus. This is more energy than actually available in binding energy within the entire nucleus of Helium!
These are staggering amounts of energy excess energy within a nucleus that need to be shed off in some way:
The He nucleus instantly pops apart into He3+n or T+p (each 50% of happening)
or in extremely rare cases very hard 23.8MeV gamma radiation (chance at 10^-7 to 10^-8) is released, killing everybody in the lab
Neutrons, Tritium as well as gammas can be measured blindingly easy to insane accuracy. Why isn't this being done? This is the reason why the physics community isn't taking the above "cold fusion" experiments serious. Actually, they are more like ROFL. No matter how the issue is turned and looked at, 23.8MeV of excess nuclear energy cannot be shed off in ways that are undetectable.
Edit:
The tracks of energetic particles within plastic CR-39 plates are without doubt due to micro cracks within the palladium electrodes causing localized extreme EM-fields and hence extremely high localized micro currents. These currents are sufficiently high to cause micro areas within the palladium to be turned into plasma. This is also the origin of the fabled "hot spots".
--
Dio1982 (
talk)
15:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Dio1982: You write "why the hell is there no trace of the products of said fusion?" I think your question deserves more attention than is given here, or is suitable to give here. It's obvious that you are very familiar with the three branches of dd thermonuclear fusion. I have begun to ask the same question recently, and it is a difficult question to answer, and for someone in my position, also a difficult one to ask. I refer you to my Bangalaore, India talk from January this year, and also to my forthcoming talk at ACS on 20 August at ~8a.m. In addition, I welcome your letter to the editor at New Energy Times for our September issue.
StevenBKrivit ( talk) 06:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I've got some real-life stuff going on and I have to tune out for a while. I'll unwatchlist (is that a word?), but feel free to contact me if I'm needed. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
- Dio says: "Neutrons, Tritium as well as gammas can be measured blindingly easy to insane accuracy. Why isn't this being done?" In fact this has been done many times. If the measured quantities was not consistent with the excess heat, they were still above any level that conventional theory would allow. Jones was the first one to detect neutron in 1989, and it was the basis for the rivalry with F&P. He confirmed his findings in 2003, and they have never been challenged, as far as I know. They are also over 60 reports of tritium, listed in Storms 2007. Storms also cites several anomalous gamma ray production.
Why aren't these measurements done more often ? Because of a lack of funding. Why is there a lack of funding ? I let you answer. Pcarbonn ( talk) 20:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I would ask that in an article this controversial, could the statements in the introduction please be sourced with footnotes to the citations? I see that DOE 2004 is the only thing cited there. I think I can gather from reading this talk page, but what are the two literature reviews mentioned in the last paragraph of the intro? 75.61.107.67 ( talk) 23:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
...you can tell me what you really think :) Feel free to give yourselves a round of applause; I know something about the early years of this controversy, and at that time, it was completely impossible to get supporters and skeptics working together. You guys did a very good job during the mediation, and that carried through into the WP:GAN, although a lot of people didn't speak up, I expect out of exhaustion. Feel free to take a break. After a while, if people seem to be interested in putting more work into the article, we could look at regaining Featured article status. We also might look at separate articles for other takes on the controversy, such as the role of government, or what the 19-year history of this teaches us about science and scientists that we didn't want to know. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 04:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Krivit and Pcarbonn and many other well-read people say that people who are not cold fusion proponents have been incredibly reluctant to get involved since 2004, to say anything one way or the other. You would think that, with all the supporters and skeptics over the years who have been angry (respectively, happy) that cold fusion has received so little support from government agencies and schools and scientific institutions, that someone would have been willing to say this in a reliable source since 2004, and back it up by showing that they had done a little investigation. To my surprise, I'm finding that Krivit and Pcarbonn are right: I'm finding absolutely nothing.
Here's the problem: UNDUE won't let us make the statement "Most scientists have met these reports with skepticism", which we all know to be true, and then follow that up with a long article that only gives sources that support exactly the opposite conclusion. We can "rebut, but not undercut". That is, we can't give the impression that we think that lots of scientists think X, but we think they're all idiots, because all the sources say Y. That's a real-world problem; that's not Wikipedia's problem. UNDUE gives us permission to split the article into a "pro" and a "con", which I'm thinking is the only thing left, and it wouldn't be much of a split: virtually the entire article is very useful for the "pro" position. I am personally disappointed in all the physicists who are willing to give negative opinions who aren't even willing to enter a lab with a running experiment and use films to measure for themselves whether energetic particles are being produced or not. How tough could it be to get the last image on the article page for themselves? But that's what we're stuck with; no one is willing to say yes or no, except for the supporters.
I propose that we dump this whole sorry problem of coming up with support for the "con" side on the physicists. Let's explain the problem to Wikipedia people who deal with mediation...maybe Seicer will help out again...and say that we are really having a problem with getting sources for one side of the issue, so we'd like to shift that argument over to nuclear physics or a link from that page. Let the physicists who want to support that side of things find their own sources; they'd be better at finding them, and at interpreting them. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
The only relevant thing I could find in the first source was "The UCLA team was determined to avoid a repeat of the 1989 'cold fusion' fiasco that promised unlimited energy but delivered little besides unrepeatable results." This is what WP:V refers to as "I heard it somewhere": an author is writing about what he believes was in the minds of UCLA researchers who are frightened about what happened 16 years earlier; it has no reliable information on what's currently happening in the field. I'll repeat the entire second source you're giving, I don't see how it helps, but maybe there's more that I don't know about:
In 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann made front-page news when they announced that they had fused the nuclei of atoms in a jar of water—a process that normally requires the heat of an H-bomb. In theory, room-temperature, or "cold," fusion could provide cheap, nearly limitless energy. No replication of the experiment could pass muster with critics, and most researchers dismissed the work as bogus.
Still, a few physicists keep the field alive and kicking. "There's something in the neighborhood of 20 basic experiments out there these days that are of interest," says MIT physicist Peter Hagelstein. In 2004 he and a group of fellow die-hard researchers tried to persuade the Department of Energy to reevaluate fusion research. A review panel found the evidence thin but saw some justification for further focused investigation.
The scientists who continue to work in the field claim that their experiments show minute, unexplained outputs of energy. Within the year, Hagelstein says, he plans to begin conducting cold fusion research at MIT, an institution that once held a ceremonial wake in cold fusion's honor. He aims to show that novel physical processes can trigger fusion without a significant input of heat. Hagelstein insists that those beyond the inner circle don't know the whole story. "People working in the field believe cold fusion is real and that the issue is settled," he says.
- Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 21:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I would say rather that "cons" have not offered plausible alternative explanations for the observed phenomena, and have certainly failed to demonstrate any of their hypothesis via experiment, or even do any experiments to test them.
For example, contamination has been proposed as an explanation for the transmutation-like phenomena, but since 1) rare earth elements (lanthanides) showed up, and 2) unnatural isotopic ratios showed up, this explanation is not plausible - not to mention the fact that 3) the composition of the material was measured prior to the experiment! So after proposing an explanation that, given the circumstances(1 & 2), is highly improbable, and has already been scientifically ruled-out(3), those who proposed the explanation didn't perform any experiments to discover if contamination really was the source. (An experiment that they could have done: they could have split the source palladium into 5 samples, crushing one and doing a spectral analysis on it to determine it's original composition, then with the remaining 4 samples, doing the experiment with hydrogen-1(p), hydrogen-2(np), helium-3(npp), and helium-4(nnpp).) If contamination really was the source, they'd be able to scientifically prove it - but they haven't even tried to.
The end result is that we don't have any sources to cite to support their position - because they haven't produced any. Now I can understand the "burden of proof" argument -- it lies on the side making the extraordinary claim -- but when your hypothesis has already been scientifically ruled out, that makes your claim extraordinary. And I can understand them not wanting to take the time and effort on something that they didn't think fruitful, but it doesn't make for strong arguments on their part, and consequently leaves us with an unbalanced debate. Which is what brings us to this discussion.
Having said that, a "balanced" presentation, to me, is, to put it in confusing mathematical terms, one that minimizes the Kullback–Leibler divergence ("Q" being the article and "P" being reality). That is, one that "tells it like it is". I think the main area of difficulty for this article re:balance is that the weight of the popular viewpoint and the weight of the available scientific material are sorely out-of-sync with each other, yet we must present both aspects to the reader - who expects them to be strongly correlated - without confusing them. Kevin Baas talk 15:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
(undent) I apologize if I confused the issue by making up that quote from memory. I thought it was a good enough paraphrase to get the point across without inaccuracy, but maybe not. Mea culpa. My point was that "no focused program" best represents the attitude of the reviewers, whereas "funding agencies should entertain well-designed proposals" is simply another way of saying that CF research shouldn't get any special attention (because that statement simply restates the SOP for funding). I suppose the latter statement could be interpreted as a caution not to blackball good new research simply because of an association with CF. Anyway, I think the statement is liable to be misinterpreted to imply approval of CF research if it's included here out of context. Gnixon ( talk) 15:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC) To be clear,
Please hang around and help us develop the "con" position, Noren, and thanks for the links. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 15:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi everybody!
I came back to cold fusion to see how it went. It looks like the article is much improved. There were a few problems that I saw and fixed:
Here's the diff:
ScienceApologist ( talk) 03:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
What I remember is an article from a sociologist of science discussing CF as an example of pathological science. Of course as a sociologist he was not classifying CF himself but using it to illustrate how such a category is thrown up in the process of Science as a discursive practice. When we discussed it before the consensus was that an article from the sociology of science was not relevant to the article. But the question could be reexamined. As someone who is much more au fait with soc of science than with science itself, I don't mind having another look at the article and seeing what it yields for this page. In the meantime, please let us not war over cats and see also. It is the most tiresome kind of warring because it can never be resolved by reference to sources. Let's include path. sci. in mainspace or not at all. Itsmejudith ( talk) 21:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
The people who study pseudoscience in the context of social networks are sociologists and therefore are qualified as reliable sources. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
The lack of reproducibility section is biased. It basically is an attempt to make it sound like this is less of a problem than it really is, when it is the heart of the problem. It doesn't state that many independent attempts to reproduce the experimental results have failed historically, the reason for its rejection by mainstream science, and it tries to "John" it away by saying that that because the mechanism is unknown, it failed for some unknown reason. This is unacceptable. Titanium Dragon ( talk) 19:00, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Having dealt with electroplating issues such as Hydrogen Embrittlement (similar to the effect desired here, HE is unpredictable in practice), there has been little mention in literature of electrode configuration and environment. Although Electroplating is considered an old industrial technology, getting the product wanted is sometimes more of an art than science. One inch by .25 inch? Read the literature critically. The DOE morons refer to equal distribution of He3 and H3 using ballistic deuterons, yet Jones' muon induced fusion is by tunneling between two H2/H3 nuclei brought together for very short periods of time (half life of muon 2.2 msec gives several hundred fusions, less reaction inefficiencies). Tunneling of one nucleon would promote equilibria favoring lowest energy (total nuclear binding energy), likeliest proton transfer D + T > He4 + n in muon reaction. Discount two nucleon tunneling as less likely. With D + D, He3 is more favorable. Does anyone think it is odd that instead of acid solution that would promote hydrogen activity, that the "successes" are using strongly alkaline solution? And specifically Lithium Hydroxide? The higher overvoltage in alkaline solution would promote deposition/diffusion of Lithium. "The absorption cross section of deuterium for 2200-m/sec neutrons has been related to that of boron by intercomparison with lithium. A value of 0.57±0.01 millibarn for deuterium, based on a measured value of 755 barns for boron, has been obtained"[ http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v87/i5/p785_1] The neutron absorption cross section of Lithium6 (and Boron-10 = 5333 barns; reports of improved "success" with Boron contamination) may point to something other than D+D reaction. By the way a link to Palladium Hydride should be in the wiki. Shjacks45 ( talk) 10:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I have reverted to a better version [9]. My arguments, above, for why this is a better version have not been substantively refuted. I find Pcarbonn's edit summariey "per talk" to be relatively misleading. It is also clear now that
ScienceApologist ( talk) 23:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
The cold fusion proponents here are engaging in article ownership, disruptive editing and tendentious practices. I will not engage with such nonsense. Plenty of people have pointed out the problems with their versions, but they put their heads in the sand. Sorry, it's clear that it's a waste of time to deal with these people and I don't think that this is worthwhile. ScienceApologist ( talk) 03:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I think this sentence:
should be cut from the lead. It's a long sentence, and I don't think it adds enough to the two other sentences about the 2004 DOE report to justify keeping it in the lead. In addition to generally cluttering the lead, I think it distracts from the more notable aspects of the report, which were that it did not recommend focused funding and that it recommended certain lines of research. I suggest moving the sentence to later in the article. Gnixon ( talk) 13:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
cross posted to WP:FTN
Hi all.
Currently there are a number of editors at Talk:Cold fusion actively working for New Energy Times to try to get our Wikipedia article to conform to a position that treats the subject with more favor than mainstream secondary sources give it. They are writing articles about editing Wikipedia and publishing them on-line, glowingly praising themselves for getting the article into such a state.
Now the article is protected right now by an administrator who sees the issue as a contest of equals (which it manifestly is not, but I digress). The current version up I think is better than previous versions, but there are some issues.
There are more issues, but this gives a decent overview. Basically, there are a number of users asserting ownership over an article which needs to be carefully vetted lest we mislead the reader into thinking there is more to Cold Fusion than meets the mainstream eye.
Thanks in advance.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
The page is locked, or I would remove it myself, but I request that an admin remove the "New Energy Times book index Extensive index of books on cold fusion", "Recent papers on cold fusion listed on New Energy Times", and "A student's guide to Cold Fusion: a technical introduction to the field by Edmund Storms" from the "Further reading" section immediately. It's highly inappropriate to link to one's own site or be self-promotional in Wikipedia articles.
Also, there are almost 10 citations in this article from New Energy Times. I'd like to review those for appropriateness as well. In the "Further developments (1989-2004)" section, it is listed in the line "A few periodicals emerged in the 1990s that covered developments in cold fusion and related new energy sciences (Fusion Facts, Cold Fusion Magazine, Infinite Energy Magazine, and New Energy Times)." I want that reviewed for appropriateness as well.
I'm having trouble finding anything [10] [11] that establishes the periodical's importance, notability, or reliability, and the fact that editors from New Energy Times are demonstrably here editing, this may be at least a WP:COI issue and at worse a WP:EL#ADV issue.
Nothing in CiteSeer either. [12]
At the New Energy Times website's "About" page, in the "Founder" section, it reads:
"He, or New Energy Times have been quoted in, or have contributed photographs for Wikipedia, Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry World, Intute, Nature, Current Science." ( [13] my emphasis)
No kidding.
From the Mission Statement:
"Its primary focus is the subject of low energy nuclear reactions, part of the field of condensed matter nuclear science historically known as 'cold fusion.' New Energy Institute seeks to advance the development and application of clean energy, accessible and affordable for everyone."
Sounds like advocacy to me.
I am deeply concerned about the influence of New Energy Times on this article. Even the image we use Image:Spawar1stGenCFCell.JPG was produced by the founder of New Energy Times, Steven B. Krivit ( User:Stevenkrivit), who was here between 2004 and 2007 with very pro-cold fusion points of view. [14]
User:Pcarbonn currently writes for the New Energy Times and recently posted on ScienceApologist's page "You are famous !" with a link to this article [15] at New Energy Times, written by him, which says:
"I'm pleased to report that the revised page, resulting from the mediation process, presents the topic as a continuing controversy, not as an example of pathological science. This is a major step forward in the recognition of the new field of condensed matter nuclear science and low-energy nuclear reaction research."
and...
"I hope that the revised Wikipedia article will help put a stop to the epidemic of pathological disbelief and that it will help raise the interest of scientists so that prominent scientific journals won't be able to reject articles on the topic "because it does not interest our readers."
That's absolutely advocacy.
All of this from one place, New Energy Times. That periodical, with an undetermined reliability and notability that seems to have an unhealthy interest in Wikipedia, is all over this article. The spam has got to go. And the rest needs to be seriously checked. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 19:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a place that stifles the free-thought and creativity of new ideas. To that end, there are a number of statements made by the CF-proponents here which I submit are problematic:
ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, you keep dreaming. This is not a fringe subject, nor a pathological science subject until you have a recent source to support that view. On the contrary, most sources support the opposite view, such as the 2004 DOE which encouraged agencies to support further research. I suggest you start a request for comment yourself if you disagree. Wikipedia is here to inform, not to spread rumors and hearsay like the one you support. Pcarbonn ( talk) 19:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Does the fringe theory guideline apply to this topic?
Note that the guideline WP:FRINGE uses the example of Face on Mars as a "fringe theory." I think cold fusion is qualitatively different, given that a group of researchers has continued funded research for about two decades. The DOE hasn't seen a need to conduct two separate reviews on Face on Mars research. Gnixon ( talk) 20:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
:::Oversight on the author's part. They're the same, same publishing organization, same topic, etc. --
Nealparr (
talk to me) 06:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC) Remarkably similar, but might not be the same. The other stuff applies. Specifically what applies is that in your article for the New Energy News, you said it is currently an unrecognized field and that prominent scientific journals reject articles on the topic. I concur. That also happens to be the definition of
WP:FRINGE. --
Nealparr (
talk to me)
06:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
As I mentioned here [17], "Further reading" links to New Energy Times are self-promotional. There's citation links as well, but for now I'm mostly concerned about having the "further reading" links removed (we can come back to the others later). In order to have them removed while the page is locked, there needs to be consensus. In other words, is there consensus? -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 00:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
There isn't consensus for removing New Energy Times from "Further reading", as the following thread by Gathall shows. Pcarbonn ( talk) 10:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
(merged sections to avoid repetition) -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 14:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
There's no point declaring further reading links self promotional since almost 80% of the further reading links on most wiki pages would fall to the same claim.
The point of the further reading category of links is to flag that the links posted in the bulk of the text and references are not the sum total of papers on the subject. If sites with dozens or hundreds of papers, other links and data can't be included in the Wiki then the illusion is created that there are only a few papers. Given the volume of work done since 1989 is so large it is reasonable that the hub sites like New Energy Times should be included under the further reading category so people can look beyond the claims and counter claims and hunt down the papers one by one. I can think of more further reading links that could be added, I.e. The condensed matter section of the journal Fusion Technology from 1989 to the end of the century has over a hundred papers that I know of. If we have to skip the hub web sites like Mr Krivit's then the problem is that we will have to cite a dozen journals by name, date and number.
We must also consider the historical implications. If Cold Fusion is confirmed and the Wiki site has a major error locked in, then Wikipedia will suffer accordingly. I know that does not matter to the hard line sceptics but it should matter to the rest of us and to the management of Wikipedia. Cold fusion can't be disproved; we have replicated peer reviewed work. It can only be ignored or proven. The prudent place to stand in is the place of the informed optimist not the willingly ignorant. It is also prudent to send readers seeking more information on the sites archiving the data. The sites condemning cold fusion have not said anything new since 2005.
Gathall (
talk)
08:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
The fact is that most cold fusion research is reported in scientific papers and field reports, not books. The most current "further reading" information in this field is on the web on websites like New Energy Times, not in stale books. Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia, so why not feature website references for further reading, as much legitimate information sharing in fast changing scientific fields has transitioned to the web (away from books) in recent years.
While a number of different websites have been the premier source for "further reading" information about cold fusion over the years, there's no doubt that the two websites that are currently the most up to date on this topic are New Energy Times and LENR-CANR.org. These websites provide someone interested in learning more about cold fusion (which is why they came to the Wikipedia page in the first place) a majority of the current and up to date information available about the topic. They also provide a detailed list of both pro and con cold fusion related books (more detailed than a Wikipedia page) that a person can utilize to research this field and the merits of cold fusion even further.
I am in favor of keeping New Energy Times in further reading and adding LENR-CANR.org to further reading, so a person interested in learning more about cold fusion can easily access the most current and comprehensive information about the topic available on the Internet. At the very least, the New Energy Times book index should be kept as a reference to cold fusion books. Rock nj ( talk) 12:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Why such a tizzy over New Energy Times link? Because of claims that it is "self promotional?" From what I can tell NET doesn't focus just on "cold fusion" issues. It focuses on a plethora of alternative energy issues.
I often come to Wiki in order to seek out the "further reading" links. I see nothing wrong or dangerous with letting the reader decide what they wish to follow up on. I'm not interested in having some alleged expert (an expert that may or may not have all that much knowledge of the controversial subject) do the "editing" for me. Orionworks ( talk) 14:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I want outside opinion on this. I think that's a reasonable request. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 14:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
The issue always seems to be about an attempt to suppress experimental evidence. Cold Fusion was trashed by the political method, not the scientific method. The scientific method depends on experimental results. If the current experimental results were known in May, 1989 Cold Fusion would not have been trashed. What we have now is a defacto censorship enforced by social conformity. An admin type once told me that Wikipedia was all about consensus. If Wikipedia existed in the middle ages it would report that the world is flat. If Wikipedia is going to hold onto this mind set, it should put the flat earth analogy as a warning on all of its scientific articles. Or if Wikipedia cannot handle scientific controversy in a fair and truthful manner it should stop publishing articles on scientific controversy. Ron Marshall ( talk) 16:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Maybe a compromise could be:
New Energy Times, a website dedicated to cold-fusion research, has compiled lists of books and recent papers about cold fusion.
It provides balance by making clear the biases of that source. Just as the Intelligent design page links to pro-ID resources, and Ouija board links to resources that take the ouija board seriously, likewise it's reasonable for a page on cold fusion to have a link to a primarily pro-cold-fusion book or paper index, as long as the link is not portrayed as being unbiased when it is, clearly, biased. Everyone, both actual scientists and cold-fusion advocates, would benefit from knowing where to find a comprehensive list of recent sympathetic cold-fusion publications. The link seems the best of its kind, so I don't think it should be removed solely based on the self-promotional motivations of its original inclusion. -- Steve ( talk) 16:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm really not very pleased with the continued POV-pushing pursued by Pierre "pro-CF side of his arguments" makes it seem like we have to always accomodate a pro/anti dichotomy. What we should do is simply describe the fact that cold fusion is looked on with derision until it is no longer looked on with derision. ScienceApologist ( talk) 20:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
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Here is my attempt at paraphrasing the abstracts:
Combined:
Ok? 76.246.148.242 ( talk) 05:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
There are many ways to address this problem; I'd like for people to figure out the best way. I'm thinking of making a post on WP:VPP for the purpose of addressing the top-down issue: what is Wikipedia good for? What do we want to be known for? Wikipedia will always be a fantastic place to get high-quality information on military history, roads, national parks, and many other subjects where the wikiprojects have a history of cranking out high-quality information and successfully dealing with vandalism. The question is, will Wikipedia ever be a good place for people to come for information on Cold fusion? Until today, I was hopeful that the answer was "yes", but I don't know the answer now. Pierre/Pcarbonn and I were the only two editors who were looking at this article very carefully, sentence by sentence and ref by ref, during the WP:GAN, and now he's saying that he's fine with shifting the lead from saying that cold fusion is undecided to saying it's been decided.
I haven't been willing to keep up with the cold fusion debate since the early 90s, and I'm still not; it should be obvious to anyone reading this article that scientists appear not to have been in a hurry to decide the issue over the last 19 years, and that almost certainly implies disinformation as well as neglect, and there is not the slightest sign of consensus among scientists as to which information is disinformation and which is real. Wikipedia is not going to magically generate a solution that has escaped chemists and physicists. It's true that there is movement recently; it's not out of the question that at least some questions will be answered to everyone's satisfaction some time this year, but we'll have to wait until that happens before we can write about it in Wikipedia.
In the meantime, what's the goal for this article? Since cold fusion continues to occasionally be a news story (some people were replying to the Arata story at physorg.com this week implying they were getting their information about cold fusion from Wikipedia), how this article reads will affect Wikipedia's reputation in the world. Do we want people reading this article to read whatever the latest anonymous edit says is true about the cold fusion controversy? The most contentious issue in all of Wikipedia is: stability or change? Open or closed? It's possible that the appropriate answer to these questions for Cold fusion is different than for many other articles. I'd like to hear your thoughts. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 16:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I made some changes to the lead. As noted in my edit summary, I think that changes to the lead on the 29th were not in line with the results of the recent mediation, or the WP:GAN review, or NPOV, or scientific consensus; I'm attempting to fix that. One change that proponents will like comes from WP:LEAD; if alternate names for the subject of the article appear in the lead section, then they're supposed to be in the first sentence in bold, and I don't think we can argue that "low energy nuclear reactions" and "condensed matter nuclear science" are not alternate terms for "cold fusion"; they are. But the main problem that needed fixing was the assertion that there are explanations of "cold fusion" that use "textbook physics"; this completely and thoroughly misrepresented the position of the vast majority of physicists and chemists.
The recent mediation suggested that the issue has not been settled, that is, most scientists believe that cold fusion is a series of experimental errors and/or invalid conclusions (although to be fair, most of them simply haven't paid much attention), but a significant number believe that it's a demonstration of fusion at ordinary temperatures and pressures, and others say they don't know. Given that the current consensus on Wikipedia is that the matter hasn't been settled, NPOV requires that we not "get in the way" of letting both sides tell their story, even though this will annoy the heck out of some proponents and some skeptics. Here's the point that some of the proponents are missing: you don't get to decide which experiments are relevant to cold fusion and which aren't. I know that some of you much prefer to look at recent experiments instead of the whole body of experiments in quantum physics; I know that some of you claim that if someone doesn't succeed in getting 95% loading of deuterium into their cathode, that means that nothing they have to say has any relevance to cold fusion. You make some good points, and we sketch the arguments in this article and point to very good references so that people can follow up these threads. But the fact that you think you know what's relevant and what's not doesn't end the argument. NPOV on Wikipedia requires that, if a significant number of people think that little green men have invaded, we have to let them tell their story; we can rebut, but we can't undercut; so NPOV sure as heck means that if 9999 out of 10000 scientists believe something, we have to let them tell their story, and their story is that millions of atoms don't spontaneously interact coherently at room temperature. They believe this is established by a century of experimentation and theory. They also believe in conservation of energy and momentum, and given those beliefs, they don't see a way to get fusion creating helium without energetic particles...at any temperature, much less ordinary temperatures. I know that some of you believe that none of their experiments and nothing they say is relevant to the current controversy, but NPOV requires us to represent their position, anyway.
As long as we clearly represent the position of both sides, I'm fine with tweaks to the lead; I gave it a shot. I don't expect everyone who wants to contribute to Wikipedia to know all the Wikipedia policies and guidelines; in fact, if you have something to contribute, I'd prefer you not worry too much about it, as long as you are willing to collaborate with experienced and trusted Wikipedians. It basically just comes down to: help Wikipedia, good; hurt Wikipedia, bad. The changes to the lead on the 29th that said that cold fusion was settled and established and followed "textbook physics" hurt Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm concerned that the last paragraph of the intro seems to imply that proof of cold fusion is widely accepted by experts in the field. However, that would contradict the very first sentence of the reference that seems to be the source for that paragraph:
Seventeen years after the announcement by Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the discovery of cold fusion in March 1989, the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme.
For comparison, here is the current version of that paragraph:
Since then, several reviews of the field published in peer-reviewed journals have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments which result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics.
Specifically, my concern is that a reader would interpret "several reviews... published..." to mean that those reviews are representative of the scientific community, in contradiction of the above quote.
Can we find a way to rephrase things so we won't risk misleading our readers? Also, I think it's important that we include plenty of citations in this article, including (especially?) in the intro. Finally, I'd recommend that we try to focus these discussions on how best to represent the literature, rather than trying to determine whether cold fusion is true/false, good/bad science, etc. Just my 2 cents, Gnixon ( talk) 05:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
"As of 2006, some in the scientific community do not accept cold fusion or CMNS as genunie." is what I added to the intro and will to the supporting mention. 76.240.228.188 ( talk) 07:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I know everyone is a bit tired out. I'm going to make some minor style fixes today...we forgot to italicize journal names for instance...but I'll leave the fixes that will be needed for WP:FAC until we seem to have renewed interest from a number of editors. I suggest we just add anything that doesn't need to be fixed right away to this list. We can start with this feedback from G-Guy's talk page:
Pierre, I'm not saying that there is some kind of iron rule that we have to wait for X different opinions before we can proceed. I'm saying that the spirit of WP:CONSENSUS is that, when this article has been the subject of a lot of trips to WP:ANI, and when it largely represented the position of the skeptics back when it was a featured article two years ago, we can't rush to WP:FAC. We have to acknowledge that sometimes people who cared in the past might care again in the future, and give them a chance to have their input. I know that you feel that there are serious deficiencies with the input of some of the skeptics, but that doesn't change the fact that we are required to be patient and give everyone lots of time. Besides, if we don't, that will just land us at WP:FAR later on, even if the article does pass WP:FAC. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 15:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
When I was a featured article reviewer, I would need a really good reason to even consider passing something with an open {{
todo}}
list. That's the first and best place to start right now..
76.246.148.242 (
talk)
04:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
This is what the contents was when I started:
* 1 Ongoing controversy o 1.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result o 1.2 Missing nuclear products o 1.3 Lack of theoretical explanations * 2 Experimental reports o 2.1 Excess heat o 2.2 Nuclear products o 2.3 Nuclear transmutations o 2.4 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment * 3 History o 3.1 Early work o 3.2 Pre-announcement and announcement o 3.3 Post-announcement o 3.4 Moving beyond the initial controversy * 4 Notes * 5 References * 6 Bibliography * 7 Further reading
That seemed absurdly anti-chronological to me. This is what the contents is now:
* 1 Experimental reports o 1.1 Excess heat o 1.2 Nuclear products o 1.3 Nuclear transmutations * 2 History o 2.1 Early work o 2.2 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment + 2.2.1 Pre-announcement and announcement + 2.2.2 Post-announcement o 2.3 Controversy + 2.3.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result + 2.3.2 Missing nuclear products + 2.3.3 Lack of theoretical explanations o 2.4 Beyond the controversy * 3 Notes * 4 References * 5 Bibliography * 6 Further reading
That, as I understand it, may be how Pcarbonn wants it. This is, I believe, how Noren wants it:
* 1 Early work * 2 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment o 2.1 Pre-announcement and announcement o 2.2 Post-announcement * 3 Controversy o 3.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result o 3.2 Missing nuclear products o 3.3 Lack of theoretical explanations * 4 Beyond the controversy * 5 Experimental reports o 5.1 Excess heat o 5.2 Nuclear products o 5.3 Nuclear transmutations * 6 Notes * 7 References * 8 Bibliography * 9 Further reading
I have to go with Noren on this one. What do other people think? 76.246.148.242 ( talk) 06:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I really think the article would be easier to read if it were more chronological and less disjointed. I strongly dislike using the phrase "beyond the controversy" because the controversy has not gone away at all. Placing a "Beyond the controversy" section just after a "Controversy" section as in the current article strongly suggests that the controversy in the past, which is simply not true. Here is my proposal which incorporates these ideas:
* 1 History 1.1 Early work 1.2 Fleischmann-Pons announcement 1.3 Reaction to the announcement 1.4 Developments after 1989 1.5 2004 DOE panel 1.6 Recent developments * 2 Evidence for cold fusion 2.1 Excess heat 2.2 Nuclear products 2.3 Nuclear transmutations * 3 Incompatibilities with established physics
The basic cell description would be in section 1.2, near the top of the page as it should be. Criticism of experiments (reproducibility, contamination, etc.) would be placed just after the results are presented in sections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. The current "lack of theoretical explanations" section would be moved and become section 3. Any thoughts? 209.253.120.198 ( talk) 12:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
There are many ways to address this problem; I'd like for people to figure out the best way. I'm thinking of making a post on WP:VPP for the purpose of addressing the top-down issue: what is Wikipedia good for? What do we want to be known for? Wikipedia will always be a fantastic place to get high-quality information on military history, roads, national parks, and many other subjects where the wikiprojects have a history of cranking out high-quality information and successfully dealing with vandalism. The question is, will Wikipedia ever be a good place for people to come for information on Cold fusion? Until today, I was hopeful that the answer was "yes", but I don't know the answer now. Pierre/Pcarbonn and I were the only two editors who were looking at this article very carefully, sentence by sentence and ref by ref, during the WP:GAN, and now he's saying that he's fine with shifting the lead from saying that cold fusion is undecided to saying it's been decided.
I haven't been willing to keep up with the cold fusion debate since the early 90s, and I'm still not; it should be obvious to anyone reading this article that scientists appear not to have been in a hurry to decide the issue over the last 19 years, and that almost certainly implies disinformation as well as neglect, and there is not the slightest sign of consensus among scientists as to which information is disinformation and which is real. Wikipedia is not going to magically generate a solution that has escaped chemists and physicists. It's true that there is movement recently; it's not out of the question that at least some questions will be answered to everyone's satisfaction some time this year, but we'll have to wait until that happens before we can write about it in Wikipedia.
In the meantime, what's the goal for this article? Since cold fusion continues to occasionally be a news story (some people were replying to the Arata story at physorg.com this week implying they were getting their information about cold fusion from Wikipedia), how this article reads will affect Wikipedia's reputation in the world. Do we want people reading this article to read whatever the latest anonymous edit says is true about the cold fusion controversy? The most contentious issue in all of Wikipedia is: stability or change? Open or closed? It's possible that the appropriate answer to these questions for Cold fusion is different than for many other articles. I'd like to hear your thoughts. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 16:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I made some changes to the lead. As noted in my edit summary, I think that changes to the lead on the 29th were not in line with the results of the recent mediation, or the WP:GAN review, or NPOV, or scientific consensus; I'm attempting to fix that. One change that proponents will like comes from WP:LEAD; if alternate names for the subject of the article appear in the lead section, then they're supposed to be in the first sentence in bold, and I don't think we can argue that "low energy nuclear reactions" and "condensed matter nuclear science" are not alternate terms for "cold fusion"; they are. But the main problem that needed fixing was the assertion that there are explanations of "cold fusion" that use "textbook physics"; this completely and thoroughly misrepresented the position of the vast majority of physicists and chemists.
The recent mediation suggested that the issue has not been settled, that is, most scientists believe that cold fusion is a series of experimental errors and/or invalid conclusions (although to be fair, most of them simply haven't paid much attention), but a significant number believe that it's a demonstration of fusion at ordinary temperatures and pressures, and others say they don't know. Given that the current consensus on Wikipedia is that the matter hasn't been settled, NPOV requires that we not "get in the way" of letting both sides tell their story, even though this will annoy the heck out of some proponents and some skeptics. Here's the point that some of the proponents are missing: you don't get to decide which experiments are relevant to cold fusion and which aren't. I know that some of you much prefer to look at recent experiments instead of the whole body of experiments in quantum physics; I know that some of you claim that if someone doesn't succeed in getting 95% loading of deuterium into their cathode, that means that nothing they have to say has any relevance to cold fusion. You make some good points, and we sketch the arguments in this article and point to very good references so that people can follow up these threads. But the fact that you think you know what's relevant and what's not doesn't end the argument. NPOV on Wikipedia requires that, if a significant number of people think that little green men have invaded, we have to let them tell their story; we can rebut, but we can't undercut; so NPOV sure as heck means that if 9999 out of 10000 scientists believe something, we have to let them tell their story, and their story is that millions of atoms don't spontaneously interact coherently at room temperature. They believe this is established by a century of experimentation and theory. They also believe in conservation of energy and momentum, and given those beliefs, they don't see a way to get fusion creating helium without energetic particles...at any temperature, much less ordinary temperatures. I know that some of you believe that none of their experiments and nothing they say is relevant to the current controversy, but NPOV requires us to represent their position, anyway.
As long as we clearly represent the position of both sides, I'm fine with tweaks to the lead; I gave it a shot. I don't expect everyone who wants to contribute to Wikipedia to know all the Wikipedia policies and guidelines; in fact, if you have something to contribute, I'd prefer you not worry too much about it, as long as you are willing to collaborate with experienced and trusted Wikipedians. It basically just comes down to: help Wikipedia, good; hurt Wikipedia, bad. The changes to the lead on the 29th that said that cold fusion was settled and established and followed "textbook physics" hurt Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm concerned that the last paragraph of the intro seems to imply that proof of cold fusion is widely accepted by experts in the field. However, that would contradict the very first sentence of the reference that seems to be the source for that paragraph:
Seventeen years after the announcement by Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the discovery of cold fusion in March 1989, the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme.
For comparison, here is the current version of that paragraph:
Since then, several reviews of the field published in peer-reviewed journals have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments which result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics.
Specifically, my concern is that a reader would interpret "several reviews... published..." to mean that those reviews are representative of the scientific community, in contradiction of the above quote.
Can we find a way to rephrase things so we won't risk misleading our readers? Also, I think it's important that we include plenty of citations in this article, including (especially?) in the intro. Finally, I'd recommend that we try to focus these discussions on how best to represent the literature, rather than trying to determine whether cold fusion is true/false, good/bad science, etc. Just my 2 cents, Gnixon ( talk) 05:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
"As of 2006, some in the scientific community do not accept cold fusion or CMNS as genunie." is what I added to the intro and will to the supporting mention. 76.240.228.188 ( talk) 07:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree pretty much with Smokefoot. The absence of negative criticism is the later sections is a little much--the An effort should be made to find not just "an overview of current thinking that leaves the door open to the Widon-Larsen theory and any other current CF theories." but also an overview of current thinking that explains why almost no active scientist in the field considers the current theories worth the investigating. If there are none, for whatever reason, then it should be said that no current scientific papers in the major journals of the field (listing them) discuss the subject, if that's the case.
There are peer-reviewed journals of every sort, from excellent to disreputable. The standards of some are to take essentially every paper they can get, or at least any that supports the premise of the editor. If the publishers chooses to say that manuscripts are reviewed independently, it's called a peer reviewed journal. Current Science, for example, has a remarkably flexible policy. That said, a few of the journals using the reference section to report the research are fairly reputable. I'm going to look at this factor in some more detail.
I have changed "Beyond the controversy" to "Further controversy" as being more descriptive. The section talks not about how the dispute has been resolved, but about how it has continued. DGG ( talk) 15:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
17:18 2 June. Smokefoot changed Oriani's descriptor from "physcial chemistry" to "materials science." I have a copy of Oriani's CV. It states that he obtained his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1948 from Princeton University.
Also, I knew that Huggins was back at Stanford so I requested a clarification from him today. His reply: "I took early retirement from Stanford in 1991. But after 16 years in Germany, I came back to Stanford in September 2007."
StevenBKrivit ( talk) 06:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems like the most relevant thing would be to describe Oriani's position at the time he published the result. How about "The first ... was published by Oriani in XXX, while he was a professor of XXX at XXX"? Smoke, can you provide a source indicating that he would have been a professor of materials science? Gnixon ( talk) 18:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
http://www.cems.umn.edu/about/people/facdetail.php?cemsid=20161 Two papers say from the 1990's have these addresses "Corrosion Research Center, University of Minnesota, 112 Amundson Hall, 221 Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S." "112 Amundson Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S.A." Unfortunately most of his work is published in Fusion Technology, which I cannot access on-line. Re the Galileo reference: The fact that proponents are dead or retired is not a slap against CF, but it would be helpful to this article to identify distinguished, non-dead, non-retired pro-CF scientists. Something to work on.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 23:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
In a letter to Science, Oriani's address was given as "Corrosion Research Center, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences, Institute of Technology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455." Assuming "professor" is accurate, can we agree to call him "professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences at the University of Minnesota," as above? Or, given the unwieldy department name, would it be better to simply call him "professor at the University of Minnesota," and give details in the citation? Gnixon ( talk) 05:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I have reinserted the to do list. Let's discuss what it should contain. Here is my proposal:
Pcarbonn ( talk) 10:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I am adding to the to-do list: describe the typical and best research results reported in the literature reviews as total input-to-output power ratios. 76.240.228.89 ( talk) 18:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
First I will admit that I am concerned that the thrust of the article legitimizes pseudoscience. Having described myself as "concerned," I have three areas that might merit revising, editing, or expanding:
Otherwise, I am leaving this article alone for a while.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 02:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Now we just need someone to do the grunt work of adding citations.... (assuming this version is acceptable) Gnixon ( talk) 01:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be some debate over the last paragraph of the lead, which describes recent reviews of cold fusion research. Here I propose a list of tasks that may lead to a resolution, along with some attempts by me to address those tasks ( Gnixon ( talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)):
Given my tentative answers to the above, here's a quick shot at a paragraph:
In contrast to the 2004 DOE report, a 2007 review by Jean-Paul Biberian, a cold fusion researcher, concluded, "After 15 years of intense work by hundreds of scientists in 15 countries, the proof that nuclear reactions not predicted by current theories occur in solids, during electrolysis, gas loading and gas discharge, has been established. [There is] convincing experimental data proving excess heat and helium production, tritium and neutron detection, X-rays and transmutation."
The long quote might be better in a "blockquote" template, or it might be better to use several shorter quotes. Gnixon ( talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
This article has a history of new account edits and IP edits designed to change the lead section to push POV. That caused a lot of trouble, and one of the responses was to have a mediation that settled the issue: this article should not push one POV in the lead section, such as the POV that the cold fusion position has been the increasingly dominant position. Unless someone wants to have another mediation, that's the clear consensus, and if someone contradicts that, I will change it. If they change it back, then we'll consider WP:3RR, WP:ANI, or semi-protection, depending on who's doing it and how persistent they are. It might be helpful to have a notice either on the article page or this talk page concerning the bottom-line results of the mediation; that might mean that people would be less tempted to try it, but this page has a long history of people hiding behind IP edits and new accounts and not caring much what the consensus is, so stronger measures might be necessary. Of course, I don't know if Zillionical is a new account here to push a POV; I'm required to assume good faith towards all new users. And that is exactly what previous POV-pushers counted on, so we have to be a little bit careful here not to reward people with changing the POV, even for a few days. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 16:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems like the Hubler review is confusing the issue (at least it's confusing me). Can we make any progress on understanding it or putting it in context? Gnixon ( talk) 19:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
"Since 2007, literature reviews have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments that result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. The reviews state that although many explanations have been proposed, several of which do not use new physics, none is yet satisfactory. There have been two peer-reviewed literature reviews since 2004 in support of cold fusion"
(There's no need to revert when someone de-indents, Pierre; not everyone likes to indent 9 times.) I support your logic; and I am just as disappointed as you are that various US government departments aren't willing to admit funding. But what might or might not be in their heads isn't relevant to
UNDUE; we can only report on what they are or aren't saying in reliable sources, not why. Are there any government agencies, anywhere, that are currently supporting work in cold fusion, on the record? - Dan
Dank55 (
talk)(
mistakes)
16:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I see he's a German user; I'll talk with him about how de.WP handles these issues, perhaps I can learn something. I don't think we can have an extra paragraph in the lead discussing 4 or 5 different ideas about tabletop fusion because: 1. That's more paragraphs than usual in a lead section; see WP:LEAD. 2. Adding new links in the lead is an open invitation to what are called "POV-forks"; that is, it's common in contentious articles for people who don't like the result to add a link in the lead section to a brand-new page where they say the things that people didn't want them to say in the contentious article. That won't necessarily happen, and I don't know Edoe2 and of course I AGF, it's just a very bad strategy in contentious articles to have links to miscellaneous "other topics" in the lead. 3. We got consensus to remove the extra section that used to deal with some of these other topics. This article is just about cold fusion, and we're having a hard enough time with just that, without bringing in other topics that don't really enlighten the discussion (such as muon-catalyzed fusion) or might be contentious in their own right.
As always, feel free to revert me if anyone disagrees, but give your reasons here, please. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
The point is, the physical community is giving the cold fusion enthusiasts the benefit of doubt that some unknown physics might be happening, enabling fusion to happen. But why the hell is there no trace of the products of said fusion?
The 23.8MeV net energy potential of a D + D -> He reaction is very real and it needs to be somehow brought out of the nucleus. This is more energy than actually available in binding energy within the entire nucleus of Helium!
These are staggering amounts of energy excess energy within a nucleus that need to be shed off in some way:
The He nucleus instantly pops apart into He3+n or T+p (each 50% of happening)
or in extremely rare cases very hard 23.8MeV gamma radiation (chance at 10^-7 to 10^-8) is released, killing everybody in the lab
Neutrons, Tritium as well as gammas can be measured blindingly easy to insane accuracy. Why isn't this being done? This is the reason why the physics community isn't taking the above "cold fusion" experiments serious. Actually, they are more like ROFL. No matter how the issue is turned and looked at, 23.8MeV of excess nuclear energy cannot be shed off in ways that are undetectable.
Edit:
The tracks of energetic particles within plastic CR-39 plates are without doubt due to micro cracks within the palladium electrodes causing localized extreme EM-fields and hence extremely high localized micro currents. These currents are sufficiently high to cause micro areas within the palladium to be turned into plasma. This is also the origin of the fabled "hot spots".
--
Dio1982 (
talk)
15:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Dio1982: You write "why the hell is there no trace of the products of said fusion?" I think your question deserves more attention than is given here, or is suitable to give here. It's obvious that you are very familiar with the three branches of dd thermonuclear fusion. I have begun to ask the same question recently, and it is a difficult question to answer, and for someone in my position, also a difficult one to ask. I refer you to my Bangalaore, India talk from January this year, and also to my forthcoming talk at ACS on 20 August at ~8a.m. In addition, I welcome your letter to the editor at New Energy Times for our September issue.
StevenBKrivit ( talk) 06:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I've got some real-life stuff going on and I have to tune out for a while. I'll unwatchlist (is that a word?), but feel free to contact me if I'm needed. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
- Dio says: "Neutrons, Tritium as well as gammas can be measured blindingly easy to insane accuracy. Why isn't this being done?" In fact this has been done many times. If the measured quantities was not consistent with the excess heat, they were still above any level that conventional theory would allow. Jones was the first one to detect neutron in 1989, and it was the basis for the rivalry with F&P. He confirmed his findings in 2003, and they have never been challenged, as far as I know. They are also over 60 reports of tritium, listed in Storms 2007. Storms also cites several anomalous gamma ray production.
Why aren't these measurements done more often ? Because of a lack of funding. Why is there a lack of funding ? I let you answer. Pcarbonn ( talk) 20:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I would ask that in an article this controversial, could the statements in the introduction please be sourced with footnotes to the citations? I see that DOE 2004 is the only thing cited there. I think I can gather from reading this talk page, but what are the two literature reviews mentioned in the last paragraph of the intro? 75.61.107.67 ( talk) 23:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
...you can tell me what you really think :) Feel free to give yourselves a round of applause; I know something about the early years of this controversy, and at that time, it was completely impossible to get supporters and skeptics working together. You guys did a very good job during the mediation, and that carried through into the WP:GAN, although a lot of people didn't speak up, I expect out of exhaustion. Feel free to take a break. After a while, if people seem to be interested in putting more work into the article, we could look at regaining Featured article status. We also might look at separate articles for other takes on the controversy, such as the role of government, or what the 19-year history of this teaches us about science and scientists that we didn't want to know. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 04:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Krivit and Pcarbonn and many other well-read people say that people who are not cold fusion proponents have been incredibly reluctant to get involved since 2004, to say anything one way or the other. You would think that, with all the supporters and skeptics over the years who have been angry (respectively, happy) that cold fusion has received so little support from government agencies and schools and scientific institutions, that someone would have been willing to say this in a reliable source since 2004, and back it up by showing that they had done a little investigation. To my surprise, I'm finding that Krivit and Pcarbonn are right: I'm finding absolutely nothing.
Here's the problem: UNDUE won't let us make the statement "Most scientists have met these reports with skepticism", which we all know to be true, and then follow that up with a long article that only gives sources that support exactly the opposite conclusion. We can "rebut, but not undercut". That is, we can't give the impression that we think that lots of scientists think X, but we think they're all idiots, because all the sources say Y. That's a real-world problem; that's not Wikipedia's problem. UNDUE gives us permission to split the article into a "pro" and a "con", which I'm thinking is the only thing left, and it wouldn't be much of a split: virtually the entire article is very useful for the "pro" position. I am personally disappointed in all the physicists who are willing to give negative opinions who aren't even willing to enter a lab with a running experiment and use films to measure for themselves whether energetic particles are being produced or not. How tough could it be to get the last image on the article page for themselves? But that's what we're stuck with; no one is willing to say yes or no, except for the supporters.
I propose that we dump this whole sorry problem of coming up with support for the "con" side on the physicists. Let's explain the problem to Wikipedia people who deal with mediation...maybe Seicer will help out again...and say that we are really having a problem with getting sources for one side of the issue, so we'd like to shift that argument over to nuclear physics or a link from that page. Let the physicists who want to support that side of things find their own sources; they'd be better at finding them, and at interpreting them. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 17:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
The only relevant thing I could find in the first source was "The UCLA team was determined to avoid a repeat of the 1989 'cold fusion' fiasco that promised unlimited energy but delivered little besides unrepeatable results." This is what WP:V refers to as "I heard it somewhere": an author is writing about what he believes was in the minds of UCLA researchers who are frightened about what happened 16 years earlier; it has no reliable information on what's currently happening in the field. I'll repeat the entire second source you're giving, I don't see how it helps, but maybe there's more that I don't know about:
In 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann made front-page news when they announced that they had fused the nuclei of atoms in a jar of water—a process that normally requires the heat of an H-bomb. In theory, room-temperature, or "cold," fusion could provide cheap, nearly limitless energy. No replication of the experiment could pass muster with critics, and most researchers dismissed the work as bogus.
Still, a few physicists keep the field alive and kicking. "There's something in the neighborhood of 20 basic experiments out there these days that are of interest," says MIT physicist Peter Hagelstein. In 2004 he and a group of fellow die-hard researchers tried to persuade the Department of Energy to reevaluate fusion research. A review panel found the evidence thin but saw some justification for further focused investigation.
The scientists who continue to work in the field claim that their experiments show minute, unexplained outputs of energy. Within the year, Hagelstein says, he plans to begin conducting cold fusion research at MIT, an institution that once held a ceremonial wake in cold fusion's honor. He aims to show that novel physical processes can trigger fusion without a significant input of heat. Hagelstein insists that those beyond the inner circle don't know the whole story. "People working in the field believe cold fusion is real and that the issue is settled," he says.
- Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 21:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I would say rather that "cons" have not offered plausible alternative explanations for the observed phenomena, and have certainly failed to demonstrate any of their hypothesis via experiment, or even do any experiments to test them.
For example, contamination has been proposed as an explanation for the transmutation-like phenomena, but since 1) rare earth elements (lanthanides) showed up, and 2) unnatural isotopic ratios showed up, this explanation is not plausible - not to mention the fact that 3) the composition of the material was measured prior to the experiment! So after proposing an explanation that, given the circumstances(1 & 2), is highly improbable, and has already been scientifically ruled-out(3), those who proposed the explanation didn't perform any experiments to discover if contamination really was the source. (An experiment that they could have done: they could have split the source palladium into 5 samples, crushing one and doing a spectral analysis on it to determine it's original composition, then with the remaining 4 samples, doing the experiment with hydrogen-1(p), hydrogen-2(np), helium-3(npp), and helium-4(nnpp).) If contamination really was the source, they'd be able to scientifically prove it - but they haven't even tried to.
The end result is that we don't have any sources to cite to support their position - because they haven't produced any. Now I can understand the "burden of proof" argument -- it lies on the side making the extraordinary claim -- but when your hypothesis has already been scientifically ruled out, that makes your claim extraordinary. And I can understand them not wanting to take the time and effort on something that they didn't think fruitful, but it doesn't make for strong arguments on their part, and consequently leaves us with an unbalanced debate. Which is what brings us to this discussion.
Having said that, a "balanced" presentation, to me, is, to put it in confusing mathematical terms, one that minimizes the Kullback–Leibler divergence ("Q" being the article and "P" being reality). That is, one that "tells it like it is". I think the main area of difficulty for this article re:balance is that the weight of the popular viewpoint and the weight of the available scientific material are sorely out-of-sync with each other, yet we must present both aspects to the reader - who expects them to be strongly correlated - without confusing them. Kevin Baas talk 15:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
(undent) I apologize if I confused the issue by making up that quote from memory. I thought it was a good enough paraphrase to get the point across without inaccuracy, but maybe not. Mea culpa. My point was that "no focused program" best represents the attitude of the reviewers, whereas "funding agencies should entertain well-designed proposals" is simply another way of saying that CF research shouldn't get any special attention (because that statement simply restates the SOP for funding). I suppose the latter statement could be interpreted as a caution not to blackball good new research simply because of an association with CF. Anyway, I think the statement is liable to be misinterpreted to imply approval of CF research if it's included here out of context. Gnixon ( talk) 15:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC) To be clear,
Please hang around and help us develop the "con" position, Noren, and thanks for the links. - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 15:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi everybody!
I came back to cold fusion to see how it went. It looks like the article is much improved. There were a few problems that I saw and fixed:
Here's the diff:
ScienceApologist ( talk) 03:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
What I remember is an article from a sociologist of science discussing CF as an example of pathological science. Of course as a sociologist he was not classifying CF himself but using it to illustrate how such a category is thrown up in the process of Science as a discursive practice. When we discussed it before the consensus was that an article from the sociology of science was not relevant to the article. But the question could be reexamined. As someone who is much more au fait with soc of science than with science itself, I don't mind having another look at the article and seeing what it yields for this page. In the meantime, please let us not war over cats and see also. It is the most tiresome kind of warring because it can never be resolved by reference to sources. Let's include path. sci. in mainspace or not at all. Itsmejudith ( talk) 21:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
The people who study pseudoscience in the context of social networks are sociologists and therefore are qualified as reliable sources. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
The lack of reproducibility section is biased. It basically is an attempt to make it sound like this is less of a problem than it really is, when it is the heart of the problem. It doesn't state that many independent attempts to reproduce the experimental results have failed historically, the reason for its rejection by mainstream science, and it tries to "John" it away by saying that that because the mechanism is unknown, it failed for some unknown reason. This is unacceptable. Titanium Dragon ( talk) 19:00, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Having dealt with electroplating issues such as Hydrogen Embrittlement (similar to the effect desired here, HE is unpredictable in practice), there has been little mention in literature of electrode configuration and environment. Although Electroplating is considered an old industrial technology, getting the product wanted is sometimes more of an art than science. One inch by .25 inch? Read the literature critically. The DOE morons refer to equal distribution of He3 and H3 using ballistic deuterons, yet Jones' muon induced fusion is by tunneling between two H2/H3 nuclei brought together for very short periods of time (half life of muon 2.2 msec gives several hundred fusions, less reaction inefficiencies). Tunneling of one nucleon would promote equilibria favoring lowest energy (total nuclear binding energy), likeliest proton transfer D + T > He4 + n in muon reaction. Discount two nucleon tunneling as less likely. With D + D, He3 is more favorable. Does anyone think it is odd that instead of acid solution that would promote hydrogen activity, that the "successes" are using strongly alkaline solution? And specifically Lithium Hydroxide? The higher overvoltage in alkaline solution would promote deposition/diffusion of Lithium. "The absorption cross section of deuterium for 2200-m/sec neutrons has been related to that of boron by intercomparison with lithium. A value of 0.57±0.01 millibarn for deuterium, based on a measured value of 755 barns for boron, has been obtained"[ http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v87/i5/p785_1] The neutron absorption cross section of Lithium6 (and Boron-10 = 5333 barns; reports of improved "success" with Boron contamination) may point to something other than D+D reaction. By the way a link to Palladium Hydride should be in the wiki. Shjacks45 ( talk) 10:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I have reverted to a better version [9]. My arguments, above, for why this is a better version have not been substantively refuted. I find Pcarbonn's edit summariey "per talk" to be relatively misleading. It is also clear now that
ScienceApologist ( talk) 23:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
The cold fusion proponents here are engaging in article ownership, disruptive editing and tendentious practices. I will not engage with such nonsense. Plenty of people have pointed out the problems with their versions, but they put their heads in the sand. Sorry, it's clear that it's a waste of time to deal with these people and I don't think that this is worthwhile. ScienceApologist ( talk) 03:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I think this sentence:
should be cut from the lead. It's a long sentence, and I don't think it adds enough to the two other sentences about the 2004 DOE report to justify keeping it in the lead. In addition to generally cluttering the lead, I think it distracts from the more notable aspects of the report, which were that it did not recommend focused funding and that it recommended certain lines of research. I suggest moving the sentence to later in the article. Gnixon ( talk) 13:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
cross posted to WP:FTN
Hi all.
Currently there are a number of editors at Talk:Cold fusion actively working for New Energy Times to try to get our Wikipedia article to conform to a position that treats the subject with more favor than mainstream secondary sources give it. They are writing articles about editing Wikipedia and publishing them on-line, glowingly praising themselves for getting the article into such a state.
Now the article is protected right now by an administrator who sees the issue as a contest of equals (which it manifestly is not, but I digress). The current version up I think is better than previous versions, but there are some issues.
There are more issues, but this gives a decent overview. Basically, there are a number of users asserting ownership over an article which needs to be carefully vetted lest we mislead the reader into thinking there is more to Cold Fusion than meets the mainstream eye.
Thanks in advance.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
The page is locked, or I would remove it myself, but I request that an admin remove the "New Energy Times book index Extensive index of books on cold fusion", "Recent papers on cold fusion listed on New Energy Times", and "A student's guide to Cold Fusion: a technical introduction to the field by Edmund Storms" from the "Further reading" section immediately. It's highly inappropriate to link to one's own site or be self-promotional in Wikipedia articles.
Also, there are almost 10 citations in this article from New Energy Times. I'd like to review those for appropriateness as well. In the "Further developments (1989-2004)" section, it is listed in the line "A few periodicals emerged in the 1990s that covered developments in cold fusion and related new energy sciences (Fusion Facts, Cold Fusion Magazine, Infinite Energy Magazine, and New Energy Times)." I want that reviewed for appropriateness as well.
I'm having trouble finding anything [10] [11] that establishes the periodical's importance, notability, or reliability, and the fact that editors from New Energy Times are demonstrably here editing, this may be at least a WP:COI issue and at worse a WP:EL#ADV issue.
Nothing in CiteSeer either. [12]
At the New Energy Times website's "About" page, in the "Founder" section, it reads:
"He, or New Energy Times have been quoted in, or have contributed photographs for Wikipedia, Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry World, Intute, Nature, Current Science." ( [13] my emphasis)
No kidding.
From the Mission Statement:
"Its primary focus is the subject of low energy nuclear reactions, part of the field of condensed matter nuclear science historically known as 'cold fusion.' New Energy Institute seeks to advance the development and application of clean energy, accessible and affordable for everyone."
Sounds like advocacy to me.
I am deeply concerned about the influence of New Energy Times on this article. Even the image we use Image:Spawar1stGenCFCell.JPG was produced by the founder of New Energy Times, Steven B. Krivit ( User:Stevenkrivit), who was here between 2004 and 2007 with very pro-cold fusion points of view. [14]
User:Pcarbonn currently writes for the New Energy Times and recently posted on ScienceApologist's page "You are famous !" with a link to this article [15] at New Energy Times, written by him, which says:
"I'm pleased to report that the revised page, resulting from the mediation process, presents the topic as a continuing controversy, not as an example of pathological science. This is a major step forward in the recognition of the new field of condensed matter nuclear science and low-energy nuclear reaction research."
and...
"I hope that the revised Wikipedia article will help put a stop to the epidemic of pathological disbelief and that it will help raise the interest of scientists so that prominent scientific journals won't be able to reject articles on the topic "because it does not interest our readers."
That's absolutely advocacy.
All of this from one place, New Energy Times. That periodical, with an undetermined reliability and notability that seems to have an unhealthy interest in Wikipedia, is all over this article. The spam has got to go. And the rest needs to be seriously checked. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 19:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a place that stifles the free-thought and creativity of new ideas. To that end, there are a number of statements made by the CF-proponents here which I submit are problematic:
ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, you keep dreaming. This is not a fringe subject, nor a pathological science subject until you have a recent source to support that view. On the contrary, most sources support the opposite view, such as the 2004 DOE which encouraged agencies to support further research. I suggest you start a request for comment yourself if you disagree. Wikipedia is here to inform, not to spread rumors and hearsay like the one you support. Pcarbonn ( talk) 19:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Does the fringe theory guideline apply to this topic?
Note that the guideline WP:FRINGE uses the example of Face on Mars as a "fringe theory." I think cold fusion is qualitatively different, given that a group of researchers has continued funded research for about two decades. The DOE hasn't seen a need to conduct two separate reviews on Face on Mars research. Gnixon ( talk) 20:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
:::Oversight on the author's part. They're the same, same publishing organization, same topic, etc. --
Nealparr (
talk to me) 06:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC) Remarkably similar, but might not be the same. The other stuff applies. Specifically what applies is that in your article for the New Energy News, you said it is currently an unrecognized field and that prominent scientific journals reject articles on the topic. I concur. That also happens to be the definition of
WP:FRINGE. --
Nealparr (
talk to me)
06:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
As I mentioned here [17], "Further reading" links to New Energy Times are self-promotional. There's citation links as well, but for now I'm mostly concerned about having the "further reading" links removed (we can come back to the others later). In order to have them removed while the page is locked, there needs to be consensus. In other words, is there consensus? -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 00:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
There isn't consensus for removing New Energy Times from "Further reading", as the following thread by Gathall shows. Pcarbonn ( talk) 10:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
(merged sections to avoid repetition) -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 14:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
There's no point declaring further reading links self promotional since almost 80% of the further reading links on most wiki pages would fall to the same claim.
The point of the further reading category of links is to flag that the links posted in the bulk of the text and references are not the sum total of papers on the subject. If sites with dozens or hundreds of papers, other links and data can't be included in the Wiki then the illusion is created that there are only a few papers. Given the volume of work done since 1989 is so large it is reasonable that the hub sites like New Energy Times should be included under the further reading category so people can look beyond the claims and counter claims and hunt down the papers one by one. I can think of more further reading links that could be added, I.e. The condensed matter section of the journal Fusion Technology from 1989 to the end of the century has over a hundred papers that I know of. If we have to skip the hub web sites like Mr Krivit's then the problem is that we will have to cite a dozen journals by name, date and number.
We must also consider the historical implications. If Cold Fusion is confirmed and the Wiki site has a major error locked in, then Wikipedia will suffer accordingly. I know that does not matter to the hard line sceptics but it should matter to the rest of us and to the management of Wikipedia. Cold fusion can't be disproved; we have replicated peer reviewed work. It can only be ignored or proven. The prudent place to stand in is the place of the informed optimist not the willingly ignorant. It is also prudent to send readers seeking more information on the sites archiving the data. The sites condemning cold fusion have not said anything new since 2005.
Gathall (
talk)
08:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
The fact is that most cold fusion research is reported in scientific papers and field reports, not books. The most current "further reading" information in this field is on the web on websites like New Energy Times, not in stale books. Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia, so why not feature website references for further reading, as much legitimate information sharing in fast changing scientific fields has transitioned to the web (away from books) in recent years.
While a number of different websites have been the premier source for "further reading" information about cold fusion over the years, there's no doubt that the two websites that are currently the most up to date on this topic are New Energy Times and LENR-CANR.org. These websites provide someone interested in learning more about cold fusion (which is why they came to the Wikipedia page in the first place) a majority of the current and up to date information available about the topic. They also provide a detailed list of both pro and con cold fusion related books (more detailed than a Wikipedia page) that a person can utilize to research this field and the merits of cold fusion even further.
I am in favor of keeping New Energy Times in further reading and adding LENR-CANR.org to further reading, so a person interested in learning more about cold fusion can easily access the most current and comprehensive information about the topic available on the Internet. At the very least, the New Energy Times book index should be kept as a reference to cold fusion books. Rock nj ( talk) 12:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Why such a tizzy over New Energy Times link? Because of claims that it is "self promotional?" From what I can tell NET doesn't focus just on "cold fusion" issues. It focuses on a plethora of alternative energy issues.
I often come to Wiki in order to seek out the "further reading" links. I see nothing wrong or dangerous with letting the reader decide what they wish to follow up on. I'm not interested in having some alleged expert (an expert that may or may not have all that much knowledge of the controversial subject) do the "editing" for me. Orionworks ( talk) 14:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I want outside opinion on this. I think that's a reasonable request. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 14:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
The issue always seems to be about an attempt to suppress experimental evidence. Cold Fusion was trashed by the political method, not the scientific method. The scientific method depends on experimental results. If the current experimental results were known in May, 1989 Cold Fusion would not have been trashed. What we have now is a defacto censorship enforced by social conformity. An admin type once told me that Wikipedia was all about consensus. If Wikipedia existed in the middle ages it would report that the world is flat. If Wikipedia is going to hold onto this mind set, it should put the flat earth analogy as a warning on all of its scientific articles. Or if Wikipedia cannot handle scientific controversy in a fair and truthful manner it should stop publishing articles on scientific controversy. Ron Marshall ( talk) 16:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Maybe a compromise could be:
New Energy Times, a website dedicated to cold-fusion research, has compiled lists of books and recent papers about cold fusion.
It provides balance by making clear the biases of that source. Just as the Intelligent design page links to pro-ID resources, and Ouija board links to resources that take the ouija board seriously, likewise it's reasonable for a page on cold fusion to have a link to a primarily pro-cold-fusion book or paper index, as long as the link is not portrayed as being unbiased when it is, clearly, biased. Everyone, both actual scientists and cold-fusion advocates, would benefit from knowing where to find a comprehensive list of recent sympathetic cold-fusion publications. The link seems the best of its kind, so I don't think it should be removed solely based on the self-promotional motivations of its original inclusion. -- Steve ( talk) 16:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm really not very pleased with the continued POV-pushing pursued by Pierre "pro-CF side of his arguments" makes it seem like we have to always accomodate a pro/anti dichotomy. What we should do is simply describe the fact that cold fusion is looked on with derision until it is no longer looked on with derision. ScienceApologist ( talk) 20:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)