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http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue82/releaseoflowenergy.html
"This book is historic because it is the first peer-reviewed book from an established scientific society (published by the American Chemical Society, but available from Oxford University Press)."
The title is: "Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook"
The price is, In My Opinion, ridiculous: $175
V (
talk)
18:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
We currently use Goodstein (1994) as a source for this:
We also refer to this source for the statement that:
So far, so good. But Goodstein actually gives information about both sides of the cold fusion debate. This was 1994, not 2004 or 2009. I recommend reading the whole article if you are interested in the cold fusion issues. [2]. Goldstein is saying that, on the one hand, there are very good theoretical reasons to consider cold fusion, of the "bad kind," i.e., massive heat, impossible. But, on the other hand, there are some very solid experimental results that don't seem to be explicable any other way. And he laments the situation that, because of problems with the initial announcement, the rush to judgment, the mistakes that were made, the physics world isn't taking the later, more cautious, results seriously.
I'm beginning to think we need at least two articles: one of them on the Cold Fusion affair, as an example of "Bad Science," which doesn't mean that Pons-Fleischmann were "Bad Scientists," though hardly anyone (including Fleischmann) thinks that they made no mistakes, but that the process of science by press conference, rushed attempts to confirm, rushed negative conclusions, etc., etc., was seriously defective, and there are enough sources on this to justify an article. What would the other article be? Well, what is "cold fusion" as an alleged phenomenon? What is reported? What theories have been published in reasonably reliable sources to explain the experimental results? (Which would include Shanahan's attempts to explain the alleged heat, etc., Kowalski's theories about non-nuclear damage to CR-39 chips, etc.) We can do all this without review articles, if we attribute opinions and simply allow what appears in reliable sources to determine balance. What must stop is the highly selective application of RS guidelines to exclude some material while including other material just as reliably sourced. It's going to take patient work to find consensus, but I believe we can do it. Goodstein gives very good experimental detail about Scaramuzzi's experiments, how much effort they put into addressing the criticisms of prior work. Did they succeed? Goodstein says that he still "believes" cold fusion is impossible. But he also "believes" that there are these experiments that haven't been explained any other way. That kind of tension is actually what makes for good science. His position was, in fact, reflected in the 2004 DOE review. Something is going on that hasn't been adequately explained. While there are still very good theoretical reasons to think cold fusion impossible, until the contrary experiments are more carefully reviewed and reproduced or rejected, we really don't know bleep. Theory is still theory, and science grew up when it abandoned theory as the basis for truth. Meanwhile, Goodstein reports Scaramuzzi as having figured out why the Fleischmann effect was so hard to duplicate, a loading ratio below 85% (which is hard to obtain), no heat. Above that, he reports Scaramuzzi as claiming 100% reproducibility.
As an example of problems that may still exist in the article, there is a section on non-nuclear explanations for excess heat. However, what's missing is that many experiments considered and ruled out these explanations. Further, experiments where ordinary water was used as a control have been performed. Apparently, Fleischmann and Pons did these experiments and were reluctant to report the results. Why? They indeed found some excess heat in them. However, there are more recent experiments that show the same: some excess heat from ordinary water. I think there are some SPAWAR experiments, and what they note, as I recall, is that the excess heat is explainable by the amount of deuterium present in ordinary water. I.e., much less excess heat. My point is that the article is presenting, in that section, "one side." Is there reliable source for the other side, of similar quality? (By the way, I'm suspicious of the ordinary water results, because, remember, loading factor of 85%? But maybe loading with mixed hydrogen and deuterium does something we don't understand.) -- Abd ( talk) 21:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
This section is currently very short. But the reason why there is so much skepticism is very important to explain in this article and that can only be done by giving the detailed theoretical reasons why cold fusion cannot work.
So, I suggest that we explain that according to quantum mechanics, the validity of which is almost unversally accepted, one can write down formally exact expressions for transistion rates. In practice one cannot analytically evaluate such expressions (different approximation scemes are possible) but one can still theoretically study the mathematical formalism and set bounds on any enhancement of nuclear reaction rates.
E.g., one can approach the cold fusion problem in a possitive way and ask what is necessary for the transition rates to be enhanced and then make estimates, which will then turn out to be negligible. See e.g. a different investigation here Count Iblis ( talk) 00:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
How much of this could go in the article is still quite unclear to me, but there is plenty of RS on various aspects of this whole affair, enough to keep us busy for a while. -- Abd ( talk) 03:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) Ahem! Condensed matter nuclear science. Here is the basic issue: it was concluded long ago that mere chemistry, including the condensed state, could not affect nuclear reactions; there are quite a few reasons why this idea is reasonable. However, it's not at all clear that there was a dedicated effort to look for such reactions. When the P-F work became known, others started to look for evidence of LENR. My guess is that there are actually quite a number of different pathways to low energy nuclear reactions, it is not just one mechanism, which would explain why there are such inconsistent results as to radiation and nuclear ash. Yes. If elemental transformation is possible, as Iwamura reports, D-D fusion might be easier. So it's related. But we really should have at least two articles: Condensed matter nuclear science (go to the link then, from the redirected from link at the top, you can quickly get to the redirected article and look at the history to get the most recent version before the redirect. You can also look at Talk:Condensed matter nuclear science directly. The other article would be on the history. -- Abd ( talk) 17:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
http://jjap.ipap.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle?magazine=JJAP&volume=41&number=7R&page=4642-4650 Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Vol. 41 (2002) pp. 4642–4650
convenience copy: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYelementalaa.pdf (cannot be linked due to blacklist)
This is, of course, a stunning piece of work. Does anyone know what critical or other response it has received outside of the cold fusion community (where he has been widely cited)? Iwamura is reporting nothing less than total transformation of elements in a very thin film in an experimental setup where he could monitor the elemental composition of the film, taking place under highly controlled conditions, during the experiments, using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.
We noticed that a certain rule exists between given and produced elements. The increase in mass number is 8, and the increase in atomic number is 4. At present, we do not have a complete theory that can explain the obtained experimental results without a few assumptions. However, if several assumptions are accepted, they are basically explained by the EINR model,(5) which is one of the working hypotheses in the investigation of the nature of this phenomenon.
5) Y. Iwamura, T. Itoh, N. Gotoh and I. Toyoda: Fusion Technol. 33 (1998) 476.
Now, this paper is mentioned in the 2004 DOE reviewer submissions. Lenr-canr.org claims to have obtained a copy of the 18 individual review papers, ( http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf ) and this is in Review 7:
Storms and Rothwell -- http://www.lenr-canr.org/Collections/DoeReview.htm#Report -- respond:
It's extremely clear that the reviewer dismissed Iwamura by making up another explanation that anyone understanding the Iwamura report could see could not be possible. Iwamura actually considers the possibility that the entire substrate contained the element that appears (it's a rare element, so I think he uses an upper limit for its possible abundance in the base material); if all the atoms in the substrate migrated to the surface, they could indeed account for the observed effect, but this, then, would violate the laws of thermodynamics. And, of course, there is the detail that the effect doesn't occur with hydrogen diffusion in place of deuterium, and the objections above. The numbers 4 and 8 are significant, of course, because they would represent the absorption of 4 deuterons by each atom of the element being transmuted.
In any case, the real point would be not the unbelievability of Iwamura's "conclusions," but his experimental data. Iwamura simply noted that the element disappearing and the element appearing differed in atomic number by 4 and mass number by 8. That's an experimental observation, not actually a conclusion. The reviewer seems quite confused.
Absolutely, it's a stunning result. But is it so stunning that it should be hidden under a rock? (Note that we aren't hiding this one, it's cited in the article.)
No matter how clear this becomes to me, or to anything short of a consensus of editors, I don't see anything yet to use in the article about the 2004 DOE review, except to note that the Iwamura paper is in a peer-reviewed journal and is reliable source, and it's possible that more of it could be used.
The individual reviews cast some severe doubt on the comments made earlier in debate over the reporting of the DOE review that the mention of continued research was mere boilerplate. There is very substantial support for research with some reviewers. As I've said, this isn't actually a fringe science, fringe science doesn't get that kind of support from a body of scientists chosen to advise the DOE.
Here is what I'd personally say about Iwamura. He is either a gross fraud or he has proven beyond reasonable doubt low-energy nuclear reactions. It's not an easy experiment to reproduce, but it could be done, and there is other work that supports that something like this is happening. There is reason why scientific frauds are essentially run out of town on a rail, they can cause tremendous damage, wasted effort, and all that. It's understandable that the scientific community was upset with Fleischmann, but it was also largely their own fault: they rushed to try to duplicate the work, not realizing the complications and difficulties, not waiting for full information, etc. There are DOE reviewers who strongly confirmed that more research is needed, but note that Iwamura's technique and many of the other techiques, including Pons-Fleischmann's original work, are not necessarily scalable to energy-generating applications, it's entirely possible that they would remain scientific curiosities that only take place under very unusual circumstances, and not scalable. Iwamura's work is done in a near-vacuum, the element to be transmuted is sputtered on, making a very thin film, and the level of reaction was very low, the released heat predictable from the conversion of mass to energy would still have been undetectable. But the scientific implications are spectacular. Iwamura essentially watched the transmutation taking place, very precisely. Occam's razor.
But one point could make it quickly into the article. The full nature of Iwamura's report is still not revealed in the article, and the article cited as if it were a refutation of Iwamura was written prior to the Iwamura publication, it mentions earlier reports of transmutation, much less specific and much less well-measured. Remember, Iwamura is reporting 100% conversion, under conditions of high purity. No batch problems, no "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't." -- Abd ( talk) 00:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090304/sc_livescience/modernproblemeveryonesanexpert Kirk shanahan ( talk) 16:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Usage of "cold fusion,", discussed here, really 'lukewarm fusion', just hot enough and no hotter, added to
Cold Fusion (disambiguation). --
Abd (
talk)
17:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
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Tell me again, please, what the reliable source is for the concept that cold fusion is generally rejected? I mean now, not twenty years ago or even five years ago. (And rejected by whom? The general public? Scientists in general? Physicists? Nuclear Physicists? Chemists?) (By "now" I would mean, maybe 2007 or 2008 or later, given that there is ongoing publication in RS about low energy nuclear reactions.) It's a sincere question. -- Abd ( talk) 22:29, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) I edited Cold Fusion (disambiguation) to reflect the usage found that started this section. Accordingly, I'm closing this discussion, unless someone objects, in which case, revert me. -- Abd ( talk) 17:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC) |
(unindent) I request the editors tone it down. Shanahan is a published expert in the field and respect is due. We need less rhetoric. Shanahan has a hypothesis that may explain some of the experimental results. The field needs criticism, it's essential. His work was published in a peer-reviewed journal, so dismissing it as "nonsense," repeating the word, doesn't help matters. I acknowledge my own skepticism at Shanahan's approach. For starters, it does seem that he's impeaching the usage of calorimeters by experts; nevertheless, some of us complain about what may be biased rejection of evidence for cold fusion, let's not engage in biased rejection of criticism of such evidence. We are not, here, attempting to make a decision on whether cold fusion happens or not. Some of the calorimetry experiments are done with closed systems, so that all the released gases recombine within the system; a system like this should heat up due to the inefficiency of the conversion process. One of the problems has been that reports are made of power generation, but often energy generation (integrated power) isn't given. A cold fusion cell will store a certain amount of energy as hydrogen/deuterium gas and oxygen, separated; it may release that later. Palladium stores a lot of hydrogen, that's why it's of interest. It stores hydrogen (including deuterium, of course) with high density, essentially with the density of a solid, if I'm correct, so, yes, rocket fuel. Except, of course, these are chemists and they are quite aware of this fact, and when they say that the power generated could not be from any known reaction, I'm a little skeptical that they need to wake up and say, "My God! The hydrogen is burning! Forming water! When we said "no known chemical reaction," we didn't think of making water from the gases!" Rothwell's criticism, while of some interest, isn't of much use to us, unless it's published in RS. We can discuss it, he knows the field, but I'm more interested in review of Shanahan's work by other scientists, Rothwell is a writer who has specialized in this field and is well-known for that. I consider him an expert, but in a general way, I'm not convinced that he's competent to criticize Shanahan's work. Which doesn't meant that his criticism isn't cogent; most of what I've seen from him, here has been quite cogent. I suspect we will move along more efficiently if we start to narrow down issues. Shanahan, I especially invite to inform us of peer-reviewed comment on his work, since he might be likely to be aware of it. I mentioned him because it's an example of an alternate hypothesis. It is that, and whether or not it adequately explains the experimental results is another matter. I don't see how it would approach, for example, the radiation or nuclear ash evidence. I've been coming to some understanding of what happened, why, in particular, the 2004 DOE review still came up with "inconclusive." One of the problems is that there are many effects that have been found. The research has not focused on one particular experiment, to try to reproduce it. Rather, experiments are all over the map. Some find helium, some do not, for example. That certainly looks suspicious; though there is a possible explanation: There may not be just one kind of LENR, there may be many. Some produce helium, some do not. All of them take unusual circumstances, and these were not noticed before because pretty much nobody expected them, due to the accepted theory; no expectation, no search, no results to study. Start searching, and something might be found. Iwamura's work, for example, reports elemental transformations on the surface of a complex sandwich of palladium and calcium oxide, where deuterium flow is established through the palladium lattice. This work alone would be worthy of serious attempts at replication. There has been some attempt within the cold fusion community and, I note, contrary to what some here might expect from that community, some of the report, at least, is negative. But negative results at first are not the same as "failure to reproduce." As with the original CF experiments, the precise conditions which show the effect may not be known. I fail to see how Shanahan's criticism would apply to experiments which (1) consider the whole system, like a "black box" and study input power, integrated, and overall heating, or (2) which don't depend on calorimetry, such as experiments showing radiation. I don't see why the alleged systematic error would take place with deuterium and not with hydrogen. I don't see why the possibility of this would escape all those different experimental groups. But none of this means that the hypothesis should be contemtuously dismissed. More to the point, I'm interested in how Shanahan would respond to the Bayesian analysis I mentioned. I'll find a link: I have to go do a bit of work, but why calorimetry experiments with the particular markers the paper (presented at ICCF 14) would show excess heat, with high reliability, but those without these markers would not. The markers, themselves, shouldn't affect the calorimetry, they have to do with expressed concern about purity of the materials, as an example, or other characteristics that would allow classification of experiments. By the way, I'm aware, as well, of a hazard involved in this Bayesian approach, but I won't detail it yet. -- Abd ( talk) 19:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
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I'm asking Shanahan to explain for us his work with Calibration Constant Shift, a Guide for the Compleat Idiot on CCS, and I request that comments from others here be directed toward helping Shanahan to effectively and clearly explain it, not to refute it, argue against it. Perhaps, Dr. Shanahan, you could provide us with some text on this that, if we had space, we could put in the article, or you could refer to the old Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments article, which I've rescued from the junkbin at User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments.
Abd posted this comment at 19:52, 16 March 2009 which strongly enjoined editors to be civil. Abd also said "our task is not to decide if cold fusion is real or not" and described our task in terms of presenting material from sources with neutrality and balance, including material about current research presented with caution and balance. The following comment from V (19:59, 16 March 2009) was posted in response to Abd's original comment. ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 20:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I noticed a day ago that the reference to my 3rd paper had been deleted. I've tracked that down to an action by JzG on 30 Jan, http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cold_fusion&diff=267300501&oldid=267278001 . No Talk page entry was made. The header on the revision notice was "POV and unreliable source". He also deleted Ed Storms ref as well, so I guess he thinks TA is an 'unreliable' journal. If so, then you all need to remove the otehr refs from that journal as well. Kirk shanahan ( talk) 17:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
http://coldfusionpolicy.org/Cold%20Fusion%20Ann%20Biblio%20032106.pdf
This is a paper presented in a course on public policy analysis. It seems to be a relatively neutral analysis of sources on the topic of cold fusion, presenting sources to be used in public policy analysis on the topic. It's unfortunate that it doesn't seem to have been published.... but we may be able to begin some discussions with what is there.
http://coldfusionpolicy.org/ provides an overview, and addresses issues that are of major concern to us. It's worth looking at.
http://coldfusionpolicy.org/Grimshaw%20Resume%200108.pdf asserts the credentials of the author, who does not appear to have any observable bias from the history given. However, of course, Grimshaw isn't a chemist or physicist, i.e., an expert in science. However, "public policy" process is related to our editorial process here; it is properly advised by experts in the field, but actual determination is made by others, generally, who are not experts. (Experts attempting to control articles here frequently end up blocked.) So this paper may well serve as a support to our work, as if Grimshaw were an editor here, an editor who has clearly done a lot of the footwork. -- Abd ( talk) 14:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
There is a response to Grimshaw at http://physicsworld.com/blog/2008/03/cold_fusion_as_policy_posterbo.html. This blog is an example of what, I'm sure, drives cold fusion researchers crazy, and it's an example of what Grimshaw talks about. The writer says, at the end, "writing as someone who did a cold fusion experiment in 1990, my personal opinion is that whatever they are seeing — it’s not fusion."
Everyone acknowledges that P-F type cold fusion was very difficult to reproduce, i.e., most attempts, early on, failed to find it. I think a lot of people tried to reproduce the experiment, far more than published. Most of these attempts failed, but it does not follow that "other researchers were unable to confim cold fusion." I've seen this statement again and again, and it is blatantly false in implication, that there was no confirmation. Not only was there confirmation, recent analysis of the publications that did appear has shown that experiments which followed closely P-F's methods and approaches succeeded. But this writer is extrapolating from personal experience, an experience which has almost nothing to do with whether or not cold fusion is real, and simply reflects a matter of consensus: most early attempts to reproduce failed. A number of writers, and we have reliable source on this, have regretted the way in which the appearance of consensus developed on cold fusion. Grimshaw points out the errors on both sides. He also points out that the nuclear physicists dominated the response to cold fusion; had it been dominated by chemists, the result might have been quite different. Chemists were saying "this isn't chemistry," and that is where their expertise is. Nuclear physicists were saying, "this isn't fusion," and that is where their expertise is. So what is it, then? It's obvious: it is either chemistry of an unrecognized form or it is nuclear physics of an unrecognized form. In other words, no matter how you slice it, there is new science here. Hence the continued recognition by both DOE review panels that further research is appropriate. Grimshaw goes further, using more formal policy analysis to recommend serious public support, given the level of certainty that he estimates from the research. Grimshaw is not limited by "peer-reviewed journals," but was able to consider all sources, weighing apparent bias, etc. Grimshaw did apparently speak at the cold fusion session of the American Physical Society in March, 2008. -- Abd ( talk) 14:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
A little more on Grimshaw, he is apparently adjunct professor at the University of Texas, LBJ School of Public Affairs. [4] -- Abd ( talk) 17:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I disagree that no theoretical framework exist to describe the situation. To the contrary, we have a theory that is in principle almost exact (the deviations are due to unknown physics beyond the Standard Model at very high energies, e.g. supersymmetry, GUT etc.).
The fact that you can have muon catalized fusion and that the fact that deuterium in a solid is more complicated that just two deutron nuclei, in no way means that "anything goes".
One can disagree with a negative attitude toward the possibility of cold fusion based on theoretical arguments. But if we don't explain what the basis of these arguments are, then the article will fail to explain the basis of the dispute. Count Iblis ( talk) 14:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
(unindent) "We need to find reliable sources on the nature of the dispute" - no such thing on the mainstream side (with the exception of my publications and those of W. B. Clarke), barely any on the proCF side - this is the effect of being declared a pariah field. Yes. However, note that "pariah" and "pseudoscience" are not the same. Pariah fields are considered pseudoscience, typically, by a majority, but pseudoscientific fields don't have the level of support that cold fusion does among, say, DOE reviewers. The field includes, of course, work like yours, and this is precisely what you are reporting. Who is interested in clear criticism of a pariah field, don't we already know that it's all nonsense? Except that, of course, without criticism like yours, the judgment that it's nonsense is pretty shaky. I'll claim that my non-expert opinion is that it's shaky anyway, but, remember, my goal is always to find maximum agreement. I think, from the above, we can agree that the "pariah" designation harms research in the field, and understanding of it. You have outlined, above, the problem. Let me restate it.
The 2004 DOE review indicated that further research was appropriate, with publication in peer-reviewed journals. Now, there is publication in peer-reviewed journals, though allegedly it isn't in the most reputable. (I find it a bit puzzling that Naturwissenschaften isn't considered reputable, but let's drop that for the moment.)
There is ongoing publication in reliable source regarding research in this pariah field. While there is, in fact, continued publication of criticism of this research, none of it is overview, rather, there are specific criticisms, such as Kowalski's attempt to impeach the radiation evidence asserted by Spzak et al.
We have no recent reliable sources, on the level of peer-reviewed journals, which expresses the alleged scientific consensus that cold fusion is not taking place. We do have reviews and books, recently published, which suggest the opposite. I am not asserting that we should therefor put in the article that this alleged consensus has disappeared. I don't think it has. However, this requires that we present a more balanced view, as we would with any unresolved controversy. One side, so to speak, claims that there is no controversy, it's done and over with, cold fusion is dead, forget about it. The other, however, says, no, we now have evidence that is strong enough to assert with 99% confidence that cold fusion is taking place. (If I remember correctly, that's a claim in the Bayesian analysis reported at the 2008 ICCF.)
However, we also have, from over the years, a fair amount of reliable source review of the controversy, of the history of science aspect of this, and we have presented little of this in this article. This is why I suggest that we need two (at least) articles.
With regard to your POV being welcome, I was speaking for myself. It's very clear that there are editors who don't welcome it, just as it is clear that there are editors who are hostile to material that seems to support cold fusion. In my view, these are both dangers to the project. As to evidence of my intention, you complained about the removal of reference to your work. I restored it, promptly. Until then, I was unaware of it. I rescued the Calorimetry article, on which you had worked extensively, from the junkpile.
But please understand: Wikipedia process grinds very slowly, once serious controversy has appeared over an article. Waves of POV editors can see-saw back and forth, and this will continue until and unless a core of editors appears who are truly dedicated to NPOV, and who don't have a warped vision of what that means. (Some editors imagine that their personal opinion is, of course, "fair and balanced," when, as I continually assert, the only way we can be certain of NPOV is when we find complete consensus; the degree of our certainty is measured by the degree of consensus found. In organizations where unity is considered important, extraordinary care will sometimes be exercised to make sure that all points of view are considered and included to the maximum extent possible. Wikipedia probably will not go to that extent, but if it did, it would become so solidly NPOV that POV-motivated vandalism and edit warring would practically disappear. But when we are content with a mere majority of editors on one side or another, or even two to one, it can be very difficult to maintain stability with sound content.)
My view at the moment is that the article is defective in a number of ways, but it will take time to fix. See m:Eventualism. Fixing it by barging in with something "better," if it involves more than a very few changes at a time, is just about guaranteed to be useless and disruptive at this point. Right now, I'm working on building the community, and trying to be maximally welcoming to you is part of that. We should try to attract other experts, in fact, and one of the problems is that one of the experts has been banned. Instead of containing and confining and channeling his contributions into what is useful for us, they were rejected as "fringe" (is there something wrong with being "fringe" with a "fringe science"?), he was dismissed as a "kook." (If I did that, I'd be blocked in a flash, which says something about the situation.) His web site was disparaged as full of copyright violation, which allegation had no basis, etc. I'm dealing with all this, one little step at a time. Trying to push hard and fast, well, I'd be out of here quickly. As it is, I'm being quite successful, as long as I don't bite off more than I can chew or than the community can easily handle. One step at a time. Want a list of accomplishments? Well, I'll provide it by email to editors I trust to keep it confidential. I'm not stupid.
I disagree with your characterization of the 2004 DOE review, which is even clearer when the individual reviews are read. Definitely, research is recommended, suggesting targeted proposals with regard to certain open questions being specifically mentioned. That they did not recommend a general research program has been translated into some kind of dismissal of the field; that isn't what happened. The conclusion was precisely worded: the evidence is not conclusive. Many editors here seem to take that as an equivalent of "bunk." It's not. It means exactly what it says. That is, they meant that as to the situation when the review was performed. I'd say that the evidence now is more conclusive, but whether or not it reaches to the level of simple conclusive evidence isn't clear, and that would require far more careful and knowledgeable assessment than I'm capable of. Or that you are personally capable of, in my assessment. You can handle part of this, perhaps. We would need to, and I assume we will, look at details. Your criticisms seem to apply to some kinds of calorimetry or methods of assessing heat generation, and not to others. I don't see the application, at all, of your ideas to Arata's recent work, for example, and with regard to the Iwamura transmutation work, my guess is that you are an outsider, not an expert on the problems there, specifically. Welcome to the crowd. -- Abd ( talk) 20:18, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
We have text in the article: One of the more prominent reports of success came from a group at the Georgia Institute of Technology, which observed neutron production.[22] The Georgia Tech group later retracted their announcement.[23]. The first reference is to: New York Times, April 14, 1989, and the second is to New York Times, April 24, 1989, with more detail, but the first link covers the retraction. The Georgia Tech announcement of neutron detection was on Monday, April 10, and the retraction was on Thursday, April 13. a scientific instrument that was used to measure neutrons, a key byproduct of nuclear fusion, apparently gave inflated readings because the liquid it was measuring became as hot as 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
This report actually was irrelevant. It was a "report of success," perhaps, but so transient that it shouldn't have affected anything. Normally, such an experiment would have been reported, if at all, as "failure to detect neutrons," because, before publication, the kinks would almost certainly have been worked out. It wasn't said how they figured it out. The second article cited states that the Georgia Tech announcement of neutrons was one of two "first confirmations." However, the original announcement by Pons and Fleischmann was on March 23. From what we now know, any attempt to replicate the work in less than three weeks would likely have failed; techniques to find rapid excess heat and radiation with alleged reasonable reliability were not developed until much later. It would not he surprising, then, that the other announcement, from Texas A&M, then, was also defective.
The second article reports that Texas A&M announcement was in the morning, Monday, April 10. Then, At a news conference the next day, Charles Martin, the Texas A&M chemist who led the research team, was very careful to say that their work had not established cold fusion. All the team was claiming was that it had found the heat being produced by the electrochemical process. Dr. Martin said the researchers had stayed up the previous night writing a journal report, which was sent off before the news conference.
Rush to publication, a foundation of bad science. This matter led me to Communicating science which examines this history in some depth and which may be a usable source for us. This is the kind of source that would be important for an article on the history of the affair. -- Abd ( talk) 19:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2301330/A-Chinese-View-on-Summary-of-Condensed-Matter-Nuclear-Science
Li, X.Z., et al., "A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science," Journal of Fusion Energy, Vol. 23(3), p. 217-221, (2004) Cites Iwamura. -- Abd ( talk) 01:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The journal is an engineering journal, most articles are related to hot fusion. -- Abd ( talk) 01:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
This discussion slid gradually and then rapidly downhill, becoming two editors exchanging derisive comments. I'm collapsing it; there is probably some useful discussion in here, but it's too mixed with inappropriate comment to do much with it as it is. Both of these editors are perfectly welcome, as far as I'm concerned, to refactor their comments under a new section, this time taking care to avoid gratuitous inflammatory remarks. Consider this an informal warming regarding civility.
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(unindent, I was going to keep going but it is getting a bit boring...) Wow…you just keep making my points for me! Thanks V! The rest of you, please note the full quote just below, note what it says about what is needed to get a heat shift, and note what I say about the co-dep process. Seems clear enough to me… ‘Long’ in this context is however long it takes to form the ‘special active surface state’ I explicitly postulated in my 2006 paper. From my User Talk page: “This requires enough bubbles to be impacted to get a noticeable shift in heat production, which requires enough contaminants or structural changes at the surface to do that. That could take very long times in very clean systems, or, in the case of the co-deposition experiments, it could happen quickly due to the special conditions of that select system. You need to remember that _most_ CF experiments runs hundreds of hours. The Szpak codep process cuts that way down - why? Because it makes dendrititc Pd with lots of contaminants on it (from the plating chemicals). Kirk shanahan (talk) 21:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)” Now, what point was V trying to make? That I had somehow lied?? “Tsk, tsk, an obvious lie:” Yup, that’s what he said. Lets see…I wrote above, responding to V (V’s comments in quotes): “"What have you to say about the claimed rapid appearance of excess heat in the co-deposition experiments?" Perfectly consistent with my proposed mechanism. "Your anti-CF hypothesis previously involved great-enough timespan" - no, the DATA involved great timespans, and with the co-dep experimetns, it doesn't. As I said, my explanation is perfectly consistent with all this data.” Then V wrote: “You also specified the long timespan allowed buildup of material that would catalyze hydrogen/oxygen reactions.” So, does my comment from my UserTalk page from Jan 21 (which V _partially_ quotes) jive with what V says? Did I really lie??? Y’all be the judge… Kirk shanahan ( talk) 19:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
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(unindent) However, all this only applies to balance when there are questions of conflict in sources. While there may be journals which are financially motivated (payment for publication), even these kill their own golden goose if they fail to be selective; but a journal like Frontiers of Physics in China has strong motivation to have good standards. The whole purpose of the Frontiers of "X" in China series is to raise respect for Chinese science, and the Chinese government is behind it as well as serious money. Cold fusion appears to be considered a respectable field in China, and the article that led to the title of this section simply reflects that. I'll remind editors that the publisher of FPC is Higher Education Press, and I wonder if there is any larger publisher in the world that doesn't have an article here yet. They are roughly number 45; and they are in active cooperation with Thomson Reuters, which is number one in the world, and which considers FPC to have very high standards (citations for this have been provided elsewhere, above. Some editors here may think the journal "laughable," but that does little more than expose their POV and bias. It's clear that, since they publish in English, they need a better copy editor! Absolutely, I don't deny that there are problems with FPC, but "laughable," they are not. This will all be tested if edits are asserting using information from FPC, which I expect is likely. -- Abd ( talk) 16:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes it feels like swimming through molasses here. How do we know what "mainstream understanding" is? Does it appear, lotus-born? Or is it based on what we find in reliable sources? I'll stand with it. While WP:RS isn't a rigid standard, we should not pick and choose among reliable sources, unless there is *conflict* between them, and there is no conflict with a "mainsream understanding" unless there is a reliable source regarding that understanding. So the conflict is between two sources, (or sources on one side and sources on the other); further, the determination that there is conflict is itself a complex task, sometimes. If it requires synthesis, it can get dicey. If there is reliable source on the conflict itself, much better (perhaps a third source that covers the first two).
Suppose that we have source A which makes a statement, and it's in the article. Then I come up with source B, which says something different. It seems contradictory to me. Can I put in the article, "however, contradicting this, B asserts that ..."? I'd say that, generally, absent clear consensus or reliable source on the contradiction, not just A and B (let's assume they don't mention each other), we shouldn't assert contradiction. If it is acceptable to the editors, just saying, "however, B asserts that," may be okay, but even putting the statements together like that implies contradiction, so caution is in order.
There is no way to find NPOV without respect for consensus and consensus process. Which often takes a lot of discussion. -- Abd ( talk) 20:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 23 | Archive 24 | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | → | Archive 30 |
http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue82/releaseoflowenergy.html
"This book is historic because it is the first peer-reviewed book from an established scientific society (published by the American Chemical Society, but available from Oxford University Press)."
The title is: "Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook"
The price is, In My Opinion, ridiculous: $175
V (
talk)
18:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
We currently use Goodstein (1994) as a source for this:
We also refer to this source for the statement that:
So far, so good. But Goodstein actually gives information about both sides of the cold fusion debate. This was 1994, not 2004 or 2009. I recommend reading the whole article if you are interested in the cold fusion issues. [2]. Goldstein is saying that, on the one hand, there are very good theoretical reasons to consider cold fusion, of the "bad kind," i.e., massive heat, impossible. But, on the other hand, there are some very solid experimental results that don't seem to be explicable any other way. And he laments the situation that, because of problems with the initial announcement, the rush to judgment, the mistakes that were made, the physics world isn't taking the later, more cautious, results seriously.
I'm beginning to think we need at least two articles: one of them on the Cold Fusion affair, as an example of "Bad Science," which doesn't mean that Pons-Fleischmann were "Bad Scientists," though hardly anyone (including Fleischmann) thinks that they made no mistakes, but that the process of science by press conference, rushed attempts to confirm, rushed negative conclusions, etc., etc., was seriously defective, and there are enough sources on this to justify an article. What would the other article be? Well, what is "cold fusion" as an alleged phenomenon? What is reported? What theories have been published in reasonably reliable sources to explain the experimental results? (Which would include Shanahan's attempts to explain the alleged heat, etc., Kowalski's theories about non-nuclear damage to CR-39 chips, etc.) We can do all this without review articles, if we attribute opinions and simply allow what appears in reliable sources to determine balance. What must stop is the highly selective application of RS guidelines to exclude some material while including other material just as reliably sourced. It's going to take patient work to find consensus, but I believe we can do it. Goodstein gives very good experimental detail about Scaramuzzi's experiments, how much effort they put into addressing the criticisms of prior work. Did they succeed? Goodstein says that he still "believes" cold fusion is impossible. But he also "believes" that there are these experiments that haven't been explained any other way. That kind of tension is actually what makes for good science. His position was, in fact, reflected in the 2004 DOE review. Something is going on that hasn't been adequately explained. While there are still very good theoretical reasons to think cold fusion impossible, until the contrary experiments are more carefully reviewed and reproduced or rejected, we really don't know bleep. Theory is still theory, and science grew up when it abandoned theory as the basis for truth. Meanwhile, Goodstein reports Scaramuzzi as having figured out why the Fleischmann effect was so hard to duplicate, a loading ratio below 85% (which is hard to obtain), no heat. Above that, he reports Scaramuzzi as claiming 100% reproducibility.
As an example of problems that may still exist in the article, there is a section on non-nuclear explanations for excess heat. However, what's missing is that many experiments considered and ruled out these explanations. Further, experiments where ordinary water was used as a control have been performed. Apparently, Fleischmann and Pons did these experiments and were reluctant to report the results. Why? They indeed found some excess heat in them. However, there are more recent experiments that show the same: some excess heat from ordinary water. I think there are some SPAWAR experiments, and what they note, as I recall, is that the excess heat is explainable by the amount of deuterium present in ordinary water. I.e., much less excess heat. My point is that the article is presenting, in that section, "one side." Is there reliable source for the other side, of similar quality? (By the way, I'm suspicious of the ordinary water results, because, remember, loading factor of 85%? But maybe loading with mixed hydrogen and deuterium does something we don't understand.) -- Abd ( talk) 21:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
This section is currently very short. But the reason why there is so much skepticism is very important to explain in this article and that can only be done by giving the detailed theoretical reasons why cold fusion cannot work.
So, I suggest that we explain that according to quantum mechanics, the validity of which is almost unversally accepted, one can write down formally exact expressions for transistion rates. In practice one cannot analytically evaluate such expressions (different approximation scemes are possible) but one can still theoretically study the mathematical formalism and set bounds on any enhancement of nuclear reaction rates.
E.g., one can approach the cold fusion problem in a possitive way and ask what is necessary for the transition rates to be enhanced and then make estimates, which will then turn out to be negligible. See e.g. a different investigation here Count Iblis ( talk) 00:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
How much of this could go in the article is still quite unclear to me, but there is plenty of RS on various aspects of this whole affair, enough to keep us busy for a while. -- Abd ( talk) 03:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) Ahem! Condensed matter nuclear science. Here is the basic issue: it was concluded long ago that mere chemistry, including the condensed state, could not affect nuclear reactions; there are quite a few reasons why this idea is reasonable. However, it's not at all clear that there was a dedicated effort to look for such reactions. When the P-F work became known, others started to look for evidence of LENR. My guess is that there are actually quite a number of different pathways to low energy nuclear reactions, it is not just one mechanism, which would explain why there are such inconsistent results as to radiation and nuclear ash. Yes. If elemental transformation is possible, as Iwamura reports, D-D fusion might be easier. So it's related. But we really should have at least two articles: Condensed matter nuclear science (go to the link then, from the redirected from link at the top, you can quickly get to the redirected article and look at the history to get the most recent version before the redirect. You can also look at Talk:Condensed matter nuclear science directly. The other article would be on the history. -- Abd ( talk) 17:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
http://jjap.ipap.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle?magazine=JJAP&volume=41&number=7R&page=4642-4650 Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Vol. 41 (2002) pp. 4642–4650
convenience copy: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYelementalaa.pdf (cannot be linked due to blacklist)
This is, of course, a stunning piece of work. Does anyone know what critical or other response it has received outside of the cold fusion community (where he has been widely cited)? Iwamura is reporting nothing less than total transformation of elements in a very thin film in an experimental setup where he could monitor the elemental composition of the film, taking place under highly controlled conditions, during the experiments, using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.
We noticed that a certain rule exists between given and produced elements. The increase in mass number is 8, and the increase in atomic number is 4. At present, we do not have a complete theory that can explain the obtained experimental results without a few assumptions. However, if several assumptions are accepted, they are basically explained by the EINR model,(5) which is one of the working hypotheses in the investigation of the nature of this phenomenon.
5) Y. Iwamura, T. Itoh, N. Gotoh and I. Toyoda: Fusion Technol. 33 (1998) 476.
Now, this paper is mentioned in the 2004 DOE reviewer submissions. Lenr-canr.org claims to have obtained a copy of the 18 individual review papers, ( http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf ) and this is in Review 7:
Storms and Rothwell -- http://www.lenr-canr.org/Collections/DoeReview.htm#Report -- respond:
It's extremely clear that the reviewer dismissed Iwamura by making up another explanation that anyone understanding the Iwamura report could see could not be possible. Iwamura actually considers the possibility that the entire substrate contained the element that appears (it's a rare element, so I think he uses an upper limit for its possible abundance in the base material); if all the atoms in the substrate migrated to the surface, they could indeed account for the observed effect, but this, then, would violate the laws of thermodynamics. And, of course, there is the detail that the effect doesn't occur with hydrogen diffusion in place of deuterium, and the objections above. The numbers 4 and 8 are significant, of course, because they would represent the absorption of 4 deuterons by each atom of the element being transmuted.
In any case, the real point would be not the unbelievability of Iwamura's "conclusions," but his experimental data. Iwamura simply noted that the element disappearing and the element appearing differed in atomic number by 4 and mass number by 8. That's an experimental observation, not actually a conclusion. The reviewer seems quite confused.
Absolutely, it's a stunning result. But is it so stunning that it should be hidden under a rock? (Note that we aren't hiding this one, it's cited in the article.)
No matter how clear this becomes to me, or to anything short of a consensus of editors, I don't see anything yet to use in the article about the 2004 DOE review, except to note that the Iwamura paper is in a peer-reviewed journal and is reliable source, and it's possible that more of it could be used.
The individual reviews cast some severe doubt on the comments made earlier in debate over the reporting of the DOE review that the mention of continued research was mere boilerplate. There is very substantial support for research with some reviewers. As I've said, this isn't actually a fringe science, fringe science doesn't get that kind of support from a body of scientists chosen to advise the DOE.
Here is what I'd personally say about Iwamura. He is either a gross fraud or he has proven beyond reasonable doubt low-energy nuclear reactions. It's not an easy experiment to reproduce, but it could be done, and there is other work that supports that something like this is happening. There is reason why scientific frauds are essentially run out of town on a rail, they can cause tremendous damage, wasted effort, and all that. It's understandable that the scientific community was upset with Fleischmann, but it was also largely their own fault: they rushed to try to duplicate the work, not realizing the complications and difficulties, not waiting for full information, etc. There are DOE reviewers who strongly confirmed that more research is needed, but note that Iwamura's technique and many of the other techiques, including Pons-Fleischmann's original work, are not necessarily scalable to energy-generating applications, it's entirely possible that they would remain scientific curiosities that only take place under very unusual circumstances, and not scalable. Iwamura's work is done in a near-vacuum, the element to be transmuted is sputtered on, making a very thin film, and the level of reaction was very low, the released heat predictable from the conversion of mass to energy would still have been undetectable. But the scientific implications are spectacular. Iwamura essentially watched the transmutation taking place, very precisely. Occam's razor.
But one point could make it quickly into the article. The full nature of Iwamura's report is still not revealed in the article, and the article cited as if it were a refutation of Iwamura was written prior to the Iwamura publication, it mentions earlier reports of transmutation, much less specific and much less well-measured. Remember, Iwamura is reporting 100% conversion, under conditions of high purity. No batch problems, no "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't." -- Abd ( talk) 00:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090304/sc_livescience/modernproblemeveryonesanexpert Kirk shanahan ( talk) 16:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Usage of "cold fusion,", discussed here, really 'lukewarm fusion', just hot enough and no hotter, added to
Cold Fusion (disambiguation). --
Abd (
talk)
17:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
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Tell me again, please, what the reliable source is for the concept that cold fusion is generally rejected? I mean now, not twenty years ago or even five years ago. (And rejected by whom? The general public? Scientists in general? Physicists? Nuclear Physicists? Chemists?) (By "now" I would mean, maybe 2007 or 2008 or later, given that there is ongoing publication in RS about low energy nuclear reactions.) It's a sincere question. -- Abd ( talk) 22:29, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) I edited Cold Fusion (disambiguation) to reflect the usage found that started this section. Accordingly, I'm closing this discussion, unless someone objects, in which case, revert me. -- Abd ( talk) 17:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC) |
(unindent) I request the editors tone it down. Shanahan is a published expert in the field and respect is due. We need less rhetoric. Shanahan has a hypothesis that may explain some of the experimental results. The field needs criticism, it's essential. His work was published in a peer-reviewed journal, so dismissing it as "nonsense," repeating the word, doesn't help matters. I acknowledge my own skepticism at Shanahan's approach. For starters, it does seem that he's impeaching the usage of calorimeters by experts; nevertheless, some of us complain about what may be biased rejection of evidence for cold fusion, let's not engage in biased rejection of criticism of such evidence. We are not, here, attempting to make a decision on whether cold fusion happens or not. Some of the calorimetry experiments are done with closed systems, so that all the released gases recombine within the system; a system like this should heat up due to the inefficiency of the conversion process. One of the problems has been that reports are made of power generation, but often energy generation (integrated power) isn't given. A cold fusion cell will store a certain amount of energy as hydrogen/deuterium gas and oxygen, separated; it may release that later. Palladium stores a lot of hydrogen, that's why it's of interest. It stores hydrogen (including deuterium, of course) with high density, essentially with the density of a solid, if I'm correct, so, yes, rocket fuel. Except, of course, these are chemists and they are quite aware of this fact, and when they say that the power generated could not be from any known reaction, I'm a little skeptical that they need to wake up and say, "My God! The hydrogen is burning! Forming water! When we said "no known chemical reaction," we didn't think of making water from the gases!" Rothwell's criticism, while of some interest, isn't of much use to us, unless it's published in RS. We can discuss it, he knows the field, but I'm more interested in review of Shanahan's work by other scientists, Rothwell is a writer who has specialized in this field and is well-known for that. I consider him an expert, but in a general way, I'm not convinced that he's competent to criticize Shanahan's work. Which doesn't meant that his criticism isn't cogent; most of what I've seen from him, here has been quite cogent. I suspect we will move along more efficiently if we start to narrow down issues. Shanahan, I especially invite to inform us of peer-reviewed comment on his work, since he might be likely to be aware of it. I mentioned him because it's an example of an alternate hypothesis. It is that, and whether or not it adequately explains the experimental results is another matter. I don't see how it would approach, for example, the radiation or nuclear ash evidence. I've been coming to some understanding of what happened, why, in particular, the 2004 DOE review still came up with "inconclusive." One of the problems is that there are many effects that have been found. The research has not focused on one particular experiment, to try to reproduce it. Rather, experiments are all over the map. Some find helium, some do not, for example. That certainly looks suspicious; though there is a possible explanation: There may not be just one kind of LENR, there may be many. Some produce helium, some do not. All of them take unusual circumstances, and these were not noticed before because pretty much nobody expected them, due to the accepted theory; no expectation, no search, no results to study. Start searching, and something might be found. Iwamura's work, for example, reports elemental transformations on the surface of a complex sandwich of palladium and calcium oxide, where deuterium flow is established through the palladium lattice. This work alone would be worthy of serious attempts at replication. There has been some attempt within the cold fusion community and, I note, contrary to what some here might expect from that community, some of the report, at least, is negative. But negative results at first are not the same as "failure to reproduce." As with the original CF experiments, the precise conditions which show the effect may not be known. I fail to see how Shanahan's criticism would apply to experiments which (1) consider the whole system, like a "black box" and study input power, integrated, and overall heating, or (2) which don't depend on calorimetry, such as experiments showing radiation. I don't see why the alleged systematic error would take place with deuterium and not with hydrogen. I don't see why the possibility of this would escape all those different experimental groups. But none of this means that the hypothesis should be contemtuously dismissed. More to the point, I'm interested in how Shanahan would respond to the Bayesian analysis I mentioned. I'll find a link: I have to go do a bit of work, but why calorimetry experiments with the particular markers the paper (presented at ICCF 14) would show excess heat, with high reliability, but those without these markers would not. The markers, themselves, shouldn't affect the calorimetry, they have to do with expressed concern about purity of the materials, as an example, or other characteristics that would allow classification of experiments. By the way, I'm aware, as well, of a hazard involved in this Bayesian approach, but I won't detail it yet. -- Abd ( talk) 19:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
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I'm asking Shanahan to explain for us his work with Calibration Constant Shift, a Guide for the Compleat Idiot on CCS, and I request that comments from others here be directed toward helping Shanahan to effectively and clearly explain it, not to refute it, argue against it. Perhaps, Dr. Shanahan, you could provide us with some text on this that, if we had space, we could put in the article, or you could refer to the old Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments article, which I've rescued from the junkbin at User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments.
Abd posted this comment at 19:52, 16 March 2009 which strongly enjoined editors to be civil. Abd also said "our task is not to decide if cold fusion is real or not" and described our task in terms of presenting material from sources with neutrality and balance, including material about current research presented with caution and balance. The following comment from V (19:59, 16 March 2009) was posted in response to Abd's original comment. ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 20:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I noticed a day ago that the reference to my 3rd paper had been deleted. I've tracked that down to an action by JzG on 30 Jan, http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cold_fusion&diff=267300501&oldid=267278001 . No Talk page entry was made. The header on the revision notice was "POV and unreliable source". He also deleted Ed Storms ref as well, so I guess he thinks TA is an 'unreliable' journal. If so, then you all need to remove the otehr refs from that journal as well. Kirk shanahan ( talk) 17:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
http://coldfusionpolicy.org/Cold%20Fusion%20Ann%20Biblio%20032106.pdf
This is a paper presented in a course on public policy analysis. It seems to be a relatively neutral analysis of sources on the topic of cold fusion, presenting sources to be used in public policy analysis on the topic. It's unfortunate that it doesn't seem to have been published.... but we may be able to begin some discussions with what is there.
http://coldfusionpolicy.org/ provides an overview, and addresses issues that are of major concern to us. It's worth looking at.
http://coldfusionpolicy.org/Grimshaw%20Resume%200108.pdf asserts the credentials of the author, who does not appear to have any observable bias from the history given. However, of course, Grimshaw isn't a chemist or physicist, i.e., an expert in science. However, "public policy" process is related to our editorial process here; it is properly advised by experts in the field, but actual determination is made by others, generally, who are not experts. (Experts attempting to control articles here frequently end up blocked.) So this paper may well serve as a support to our work, as if Grimshaw were an editor here, an editor who has clearly done a lot of the footwork. -- Abd ( talk) 14:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
There is a response to Grimshaw at http://physicsworld.com/blog/2008/03/cold_fusion_as_policy_posterbo.html. This blog is an example of what, I'm sure, drives cold fusion researchers crazy, and it's an example of what Grimshaw talks about. The writer says, at the end, "writing as someone who did a cold fusion experiment in 1990, my personal opinion is that whatever they are seeing — it’s not fusion."
Everyone acknowledges that P-F type cold fusion was very difficult to reproduce, i.e., most attempts, early on, failed to find it. I think a lot of people tried to reproduce the experiment, far more than published. Most of these attempts failed, but it does not follow that "other researchers were unable to confim cold fusion." I've seen this statement again and again, and it is blatantly false in implication, that there was no confirmation. Not only was there confirmation, recent analysis of the publications that did appear has shown that experiments which followed closely P-F's methods and approaches succeeded. But this writer is extrapolating from personal experience, an experience which has almost nothing to do with whether or not cold fusion is real, and simply reflects a matter of consensus: most early attempts to reproduce failed. A number of writers, and we have reliable source on this, have regretted the way in which the appearance of consensus developed on cold fusion. Grimshaw points out the errors on both sides. He also points out that the nuclear physicists dominated the response to cold fusion; had it been dominated by chemists, the result might have been quite different. Chemists were saying "this isn't chemistry," and that is where their expertise is. Nuclear physicists were saying, "this isn't fusion," and that is where their expertise is. So what is it, then? It's obvious: it is either chemistry of an unrecognized form or it is nuclear physics of an unrecognized form. In other words, no matter how you slice it, there is new science here. Hence the continued recognition by both DOE review panels that further research is appropriate. Grimshaw goes further, using more formal policy analysis to recommend serious public support, given the level of certainty that he estimates from the research. Grimshaw is not limited by "peer-reviewed journals," but was able to consider all sources, weighing apparent bias, etc. Grimshaw did apparently speak at the cold fusion session of the American Physical Society in March, 2008. -- Abd ( talk) 14:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
A little more on Grimshaw, he is apparently adjunct professor at the University of Texas, LBJ School of Public Affairs. [4] -- Abd ( talk) 17:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I disagree that no theoretical framework exist to describe the situation. To the contrary, we have a theory that is in principle almost exact (the deviations are due to unknown physics beyond the Standard Model at very high energies, e.g. supersymmetry, GUT etc.).
The fact that you can have muon catalized fusion and that the fact that deuterium in a solid is more complicated that just two deutron nuclei, in no way means that "anything goes".
One can disagree with a negative attitude toward the possibility of cold fusion based on theoretical arguments. But if we don't explain what the basis of these arguments are, then the article will fail to explain the basis of the dispute. Count Iblis ( talk) 14:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
(unindent) "We need to find reliable sources on the nature of the dispute" - no such thing on the mainstream side (with the exception of my publications and those of W. B. Clarke), barely any on the proCF side - this is the effect of being declared a pariah field. Yes. However, note that "pariah" and "pseudoscience" are not the same. Pariah fields are considered pseudoscience, typically, by a majority, but pseudoscientific fields don't have the level of support that cold fusion does among, say, DOE reviewers. The field includes, of course, work like yours, and this is precisely what you are reporting. Who is interested in clear criticism of a pariah field, don't we already know that it's all nonsense? Except that, of course, without criticism like yours, the judgment that it's nonsense is pretty shaky. I'll claim that my non-expert opinion is that it's shaky anyway, but, remember, my goal is always to find maximum agreement. I think, from the above, we can agree that the "pariah" designation harms research in the field, and understanding of it. You have outlined, above, the problem. Let me restate it.
The 2004 DOE review indicated that further research was appropriate, with publication in peer-reviewed journals. Now, there is publication in peer-reviewed journals, though allegedly it isn't in the most reputable. (I find it a bit puzzling that Naturwissenschaften isn't considered reputable, but let's drop that for the moment.)
There is ongoing publication in reliable source regarding research in this pariah field. While there is, in fact, continued publication of criticism of this research, none of it is overview, rather, there are specific criticisms, such as Kowalski's attempt to impeach the radiation evidence asserted by Spzak et al.
We have no recent reliable sources, on the level of peer-reviewed journals, which expresses the alleged scientific consensus that cold fusion is not taking place. We do have reviews and books, recently published, which suggest the opposite. I am not asserting that we should therefor put in the article that this alleged consensus has disappeared. I don't think it has. However, this requires that we present a more balanced view, as we would with any unresolved controversy. One side, so to speak, claims that there is no controversy, it's done and over with, cold fusion is dead, forget about it. The other, however, says, no, we now have evidence that is strong enough to assert with 99% confidence that cold fusion is taking place. (If I remember correctly, that's a claim in the Bayesian analysis reported at the 2008 ICCF.)
However, we also have, from over the years, a fair amount of reliable source review of the controversy, of the history of science aspect of this, and we have presented little of this in this article. This is why I suggest that we need two (at least) articles.
With regard to your POV being welcome, I was speaking for myself. It's very clear that there are editors who don't welcome it, just as it is clear that there are editors who are hostile to material that seems to support cold fusion. In my view, these are both dangers to the project. As to evidence of my intention, you complained about the removal of reference to your work. I restored it, promptly. Until then, I was unaware of it. I rescued the Calorimetry article, on which you had worked extensively, from the junkpile.
But please understand: Wikipedia process grinds very slowly, once serious controversy has appeared over an article. Waves of POV editors can see-saw back and forth, and this will continue until and unless a core of editors appears who are truly dedicated to NPOV, and who don't have a warped vision of what that means. (Some editors imagine that their personal opinion is, of course, "fair and balanced," when, as I continually assert, the only way we can be certain of NPOV is when we find complete consensus; the degree of our certainty is measured by the degree of consensus found. In organizations where unity is considered important, extraordinary care will sometimes be exercised to make sure that all points of view are considered and included to the maximum extent possible. Wikipedia probably will not go to that extent, but if it did, it would become so solidly NPOV that POV-motivated vandalism and edit warring would practically disappear. But when we are content with a mere majority of editors on one side or another, or even two to one, it can be very difficult to maintain stability with sound content.)
My view at the moment is that the article is defective in a number of ways, but it will take time to fix. See m:Eventualism. Fixing it by barging in with something "better," if it involves more than a very few changes at a time, is just about guaranteed to be useless and disruptive at this point. Right now, I'm working on building the community, and trying to be maximally welcoming to you is part of that. We should try to attract other experts, in fact, and one of the problems is that one of the experts has been banned. Instead of containing and confining and channeling his contributions into what is useful for us, they were rejected as "fringe" (is there something wrong with being "fringe" with a "fringe science"?), he was dismissed as a "kook." (If I did that, I'd be blocked in a flash, which says something about the situation.) His web site was disparaged as full of copyright violation, which allegation had no basis, etc. I'm dealing with all this, one little step at a time. Trying to push hard and fast, well, I'd be out of here quickly. As it is, I'm being quite successful, as long as I don't bite off more than I can chew or than the community can easily handle. One step at a time. Want a list of accomplishments? Well, I'll provide it by email to editors I trust to keep it confidential. I'm not stupid.
I disagree with your characterization of the 2004 DOE review, which is even clearer when the individual reviews are read. Definitely, research is recommended, suggesting targeted proposals with regard to certain open questions being specifically mentioned. That they did not recommend a general research program has been translated into some kind of dismissal of the field; that isn't what happened. The conclusion was precisely worded: the evidence is not conclusive. Many editors here seem to take that as an equivalent of "bunk." It's not. It means exactly what it says. That is, they meant that as to the situation when the review was performed. I'd say that the evidence now is more conclusive, but whether or not it reaches to the level of simple conclusive evidence isn't clear, and that would require far more careful and knowledgeable assessment than I'm capable of. Or that you are personally capable of, in my assessment. You can handle part of this, perhaps. We would need to, and I assume we will, look at details. Your criticisms seem to apply to some kinds of calorimetry or methods of assessing heat generation, and not to others. I don't see the application, at all, of your ideas to Arata's recent work, for example, and with regard to the Iwamura transmutation work, my guess is that you are an outsider, not an expert on the problems there, specifically. Welcome to the crowd. -- Abd ( talk) 20:18, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
We have text in the article: One of the more prominent reports of success came from a group at the Georgia Institute of Technology, which observed neutron production.[22] The Georgia Tech group later retracted their announcement.[23]. The first reference is to: New York Times, April 14, 1989, and the second is to New York Times, April 24, 1989, with more detail, but the first link covers the retraction. The Georgia Tech announcement of neutron detection was on Monday, April 10, and the retraction was on Thursday, April 13. a scientific instrument that was used to measure neutrons, a key byproduct of nuclear fusion, apparently gave inflated readings because the liquid it was measuring became as hot as 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
This report actually was irrelevant. It was a "report of success," perhaps, but so transient that it shouldn't have affected anything. Normally, such an experiment would have been reported, if at all, as "failure to detect neutrons," because, before publication, the kinks would almost certainly have been worked out. It wasn't said how they figured it out. The second article cited states that the Georgia Tech announcement of neutrons was one of two "first confirmations." However, the original announcement by Pons and Fleischmann was on March 23. From what we now know, any attempt to replicate the work in less than three weeks would likely have failed; techniques to find rapid excess heat and radiation with alleged reasonable reliability were not developed until much later. It would not he surprising, then, that the other announcement, from Texas A&M, then, was also defective.
The second article reports that Texas A&M announcement was in the morning, Monday, April 10. Then, At a news conference the next day, Charles Martin, the Texas A&M chemist who led the research team, was very careful to say that their work had not established cold fusion. All the team was claiming was that it had found the heat being produced by the electrochemical process. Dr. Martin said the researchers had stayed up the previous night writing a journal report, which was sent off before the news conference.
Rush to publication, a foundation of bad science. This matter led me to Communicating science which examines this history in some depth and which may be a usable source for us. This is the kind of source that would be important for an article on the history of the affair. -- Abd ( talk) 19:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2301330/A-Chinese-View-on-Summary-of-Condensed-Matter-Nuclear-Science
Li, X.Z., et al., "A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science," Journal of Fusion Energy, Vol. 23(3), p. 217-221, (2004) Cites Iwamura. -- Abd ( talk) 01:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The journal is an engineering journal, most articles are related to hot fusion. -- Abd ( talk) 01:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
This discussion slid gradually and then rapidly downhill, becoming two editors exchanging derisive comments. I'm collapsing it; there is probably some useful discussion in here, but it's too mixed with inappropriate comment to do much with it as it is. Both of these editors are perfectly welcome, as far as I'm concerned, to refactor their comments under a new section, this time taking care to avoid gratuitous inflammatory remarks. Consider this an informal warming regarding civility.
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(unindent, I was going to keep going but it is getting a bit boring...) Wow…you just keep making my points for me! Thanks V! The rest of you, please note the full quote just below, note what it says about what is needed to get a heat shift, and note what I say about the co-dep process. Seems clear enough to me… ‘Long’ in this context is however long it takes to form the ‘special active surface state’ I explicitly postulated in my 2006 paper. From my User Talk page: “This requires enough bubbles to be impacted to get a noticeable shift in heat production, which requires enough contaminants or structural changes at the surface to do that. That could take very long times in very clean systems, or, in the case of the co-deposition experiments, it could happen quickly due to the special conditions of that select system. You need to remember that _most_ CF experiments runs hundreds of hours. The Szpak codep process cuts that way down - why? Because it makes dendrititc Pd with lots of contaminants on it (from the plating chemicals). Kirk shanahan (talk) 21:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)” Now, what point was V trying to make? That I had somehow lied?? “Tsk, tsk, an obvious lie:” Yup, that’s what he said. Lets see…I wrote above, responding to V (V’s comments in quotes): “"What have you to say about the claimed rapid appearance of excess heat in the co-deposition experiments?" Perfectly consistent with my proposed mechanism. "Your anti-CF hypothesis previously involved great-enough timespan" - no, the DATA involved great timespans, and with the co-dep experimetns, it doesn't. As I said, my explanation is perfectly consistent with all this data.” Then V wrote: “You also specified the long timespan allowed buildup of material that would catalyze hydrogen/oxygen reactions.” So, does my comment from my UserTalk page from Jan 21 (which V _partially_ quotes) jive with what V says? Did I really lie??? Y’all be the judge… Kirk shanahan ( talk) 19:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
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(unindent) However, all this only applies to balance when there are questions of conflict in sources. While there may be journals which are financially motivated (payment for publication), even these kill their own golden goose if they fail to be selective; but a journal like Frontiers of Physics in China has strong motivation to have good standards. The whole purpose of the Frontiers of "X" in China series is to raise respect for Chinese science, and the Chinese government is behind it as well as serious money. Cold fusion appears to be considered a respectable field in China, and the article that led to the title of this section simply reflects that. I'll remind editors that the publisher of FPC is Higher Education Press, and I wonder if there is any larger publisher in the world that doesn't have an article here yet. They are roughly number 45; and they are in active cooperation with Thomson Reuters, which is number one in the world, and which considers FPC to have very high standards (citations for this have been provided elsewhere, above. Some editors here may think the journal "laughable," but that does little more than expose their POV and bias. It's clear that, since they publish in English, they need a better copy editor! Absolutely, I don't deny that there are problems with FPC, but "laughable," they are not. This will all be tested if edits are asserting using information from FPC, which I expect is likely. -- Abd ( talk) 16:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes it feels like swimming through molasses here. How do we know what "mainstream understanding" is? Does it appear, lotus-born? Or is it based on what we find in reliable sources? I'll stand with it. While WP:RS isn't a rigid standard, we should not pick and choose among reliable sources, unless there is *conflict* between them, and there is no conflict with a "mainsream understanding" unless there is a reliable source regarding that understanding. So the conflict is between two sources, (or sources on one side and sources on the other); further, the determination that there is conflict is itself a complex task, sometimes. If it requires synthesis, it can get dicey. If there is reliable source on the conflict itself, much better (perhaps a third source that covers the first two).
Suppose that we have source A which makes a statement, and it's in the article. Then I come up with source B, which says something different. It seems contradictory to me. Can I put in the article, "however, contradicting this, B asserts that ..."? I'd say that, generally, absent clear consensus or reliable source on the contradiction, not just A and B (let's assume they don't mention each other), we shouldn't assert contradiction. If it is acceptable to the editors, just saying, "however, B asserts that," may be okay, but even putting the statements together like that implies contradiction, so caution is in order.
There is no way to find NPOV without respect for consensus and consensus process. Which often takes a lot of discussion. -- Abd ( talk) 20:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)