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Over at Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Cold fusion there seems a fair number of people (including me) who want to revert this to its featured state. So I have. If you think thats a good idea, you know what to do when the inevitable happens... William M. Connolley 20:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC).
William M. Connolley writes:
Storms and I find it acceptable. Who put you in charge of this article? Ours is a "significant view" per the NPOV policy:
"If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties."
Storms is an expert, by the commonly accepted standards of science: he has a PhD, he worked for decades at LANL, and he has published peer-reviewed papers on the subject in mainstream journals. Who are you tell us he will not be allowed to contribute to this article?
The current scientific opinion is evenly divided, judging by the DoE review panel. There have been no polls or other objective measurments.
Well, if you can find a way to integrate the two points of view, be my guest. For example, you might want to explain why hundreds of autoradiographs from places like the NRL and BARC are all, without exception, wrong. Have the laws of physics changed? Does film no longer reliably record x-rays? What is your hypothesis? I doubt you can address these issues, so I think it would be easier to keep these points of view seperate, since they appear to be mirror opposites in every important respect.
While we are on the subject of acceptability, it certainly is not acceptable to revert an article and then not allow any opposing point of view! It is hard to imagine anything less acceptable by the standards of this forum.
-- JedRothwell 22:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
In response to the revert to the FA version, until there is consensus to move to something derived from the above draft version, editing the article to include more pro CF POV is against consensus, is disruptive, and can be reverted. Wikipedia is ruled by consensus and the NPOV policy above all. -
Taxman
Talk
22:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, for now, the FA version seems handy. As far as I can tell, it concisely and accurately expresses the views of the skeptics. So let's leave it for now. The Storms version will be ready tomorrow (or as soon as I can figure out how to make the footnotes work). Why don't you figure out a simple way to combine them, with the skeptical version first? What is the big deal?
Just delete the redundant parts and the few sections which are in agreement.
I think this will be easier than you seem to think, and it will satisfy everyone. It may be a little unconventional by the standards of Wikipedia, but why should every article be formatted and presented the same way? Why not allow some variation to fit the circumstances, which are unusual.
It seems to me that a "consensus" view is not the same as everyone agreeing on everything. It means we agree that both sides are fully and fairly represented and expressed. There is obviously no middle ground between these views, so why not make that explicit? I have no objection whatever to the skeptical viewpoint being expressed here in the strongest version. I would like it if you would quote Robert Park, who says that cold fusion results are caused by lunacy and fraud. The more extreme, the better, since it makes the skeptics look unreasonable. (I have not quoted Park because I would not want to overstate or misrepresent the skeptical point of view, but if most of you agree with him, and you think cold fusion is fraud, please say so!)
-- JedRothwell 22:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Taxman writes:
Look, for crying loud, make the skeptical portion as long as you like! Make it ten times longer than Storms. Frankly, I do not know what you have to say that will fill up all that space, but make it as long as you feel necessary to fully express your views. Some of the articles here in Wikipedia are far longer than this, such as the one on Japanese (which I recommend, by the way).
For that matter, why do you think the number of words should be proportional to the number of people on one side or the other? That seems like a crude metric.
What is the big deal? You write your side, Storms writes our side. A few adjustments to blend them together and voila, problem solved. It seems like the present reverted version is close to what you support, so why don't you just tweak it a little?
I honestly do not see a problem here. This is working out well for everyone.
-- JedRothwell 22:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Having had an edit conflict, but finding the same thing come up again and again, I'll make some general points here:
Jed/OO seem to be suggesting: "its referenced, therefore it should be in the article" - this is one of the standard arguments of minority view pushing, and its wrong. Its backwards. Anything in the article should be referenceable/supportable. But just because it can be ref'd doesn't mean it belongs. The problem is balance - minority views should be represented in rough proportion to their acceptance by science. In this case, from the publication record, its clear that CF is very fringe indeed. Jed seems to be suggesting that the two "sides" simply write competing versions. This is not acceptable.
Experts and balance: Storms is very clearly pushing a fringe viewpoint. If he has any PR papers on CF, I don't see any evidence for them: http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/iccf6ab.htm for example is not from a journal. Nor does User:ObsidianOrder/Cold_fusion list any. The balance in the NPOV policy refers to the balance of papers in the literature, not to you finding one pet expert.
The primary decider of scientific content (as far as wiki is concerned) is presence in the literature. CF just isn't there.
William M. Connolley 22:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC).
Don't get rid of the external links section. It is very useful to anyone wanting to learn about this subject. I don't know why the current external links section was removed? Rock_nj
William M. Connolley writes:
Actually, I am saying these are references published in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals. I believe that is the usual standard of excellence and credibility, but perhaps Connolley has some other standard in mind.
FINE! Good. Great. Storms has 31 references, so Connolley should please go find 310 references to support his point of view. Or 3,100. However many he wants would be okay with me. As far as I know only two skeptical papers have appeared in peer-reviewed journals in the last 16 years, but maybe Connolley knows of many others. (It is not for me to judge what is "skeptical" and what supports his point of view.)
As I said the word count or number of references seems like an odd metric, but if that is what you want, please be my guest and add all the references you like.
By the way, Storms published in Fusion Technology and J. Alloys and Compounds. I do not know why they are not listed at the LANL site. As for "experts and balance" everyone on our side considers Storms an expert. ("Everyone" includes several hundred researchers and the people who have downloaded 450,000 papers from LENR-CANR.org. Storms is a clear favorite with both.)
We will pick our experts and you pick yours. Don't quibble with our choices, or we will insist you quote Huizenga and Taubes -- and you don't want to go there.
-- JedRothwell 23:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
-- Why do you [deleted insult for the sake of civility - WMC] skeptics keep deleting the Resource Links section? There is nothing controversial about providing links to relevant webpages that discuss the cold fusion controversy to some extant or another. The Resource Links are not related to the ongoing controversy surrounding the content of the Cold Fusion article, so please leave the links along. Please stop deleting this useful resource. Rock nj 03:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Before this article was revised, it included pro and con points of view mixed together in each section, and sometimes in one paragraph. It was actually a rather civil and balanced article. Most of the time, both sides were careful not to whack the other. The only problem was, the article was awkward, repetitive, too long, and hard to read. So I asked Ed Storms to write a better version of our side. He actually reduced the overall text devoted to the supporter’s point of view.
Now I have a simple suggestion: we present the same material, only rearranged to make it easier to read. Skeptics first, supporters next. Instead of interweaving we present them top to bottom. Of course it would be fine if the skeptics make minor changes or corrections to the Storms text, but in general, we should respect our turf just as we did before. It is divided up a little differently, that's all.
The skeptics feel that they in the majority and they should have a larger share of the article.
I doubt they really are a majority, but okay, they can write up to 35 KB of their arguments, and they can have the top spot. They can preserve every single sentence in the present reverted version. Better yet, they can strip away all remaining arguments in favor of cold fusion in the current version. They can add back in several arguments that were cut. They can add more undocumented history from 1989.
Why is this such a big deal? Why are there such loud objections? Why is it "unacceptable"? Everyone agreed we need an expert, so I persuaded Ed Storms, one of the leading experts, to write a draft. Now OBVIOUSLY the skeptics, who do not believe one word about cold fusion, will consider Storms to be misguided, incompetent, crazy or what-have-you. They think everyone who is in any way associated with the field must be incompetent. They think that all papers about cold fusion are "goo and dribble."
Why is that a problem? If I were a skeptic, I would want the supporters to present "goo and dribble." They claim that Storms is a "pet expert." So what if he is? He is our pet, not yours. Just about everyone on our side agrees with him. If you think he is incompetent, you should be glad we cannot find anyone better. Why do you care who we select to write our side of the argument? If this were a debate between, let us say, Creationists and biologists, why would the biologists feel upset if the Creationists managed to persuade the person they considered their top expert to write the article?
If you want an expert skeptic, go ask Huizenga, Taubes or Robert Park to write your part, or simply use the material that is already there in the reverted article. It just needs a little brushing up and it will be a clear statement of your beliefs. Or I can send you the last page of Huizenga's book and you can quote it. Or keep every word as is -- you decide.
I cannot understand why anyone would complain about this arrangement. Frankly, I think that the skeptics want to eliminate all material written by supporters. If Storms is not satisfactory to them, no one will be. They want to have this entire article supporting their point of view only. That, I gather, is against the rules in this forum.
-- JedRothwell 03:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
and that's just a quick read-through, and I'm not even including what is missing (any info on the reported transmutation products by Iwamura et al, just to pick a random example). For those reasons, I'm tagging this totallydisputed. ObsidianOrder 11:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
The recent edits by Maury and William have been an improvement, in that they have adressed #1 and one of the instances of #2 on my list. The rest of the problems are still there, however. I am putting back the totallydisputed tag. I am hopeful that the rest of these problems can and will be addressed without a huge ruckus, it will just take us some time and work to get there. However the current version of the article is not ok. Please leave the tag for now, and let the "other side" judge when it should be removed. (although actually I prefer not to think of myself as being on the other side, we're all in this together, right? ;) ObsidianOrder 22:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok, quite a lot of stuff was fixed (but not all). I note those in the list above. However Lumidex and WMC just introduced a bunch of other problematic statements:
I tried to write a compromise section but it was reverted. I think this is gonna have a totallydisputed tag forever, at this rate :( ObsidianOrder 00:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I went and fixed a couple of these. I think what remains now is mostly technical issues, hence we probably don't need the tag. I removed it. (Unless anyone disagrees?) ObsidianOrder 22:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
One: I strongly object to the FA version but I will not revert it. Let's work on making a better article instead. However, while this version is up, it's gonna have the totallydisputed tag (because it is - see above, also see this entire discussion).
Two: A version based on the Storms draft is at User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion. This includes a verbatim copy of the references from before the FA revert, the Storms writeup and references with some possibly POV parts removed or changed, the "Other kinds of fusion" from the FA, and a rewritten intro based on the FA intro which I hope should get no objections from either side. You are all invited to look it over. Please point out anything you think is a NPOV or other problem here. You may edit it constructively, but no reverts please - this is my user space, and I don't have time for edit warring. I will try to take edits into account and build a reasonable consensus version. I would like this to become the active version of the article in the relatively near term, unless anyone can point out unfixable problems with it.
Three: An outline of a completely new version is at User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion redux. This would, I hope, cover all sides of the subject considerably better than what exists now. (and please, don't try to pidgeonhole me as a "cold fusion advocate" or whatever. I am genuinely interested in the truth, and I think none of the versions we have at the moment does justice to either side, even aside from being pretty muddled writing). Again, feel free to edit, but no reverts. I intend to write this up referencing every single detail as I go along. For now, think just about the outline, and possibly brief bullet points about what would go in. This is a somewhat longer term project, but I think it can result in a radical improvement all around.
ObsidianOrder 18:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
This is probably a total waste of time, but I sent the following message to helpdesk-l@wikimedia.org. People who know a lot about Wikipedia might wish to forward it to other addresses. -- JedRothwell 15:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Greetings
As you probably know, cold fusion is a very controversial subject. Until this week, the Wikipedia article on this subject contained a balance of statements from people who do not believe that cold fusion exists, and statements by cold fusion researchers who think that it does exist. The researchers and I added 40 references to experimental literature, mainly papers in peer-reviewed, mainstream journals (not those devoted only to cold fusion.)
Unfortunately, this week one of the opponents deleted all of this work, and he will not even allow us to add a tag saying this article is disputed. We consider it technically inaccurate and biased, but we are not even allowed to post a single sentence to this effect. We have never deleted or distorted the claims of opponents, but only clarified why we consider them technically incorrect. (See example below.)
Please note that the researchers include many of the world's top electrochemists, two Nobel Laureates, a Fellow of the Royal Society and so on. I added some relevant, uncontroversial quotes from a deceased Nobel Laureate regarding theory and reproducibility, but the opponents deleted these along with everything else. I believe that comment by someone like this represents a "significant viewpoint" but opponents will not allow it.
If you allow this to go unchallenged, I think it shows the Wikipedia cannot support an honest, fair debate about a truly controversial subject.
Sincerely,
Jed Rothwell
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT WAS DELETED. This discussion about energy storage versus production is vital. It is one of the most important aspects of cold fusion.
PRESENT VERSION:
Energy source vs power store
While the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. Since the mechanism under the power burst is not known, one cannot say whether energy is really produced, or simply stored during the early stages of the experiment (loading of deuterium in the Palladium cathode) for later release during the power burst.
A "power store" discovery would have much less value than an "energy source" one, especially if the stored power can only be released in the form of heat.
VERSION INCLUDING COMMENTS BY RESEARCHERS, AND REFERENCES TO LITERATURE:
Energy source vs. power store
Some skeptics hypothesize that while the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. (In other words, each positive exothermic power burst is balanced by a previous period of negative power, or endothermic storage.) Since the mechanism under the power burst is not known, one cannot say whether energy is really produced, or simply stored during the early stages of the experiment (during the loading of deuterium in the palladium cathode) for later release during the power burst. A "power store" discovery would yield only a new, and very expensive, kind of storage battery, not a source of abundant cheap fusion power.
However, this cannot be the case, because large endothermic storage is not observed. When the experiment begins, there are a few hours of endothermic storage as the palladium is loaded, and this is readily detected. (A calorimeter measures a heat deficit as accurately as it measures excess heat.) In most bulk palladium electrochemical experiments, this is followed by an incubation period of 10 to 20 days, during which there is neither excess heat nor storage. Following that, there is continuous excess heat production, which often continues longer than the incubation period, and produces far more energy than the initial endothermic storage. "Isothermal Flow Calorimetric Investigations of the D/Pd System" shows typical examples. [REF McKubre0] Since the excess heat is easily detected, at a high signal to noise ratio, if there were an initial endothermic storage phase to balance it, this would be even easier to detect, because it would have to be larger.
Furthermore, this energy storage hypothesis would violate the laws of physics, because most cells produce far more energy than any known chemical storage mechanism would permit. Chemical processes store (or produce) at most 12 eV per atom of reactant, whereas many cold fusion experiments have produced hundreds of eV per atom of cathode material, and some have produced ~100,000 eV per atom.
Finally, many researchers, notably Kainthla et al. [REF Kainthla] and McKubre et al. [REF McKubre1] have conducted careful inventories of chemical fuel and potential storage mechanisms in cold fusion cells, and they have found neither fuel nor spent ash that could account for more than a tiny fraction of the excess heat. Since many cells have released large amounts of energy, a megajoule or more, this chemical fuel would have to be present in macroscopic amounts. In fact, in many cases the volume of ash would greatly exceed the entire cell volume. These issues of energy storage and chemical fuel hypotheses have been discussed in the literature exhaustively. See, for example, "A Response to the Review of Cold Fusion by the DoE", section II.1.2.[REF Storms]
FrancisTyers writes, "please don't make personal attacks." That wasn't a personal attack. I do not know what person deleted all of the content and swept away my 40 footnotes, so I cannot attack him. My comment about "voodoo and mob rule" applies to all opponents, with strict impartiality. I do not insult any one them personally, but rather all of them, en mass. That appears to be perfectly okay judging by what they write about cold fusion researchers. (Or is it only okay for them to insult us?) My comment about mud wrestling with pigs is a folk expression, not an attack, and in any case I am fond of pigs and would not attack them. They are sweet animals, but you do not want to wrestle with one. --
JedRothwell
23:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I posted this as an RfC [2]. Please comment here. It is also posted on WikiProject Physics [3]. There is quite a bit of discussion at the featured article removal vote [4]. ObsidianOrder 02:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Summary of the dispute
Discussion
The main point I'm interested is how to move forward. Obviously, I'd like to see the Storms draft Cold fusion/tmp adopted, since in my opinion it is much better all around than either the current reverted version or the pre-revert version. For one thing, it is very meticulously sourced. Yes, it still has a few lingering NPOV problems, we can fix those. I have solicited comments and edits to the draft, but have so far received absolutely none (aside from links to online papers contributed by Jed). If you see specific problems with the draft, or have a reason why it is bad in general, please list it here. ObsidianOrder 03:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
No. I said that the Storms paper didn't refer to any. I presume that means that none of them are terribly important?
Ah. So many comments, Some get missed. Sorry. William M. Connolley 23:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
No, case not at all closed. Its a list of... what? "Clarke, W. B. (2001) Search for 3He and 4He in Arata-Style Palladium Cathodes I: A Negative Result. Fusion Sci. & Technol. 40:" - is this supposed to support your case? Can JJAP be the top phys journal in Japan with an IF of 1.142? All that says is that Japan doesn't really have a native top-ranked phys journal, and there's nothing odd about that. William M. Connolley 23:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC).
Errr, you're missing at least one point: as I said, the first two I checked weren't even proper journals, so the list has at the very least been bulked out. William M. Connolley 23:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC).
THIS REFERS TO ITEM 1. This is not part of the dispute as far as I am concerned. Storms & I do not care whether you use his draft or not. Someone posted a "tag" here saying they wanted a professional version of this article, so Storms wrote one as a favor, in the approved academic style. The content was pretty much the same as the version on Dec. 30, except it was shorter and better written. However, if the people do not want it, that is fine with us. The only dispute I have is that someone deleted everything that supports cold fusion and all of actual scientific content, leaving only imaginary skeptical dreck. --
JedRothwell
15:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
A few more general comments: The reason for the RfC is primarily because I feel the article could use more impartial editors who are involved in working towards a reasonable and more complete version. The listing at FARC drew in several new editors and has resulted in some fairly drastic changes, by editors who do not appear to be especially familiar with the subject (but maybe if they stick around they'll become more familiar ;) I may not like the specific changes but I do think we need more people looking at this and involved in improving it.
Some issues to consider: What claims can be made, especially far-reaching claims like "the scientific community considers cold fusion to be ..." or "cold fusion is a ..."? What are acceptable sources? How much space to allocate to different parts of the article, for example history of the field/Pons&Fleischman vs current work vs theoretical objections? Should some of those go in their own sub-articles?
ObsidianOrder
03:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Finally, let me solicit comments on an outline for a complete rewrite of the whole article:
User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion redux. I've tried to be reasonably impartial, but also to cover everything I felt was not covered in any version of this article, and to do so in a more organized and readable way. It's a long way from done, but I'd like to get some input on it now.
ObsidianOrder
03:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I've modified the intro to Cold fusion is the name for a postulated nuclear fusion reaction that is supposed to occur well below the temperature required for thermonuclear reactions adding the bits in bold. Without those, it asserts that CF works, which is the entire dispute. Per OO, I added some stuff about journal policy. William M. Connolley 21:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC).
After reading over the majority of the comments here on this page, I have to state that in my opinion the article in its current form is informative, interesting and balanced. I feel it does not require major surgery, although certainly cleanps and more information will definitely help it. I further agree that the version from Storms is biased, and versions suggesting CF to be total pseudoscience equally so.
As to the Storms version, I certainly think the ISSUES IN THE DEBATE section could be included, largely in its current form. As some have rightly pointed out, the "header" section under "Continuing efforts" seems highly arguable, and Storms has embedded a large number of emotional-based arguments in the text itself -- for instance "The stakes are now too high for trivial skepticism". But these can be easily removed without effecting the overall flow of the article, and the content within strikes me as an excellent overview of the topic in its current state of the art.
I argue for its inclusion.
Some have suggested (even in the block header on this page) that the history of the P&F experiment be condensed. As the primary author of that section, I have to argue against this. For one thing it runs to about one written page, which is hardly excessive for such a topic. But much more importantly, I think the Jones/P&F "argument" is absolutely vital to the understanding of the topic's cold reception in the scientific community. This is not the only concern, of course, but the "rush to publish" or "science by press release" that occured certainly taints the topic for many.
Does anyone disagree with this comment? I'm certainly open to the possibility that its not as important as I think it is.
Finally, I would argue that the Other kinds of fusion section could easily be reduced to a "see other" point form. This is an article on cold fusion, not other "coldish fusion" topics. Those are already listed in their proper place, the general fusion power article.
Maury 13:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, an addendum. I finally read ObsidianOrder's outline. It's superb. I have only one suggestion, and that is the addition of another section in the History about the release to the press. As I argue above, I think this is vital to the story.
I'll volunteer for much of the actual work. Obsidian, I need details on "Palmer", mentioned in the Early Work section. Maury 13:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
One of the things that should be added is that H2 dissociates to H atoms on palladium surfaces which goes into the bulk as protons ie you don't observe any hydrogen atoms as such in the palladium matrix.
josh halpern
I just added a couple of diagrams:
and
.
Steven Krivit added this photo:
. I think the first diagram could replace the one there now, and the picture be used in addition to the Charles Bennet pic which is used now. Comments?
ObsidianOrder
11:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
ObsidianOrder told me to join the discussion. So let me join and confirm that I agree with the comments by William M. Connolley.
I also assume that he agrees that it is essential for this page to explain clearly why cold fusion cannot work. The article IS about cold fusion and the most important fact about cold fusion is that it cannot work.
This is why I also find it necessary to explain the main reason: the nuclei can't be pushed closer together just by some silly 1-electronvolt games with the electrons because the energy we need to squeeze the nuclei, in order to overcome the Coulomb barrier, is of order many megaelectronvolts.
It seems clear that the current version is deliberately murky because it does not want this explanation to be clear.
I have again corrected the completely wrong statement that the DOE does not say that the experiments are flawed. Of course that DOE does say it. What we see here is the price that we often pay for diplomatic formulations. Do you want to be nice? Yes, you can, but be ready that whoeever will want, will try to misinterpret your statement.
Please, ObsidianOrder, do not revert this page unless there is a consensus on this talk page.
Best wishes, -- Lumidek 21:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Everyone can easily verify that you have made this error, and all the well-cited papers in your original list are by R M Fleischmann whose first name is Roy and whose field is biology. The only cited paper by Martin Fleischmann is the single original "bombastic" paper about cold fusion. Your other statements about MF are equally unjustifiable. What you say is certainly not true at Harvard, in the U.S., or in the rest of the civilized world. -- Lumidek 04:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Lumidek, you failed to justify why you reverted my edit. To repeat the justification of my edit: 1) Connelley's refs are not books, they are papers. If you, or someone feels so strong that these papers should be listed, then they should be listed in the "Papers" section. Second, I see no justification for the 4 Jan shuffle by WMC which appears to randomly place the last, pro-cf book at the bottom of the list.
STemplar 00:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Lubos - "OO's general sketch of a new version is relatively plausible, but whether or not it is better than the current version will depend on the details how the sections are completed." - of course, and I'd like your help in completing that. I have tried very hard to both not omit anything important, and to make a fair presentation of the different sides. I'd appreciate it if you could do the same. In the interest of peace and harmony, I have pointedly not engaged in an edit war to try to restore the pre-WMC-revert version [22]. Let's try to work together on the new version? ObsidianOrder 00:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello, a quick explanation of the changes I just made: I copied the list of papers cited in the Storms draft, and merged the "Issues in the debate" section of that with the "Continuing work" section of this article (thus leaving the "Arguments in the controversy" section intact). The "Continuing work" section was also moved down after the "Arguments", in order to give the "Arguments" more prominence. All of the new information is well sourced (much better than the rest of the article anyway), and has been looked over for NPOV by several people; any other changes are relatively minor and should not affect the balance of the article. I believe based on prior discussion that this set of changes would in principle be supported by a majority of the editors here (although possibly not the exact way I did them). I think this is a reasonable compromise state. If you object to it, please point out what exactly you object to, and I will try to fix it. ObsidianOrder 09:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Dear OO, I found a couple of minutes in the evening to look what happened with the page today, and I am moderately pleasantly surprised. It's not perfect but it's not a disaster. If you can keep the standards, instead of converging to some shallow promotion, you could actually gain a long-term support of people like me in your maintanance of this page. -- Lumidek 03:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Jed keeps misrepresenting the result of the DoE panel. Two-thirds believed that cold fusion did not exist. That's a clear majority that don't believe it exists. The only "split" is over whether or not excess power was produced, not whether or not it's cold fusion. Among the one-third remaining, all but one only found it somewhat convincing. There's no way you can reasonable interpret that to mean anything other than the majority of scientists disbelieving it and the vast majority not finding it fully convincing.
Also, where are the theories of how to overcome the electrostatic forces in the article? If we are to include pro-cold fusion views, they should at least include their theory.
Nathan J. Yoder 10:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I skimmed over the first 8 reviews and only found one stating that he thought cold fusion was real. Some were a bit leanient in suggesting that there should be some minimal funding, but that was only to investigate the cause of excess heat, not an acknowledgement that the cause was a result of fusion reactions. If you're going to make the claim that the DoE misrepresented its own panel, then please list how each reviewer stands and not just an anonymous tally of them. Nathan J. Yoder 06:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Very well, I went through them again:
The final tally is: 5 YES, 7 NO, 6 MAYBE (and 3 of the MAYBEs are leaning towards a YES). This turns out to be the same as Jed's tally, although I have no idea whether he assigned them the same way. I am still curious how you would count them, and why. Note: I would obviously not argue to include this analysis in the article, since it is original reseach. I can only suggest that people read the whole thing and decide for themselves (especially since many of the reviewers make very interesting points). However, this does provide compelling evidence in my mind that the scientific opinion is not nearly as uniformly against CF as others here have suggested, and of course that the DoE report substantially misrepresented the findings of the panelists. ObsidianOrder 08:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Here is my tally, from Talk Archive 4:
I got my arithmetic wrong, which I often do. It should say: "7 No, 4 Yes, 7 maybe." In my first tally I must have moved one of the "iffy maybe's" to Yes. This is pretty close to ObsidianOrder. It is surprisingly difficult to categorize these reviews. -- JedRothwell 16:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree. The last sentence written by reviewer number two says "there is no evidence for this being a nuclear physics phenomenon." Yet he is listed as MAYBE/YES. Likewise, reviewer three says "Have the authors provided evidence that LENR exists? Maybe!" However, rather than being listed as maybe, he was listed as yes. I haven't read the rest, but if this holds true for the others, this seems like a highly biased interpretation. In fact, an absurd interpretation. –
Joke
19:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Two comments: first, perhaps I should explain what I mean by "yes" and "no". To my mind, the controversy is on one hand between those who consider claims of cold fusion are somewhere between outright fraudulent and due to incompetence (experimental artifacts/errors/etc). Those are the NO votes. On the other hand are those who believe that there is some real phenomenon which is observed which cannot be explained by accepted theories (but which is not necessarily well understood). Those are the YES votes. In other words the split is between those who think it is pseudo/pathological science and those who think it is legitimate research dealing with what is probably a new phenomenon. For the yes votes, fusion does not have to be the only explanation, it is merely the least extraordinary hypothesis (and again, does anyone care to propose a different one?); and if it is fusion, then a particular mechanism or pathway (such as d+d->4He) does not have to be the correct explanation (and in any case evidence strongly suggests there is more than one pathway). If you go through my list you will find that it is entirely consistent with those ground rules.
Second, both Taxman and Joke questioned my assignemnt of particular items when a reviewer stated that there is evidence for one thing (e.g. excess heat, particles, isotopic products) but not another. If you read the actual comments, you will see that many of the revewers specifically state they will only evaluate the aspects which lie within their field of expertise (e.g. an electrochemist may only look at calorimetry but not detection of particles). If one of those guys says "I will only evaluate calorimetry... I see strong evidence for excess heat... I am not convinced it is a nuclear reaction" - that is a YES, because by their own statement they are not even trying to evaluate the evidence which may directly point to a nuclear reaction. And so on.
Let me again invite anyone who is interested to come up with their own tally, supported with citations just as mine is. ObsidianOrder 04:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there a source for these alleged reviews other than JedRothwell's personal web site? That 2/3 were unconvinced that low energy reactions occur is a fact taken from the official DoE site. -- Noren 16:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Earth to Noren: Come in please! Two Questions: 1. Do you seriously think I am capable of inventing these comments? I am flattered that you think I could master so many different fields and impersonate so many cranky, biased experts. 2. If I did invent them, why would I make so many of them hostile toward cold fusion? The source of the document is shown at the top, and the original source was, obviously, the DoE. No other institution would conduct such a sloppy review or issue such a document. When the Italian Government conducted a similar review last year under the auspices of the Italian Senate, they concluded that cold fusion is real and that it should be funded at the national level. This is how a sane government does a real review. -- JedRothwell 17:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
> My understanding of the discussion boils down to this. According to the reviewers' written comments and the summary by DOE, the reviewers have mixed feelings about the evidence of excess power, but, at the same time, they are generally convinced that nuclear fusion has not been observed. In other words, several reviewers said that something strange is going on, but it is not nuclear reactions. If we recognize this distinction, the summary report by DoE did represent the comments of the reviewers fairly. Depending on your definition of cold fusion, you could say that the panel did not see convincing evidences of cold fusion (defined as nuclear reaction), or that one half of the reviewers were somewhat convinced of it (if defined as excess heat). So, it's all about a question of definition. Pcarbonn 20:55, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm not talking about CF, but you may like to view http://www.aetherometry.com/antiwikipedia2/. Its not as funny as the first one, sadly.
William M. Connolley 17:12, 9 January 2006 (UTC).
My friend Séamus (now Professor of Bio and Electro Sensing at Cranfield) was at Southampton in the early 90s and actually ran some experiments for Martin Fleishmann. I think his conclusion was that there was something going on, but not fusion. There was a heck of a lot of energy released, though. All controlled by a BBC Model B computer, as I recall :-) -
Just zis Guy, you know?
[T]/
[C]
RfA!
17:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
In other but related news, you-all might be interested in knowing that Connolley is applying for Wikipedia adminship. You can vote here: [25] 64.48.73.126 01:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
This paragraph:
"It should be pointed out that the term "cold fusion" has also been used to describe generally unrelated research. The term was first coined by Dr Paul Palmer of Brigham Young University in 1986 in an investigation of what is today referred to as muon-catalyzed fusion. "Cold fusion" was also used by Steven Jones, also of BYU at the same time, to describe potential high-pressure events now referred to as piezonuclear fusion."
seems to contradict several established references:
1. The first paper to list the term "cold nuclear fusion" is credited to "Rafelski, Johann and Steven E. Jones," Palmer is not listed.
2. Several historical texts on this subject say nothing about Palmer. Even if Palmer did have a role in the BYU cold nuclear fusion work, to fail to primarily attribute the term to Jones appears to be contradictory to the established texts. As well, such failure to note Jones's role diminishes a very key aspect of the historical controversy; that of the conflict between Jones and Fleischamann/Pons.
Huizenga's "Fiasco" pp. 8 "Fifty miles from the University of Utah, a group of physicists, headed by Professor Steven E. Jones, at Brigham Young University (BYU), also claimed cold nuclear fusion."
Beaudette's "Excess Heat" pp.41 "Jones and a physicist at the University of Arizon had co-authored an article just the year before in "Scientific American" (July 1987) entitled, 'Cold Nuclear Fusion.' Jones's work offered two sources for the use of the term cold fusion."
Can anybody show qualified references for Palmer's role in this? If not, I suggest the following may be more accurate:
"The term "cold nuclear fusion" was first used in the scientific literature by Johann Rafelski and Steven E. Jones of Brigham Young University in 1986 in an investigation of what is today referred to as muon-catalyzed fusion.. This research was generally unrelated, however, the distinction was not immediately understood by the press in 1989. Consequently, the term "cold fusion" became associated with the Fleischmann-Pons experiment."
STemplar 19:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Interesting thing is, there have been two dominant historical perspectives of cold fusion; those accepting it and those rejecting it. Funny thing is, none of the authors I've read seem to attribute this to Palmer, but to Jones.
Huizenga's "Fiasco" pp. 8 , Beaudette's "Excess Heat" pp.41, Krivit/Winocur's "Rebirth" pp. 206, Taubes' "Bad Science" pp. 31, Mallove, "Fire from Ice" pp. 50, Peat's "Cold Fusion" pp. 67
Authors and publishers go to great lengths to get their facts right. The costs and legal risks in publishing are significant. It would seem unlikely to me that all these authors -- on both sides of the controversy -- in the span of 16 years, have made an error. I would propose that a Web reference, published on somebody's blog, that is autobiographical in nature, does not carry the same authority as the above-mentioned references.
STemplar 21:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. New contributors are always welcome. -- James S. 21:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
STemplar 09:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
several hundred researchers:
ICCF12 abstracts: http://newenergytimes.com/Conf/ICCF12/ICCF12-Abstracts.pdf
JCF6 abstracts: http://newenergytimes.com/Conf/JCF6/JCF6Abstracts.pdf
ICCF11 abstracts: http://newenergytimes.com/ICCF11/ICCF11Abstracts.pdf
ICCF10 abstracts: http://newenergytimes.com/ICCF10/ICCF10Abstracts.pdf
STemplar 06:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I will encourage this recent addition to be removed or justified: "(Nature has published papers regarding other types of "non-traditional" fusion, such as pyroelectric fusion)"
1. I don't see how it helps explain cold fusion 2. Attacking Nature may be counterproductive.
STemplar 19:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi James. Looks like someone beat me to it. STemplar 09:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I added that to point out that they aren't trying to suppress anything - they have published some things, and they reject a lot of papers (including most of the ones they get from mainstream scientists). I believe there may be something behind cold fusion (it seems implausible that all the researchers in the field are making up data). What that something is of course needs more research (and for various reasons I have doubts the world will ever run on cold fusion, even if it is a real effect - for example, if they're getting 3 units of extra heat out for one unit of electricity in, they'll need a pretty good heat engine to even break even). I wasn't trying to diss Nature. I was trying to imply that they aren't unthinkingly rejecting everything. As my user page indicates, I'm a computer science grad student. I don't know enough about physics to say what's possible or impossible; I know enough to realize that cold fusion isn't explained by current theory, which is an argument against it. Just a few talking points, sorry this was so long. -- Pak aran 00:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Pakaran. Oh. I get your point. No worries. I had the chance to meet some of the APS editors last year and understand the challenges they go through with "too many papers to review and not enough volunteers to review them." It seems quite clear to me that if there's an easy excuse to drop a paper from the proces, it's gonna happen, considering the capacity of at least some of the scientific publications. STemplar 09:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Pakaran writes: ". . . if they're getting 3 units of extra heat out for one unit of electricity in, they'll need a pretty good heat engine to even break even." That is not the situation, for several reasons:
Techniques such as gas loading and proton conductors have virtually no input energy. Input is in microwatts and output (if there is any) is sometimes in watts or hundreds of watts.
With electrolysis, the energy input has no direct correlation with output energy. Sometimes output continues after input is cut off; at other times input continues for weeks with no output. It seems unlikely that this will become a practical method of producing energy.
The electrolysis itself is extremely inefficient. It is not intended to be efficient, but to make the experiment easy. Anyone can think of ways to improve it, but they will interfere with, for example, loading measurements or particle detection.
Cells are suboptimal for various good reasons. They are run below boiling so that they do not have to be pressurized, for safety and convenience. They are not insulated. Reference electrodes, x-ray and neutron detectors and other gadgets are crammed into and around the cells. An aux heater is sometimes used to hold the cell temperature at the starting point (usually 30 deg C), to keep the calorimetry simple and accurate.
CF researchers are trying to understand the reaction. If they succeed, it will be easy to make cells with gigantic input to output ratios. Such cells have been made from time to time already, usually by accident, and sometimes with disastrous results: melted cathodes, explosions and so on.
-- JedRothwell 22:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to discuss these two deleted edits:
and:
I replaced the first because there is already a "Commercial developments" section in the article. The idea that pragmatic concerns aren't important should be troublesome to any reader or editor. Perhaps the text should be moved to that section?
Are there any materals which are claimed to have a better price/performance ratio than Szpak/Boss-style Pd/Pt electrolysis?
For the other passage, I really want to cite
[27] from what I believe is the leading commercial firm, showing a maximum power gain of less than 2.0. I recall that the essential facts are in the Beaudette analysis, too. The time to reach that level is hours, if I remember correctly, and note that it will decay after surface properties in the Pd change. (in a matter of days to weeks) Update: the electrolysis method begins without delay. --
James S.
02:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I think both of those points are crucial to the importance of the topic, which I have considered rather low since early 2002. Does anyone have some better sources on these topics? -- James S. 22:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
If cold fusion only works with palladium, this probably will limit its usefulness. I think Martin Fleischmann was the first person to point this out. As I recall he did a back of the envelope estimate that about half of the world energy could be generated with present supplies of palladium, and these supplies are not likely to increase. I discussed this issue in my book, pages 36 and 37. See: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusiona.pdf] Fortunately, it seems likely that titanium also produces the cold fusion effect.
This statement is incorrect: "Those who have claimed to reproduce cold fusion uniformly report that . . . the observed signal is so faint as to be difficult to separate from background noise." This may be true for some experiments performed by some researchers, but it is not what is generally reported. On the contrary, McKubre and others have said the effect is "neither small nor fleeting." See: McKubre, M. C. H., et al., Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear Processes in Deuterated Metals, EPRI TR-104195, Research Project 3170-01, August 1994
-- JedRothwell 20:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
James S wrote: "I really want to cite [28] from what I believe is the leading commercial firm,"
James, take care with your assumptions. The Web is a Wild Wild World. STemplar 02:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
James, does this help?
Over the last 5 years, turn-on time, the onset of excess heat, has decreased dramatically. Dennis Letts, along with Dennis Cravens pioneered a laser-triggering method which brought turn-on down to seconds.
Stan Szpak et al at SPAWAR San Diego use a co-deposition method. This electrolytic process facilitates the proper D/Pd ratio immediately, consequently excess heat is reported to start instantly. STemplar 02:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
STemplar 06:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
<opinion> I fail to see the relevance of any commercial references to this subject, at this time. To my knowledge, none of these companies are shipping cold fusion products at this time. That being the case, to include references to them in Wiki seems tantamount to promoting vapourware and providing free advertising to select companies in the midst of their pre-commercial R&D.
Even if some were shipping products, to feature any seems to cross, and blur the line between reference and promotion.
Do any Wikis feel that there are substantial advantages to listing, or using as "references," so-called commercial entitites, that outweigh the aforementioned concerns? </opinion>
STemplar 05:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi James/Nrcprm2026: Why did you add back the list of companies? I realized you commented "this list is very informative" but this fails to take into account a good part of the above discussion. STemplar 21:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Come on Jed, this invective is not neccesary. IMO, It doesn't accomplish anything except to further animosity between the two sides of the debate. Would you kindly look back at the "Jabs at Nature" discussion and consider what was said just recently on this matter? I think you should provide justification for what you just re-inserted. STemplar 01:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
STemplar writes:
I do not need to back up anything. The things I accuse them of doing, they brag about! They trumpet their lies to the world. They said cold fusion is "notorious" and "largely discredited" and in the past they have claimed it was never replicated. Who discredited it? When? What about all those published replications?
Not only have they lied, they have made outrageous statements contrary to academic ethics. In 1989 Nature demanded "more ridicule" to kill cold fusion quickly. In 1991, Maddox declared "broadly speaking its dead, and it will remain dead for a long, long time."
I am sure they will repeat these lies every time the subject comes up.
I did. See: lenr-canr.org/News.htm]
That is not a bit difficult to prove. It is their overt, publicly-stated editorial policy. Ask any one of them, and they will tell you they reject cold fusion papers without peer review. They do not consider this unreasonable any more than they think it unreasonable to reject a paper about creationism or flat Earth theory. Every cold fusion researcher I know has a pile of rejection letters saying they will not review or consider any paper on this subject. Kowalski published some examples here: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KowalskiLhistoryofa.pdf]
It is also the official policy of the DoE to reject any and all funding for cold fusion, despite the 2004 panel recommendation. Again, they make no bones about this. See: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf]
Regarding Time magazine, the print edition was much worse. It showed Fleischmann on the same page as Mengele. Yesterday, an editor from Time wrote to me: " . . . The correct year is 1989. We apologize for the error and appreciate your writing to us about it. . . . As for the ongoing controversy about cold fusion, we feel that our article correctly described the situation." Here is part of my response:
Some of Lemonick's comments to me are at lenr-canr.org/News.htm]. I can send you the whole exchange if you would like a good laugh. It is apparent that he does not know anything about cold fusion, or electrochemistry, or experiments. In fact, taken all in all, his letters give me the distinct impression that he is several tacos short of a platter.
-- JedRothwell 15:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I removed this because it was in "continuing efforts":
I'm ambivalent about whether it should be in a different section. I don't think it adds much if anything to the subject matter. Mallove has his own article. The case is unresolved, but there are two suspects in custody. The motive was apparently drug-related robbery. Finally, I don't think free energy is the right link for the use of the term. -- James S. 09:56, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | → | Archive 10 |
Over at Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Cold fusion there seems a fair number of people (including me) who want to revert this to its featured state. So I have. If you think thats a good idea, you know what to do when the inevitable happens... William M. Connolley 20:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC).
William M. Connolley writes:
Storms and I find it acceptable. Who put you in charge of this article? Ours is a "significant view" per the NPOV policy:
"If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties."
Storms is an expert, by the commonly accepted standards of science: he has a PhD, he worked for decades at LANL, and he has published peer-reviewed papers on the subject in mainstream journals. Who are you tell us he will not be allowed to contribute to this article?
The current scientific opinion is evenly divided, judging by the DoE review panel. There have been no polls or other objective measurments.
Well, if you can find a way to integrate the two points of view, be my guest. For example, you might want to explain why hundreds of autoradiographs from places like the NRL and BARC are all, without exception, wrong. Have the laws of physics changed? Does film no longer reliably record x-rays? What is your hypothesis? I doubt you can address these issues, so I think it would be easier to keep these points of view seperate, since they appear to be mirror opposites in every important respect.
While we are on the subject of acceptability, it certainly is not acceptable to revert an article and then not allow any opposing point of view! It is hard to imagine anything less acceptable by the standards of this forum.
-- JedRothwell 22:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
In response to the revert to the FA version, until there is consensus to move to something derived from the above draft version, editing the article to include more pro CF POV is against consensus, is disruptive, and can be reverted. Wikipedia is ruled by consensus and the NPOV policy above all. -
Taxman
Talk
22:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, for now, the FA version seems handy. As far as I can tell, it concisely and accurately expresses the views of the skeptics. So let's leave it for now. The Storms version will be ready tomorrow (or as soon as I can figure out how to make the footnotes work). Why don't you figure out a simple way to combine them, with the skeptical version first? What is the big deal?
Just delete the redundant parts and the few sections which are in agreement.
I think this will be easier than you seem to think, and it will satisfy everyone. It may be a little unconventional by the standards of Wikipedia, but why should every article be formatted and presented the same way? Why not allow some variation to fit the circumstances, which are unusual.
It seems to me that a "consensus" view is not the same as everyone agreeing on everything. It means we agree that both sides are fully and fairly represented and expressed. There is obviously no middle ground between these views, so why not make that explicit? I have no objection whatever to the skeptical viewpoint being expressed here in the strongest version. I would like it if you would quote Robert Park, who says that cold fusion results are caused by lunacy and fraud. The more extreme, the better, since it makes the skeptics look unreasonable. (I have not quoted Park because I would not want to overstate or misrepresent the skeptical point of view, but if most of you agree with him, and you think cold fusion is fraud, please say so!)
-- JedRothwell 22:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Taxman writes:
Look, for crying loud, make the skeptical portion as long as you like! Make it ten times longer than Storms. Frankly, I do not know what you have to say that will fill up all that space, but make it as long as you feel necessary to fully express your views. Some of the articles here in Wikipedia are far longer than this, such as the one on Japanese (which I recommend, by the way).
For that matter, why do you think the number of words should be proportional to the number of people on one side or the other? That seems like a crude metric.
What is the big deal? You write your side, Storms writes our side. A few adjustments to blend them together and voila, problem solved. It seems like the present reverted version is close to what you support, so why don't you just tweak it a little?
I honestly do not see a problem here. This is working out well for everyone.
-- JedRothwell 22:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Having had an edit conflict, but finding the same thing come up again and again, I'll make some general points here:
Jed/OO seem to be suggesting: "its referenced, therefore it should be in the article" - this is one of the standard arguments of minority view pushing, and its wrong. Its backwards. Anything in the article should be referenceable/supportable. But just because it can be ref'd doesn't mean it belongs. The problem is balance - minority views should be represented in rough proportion to their acceptance by science. In this case, from the publication record, its clear that CF is very fringe indeed. Jed seems to be suggesting that the two "sides" simply write competing versions. This is not acceptable.
Experts and balance: Storms is very clearly pushing a fringe viewpoint. If he has any PR papers on CF, I don't see any evidence for them: http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/iccf6ab.htm for example is not from a journal. Nor does User:ObsidianOrder/Cold_fusion list any. The balance in the NPOV policy refers to the balance of papers in the literature, not to you finding one pet expert.
The primary decider of scientific content (as far as wiki is concerned) is presence in the literature. CF just isn't there.
William M. Connolley 22:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC).
Don't get rid of the external links section. It is very useful to anyone wanting to learn about this subject. I don't know why the current external links section was removed? Rock_nj
William M. Connolley writes:
Actually, I am saying these are references published in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals. I believe that is the usual standard of excellence and credibility, but perhaps Connolley has some other standard in mind.
FINE! Good. Great. Storms has 31 references, so Connolley should please go find 310 references to support his point of view. Or 3,100. However many he wants would be okay with me. As far as I know only two skeptical papers have appeared in peer-reviewed journals in the last 16 years, but maybe Connolley knows of many others. (It is not for me to judge what is "skeptical" and what supports his point of view.)
As I said the word count or number of references seems like an odd metric, but if that is what you want, please be my guest and add all the references you like.
By the way, Storms published in Fusion Technology and J. Alloys and Compounds. I do not know why they are not listed at the LANL site. As for "experts and balance" everyone on our side considers Storms an expert. ("Everyone" includes several hundred researchers and the people who have downloaded 450,000 papers from LENR-CANR.org. Storms is a clear favorite with both.)
We will pick our experts and you pick yours. Don't quibble with our choices, or we will insist you quote Huizenga and Taubes -- and you don't want to go there.
-- JedRothwell 23:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
-- Why do you [deleted insult for the sake of civility - WMC] skeptics keep deleting the Resource Links section? There is nothing controversial about providing links to relevant webpages that discuss the cold fusion controversy to some extant or another. The Resource Links are not related to the ongoing controversy surrounding the content of the Cold Fusion article, so please leave the links along. Please stop deleting this useful resource. Rock nj 03:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Before this article was revised, it included pro and con points of view mixed together in each section, and sometimes in one paragraph. It was actually a rather civil and balanced article. Most of the time, both sides were careful not to whack the other. The only problem was, the article was awkward, repetitive, too long, and hard to read. So I asked Ed Storms to write a better version of our side. He actually reduced the overall text devoted to the supporter’s point of view.
Now I have a simple suggestion: we present the same material, only rearranged to make it easier to read. Skeptics first, supporters next. Instead of interweaving we present them top to bottom. Of course it would be fine if the skeptics make minor changes or corrections to the Storms text, but in general, we should respect our turf just as we did before. It is divided up a little differently, that's all.
The skeptics feel that they in the majority and they should have a larger share of the article.
I doubt they really are a majority, but okay, they can write up to 35 KB of their arguments, and they can have the top spot. They can preserve every single sentence in the present reverted version. Better yet, they can strip away all remaining arguments in favor of cold fusion in the current version. They can add back in several arguments that were cut. They can add more undocumented history from 1989.
Why is this such a big deal? Why are there such loud objections? Why is it "unacceptable"? Everyone agreed we need an expert, so I persuaded Ed Storms, one of the leading experts, to write a draft. Now OBVIOUSLY the skeptics, who do not believe one word about cold fusion, will consider Storms to be misguided, incompetent, crazy or what-have-you. They think everyone who is in any way associated with the field must be incompetent. They think that all papers about cold fusion are "goo and dribble."
Why is that a problem? If I were a skeptic, I would want the supporters to present "goo and dribble." They claim that Storms is a "pet expert." So what if he is? He is our pet, not yours. Just about everyone on our side agrees with him. If you think he is incompetent, you should be glad we cannot find anyone better. Why do you care who we select to write our side of the argument? If this were a debate between, let us say, Creationists and biologists, why would the biologists feel upset if the Creationists managed to persuade the person they considered their top expert to write the article?
If you want an expert skeptic, go ask Huizenga, Taubes or Robert Park to write your part, or simply use the material that is already there in the reverted article. It just needs a little brushing up and it will be a clear statement of your beliefs. Or I can send you the last page of Huizenga's book and you can quote it. Or keep every word as is -- you decide.
I cannot understand why anyone would complain about this arrangement. Frankly, I think that the skeptics want to eliminate all material written by supporters. If Storms is not satisfactory to them, no one will be. They want to have this entire article supporting their point of view only. That, I gather, is against the rules in this forum.
-- JedRothwell 03:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
and that's just a quick read-through, and I'm not even including what is missing (any info on the reported transmutation products by Iwamura et al, just to pick a random example). For those reasons, I'm tagging this totallydisputed. ObsidianOrder 11:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
The recent edits by Maury and William have been an improvement, in that they have adressed #1 and one of the instances of #2 on my list. The rest of the problems are still there, however. I am putting back the totallydisputed tag. I am hopeful that the rest of these problems can and will be addressed without a huge ruckus, it will just take us some time and work to get there. However the current version of the article is not ok. Please leave the tag for now, and let the "other side" judge when it should be removed. (although actually I prefer not to think of myself as being on the other side, we're all in this together, right? ;) ObsidianOrder 22:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok, quite a lot of stuff was fixed (but not all). I note those in the list above. However Lumidex and WMC just introduced a bunch of other problematic statements:
I tried to write a compromise section but it was reverted. I think this is gonna have a totallydisputed tag forever, at this rate :( ObsidianOrder 00:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I went and fixed a couple of these. I think what remains now is mostly technical issues, hence we probably don't need the tag. I removed it. (Unless anyone disagrees?) ObsidianOrder 22:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
One: I strongly object to the FA version but I will not revert it. Let's work on making a better article instead. However, while this version is up, it's gonna have the totallydisputed tag (because it is - see above, also see this entire discussion).
Two: A version based on the Storms draft is at User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion. This includes a verbatim copy of the references from before the FA revert, the Storms writeup and references with some possibly POV parts removed or changed, the "Other kinds of fusion" from the FA, and a rewritten intro based on the FA intro which I hope should get no objections from either side. You are all invited to look it over. Please point out anything you think is a NPOV or other problem here. You may edit it constructively, but no reverts please - this is my user space, and I don't have time for edit warring. I will try to take edits into account and build a reasonable consensus version. I would like this to become the active version of the article in the relatively near term, unless anyone can point out unfixable problems with it.
Three: An outline of a completely new version is at User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion redux. This would, I hope, cover all sides of the subject considerably better than what exists now. (and please, don't try to pidgeonhole me as a "cold fusion advocate" or whatever. I am genuinely interested in the truth, and I think none of the versions we have at the moment does justice to either side, even aside from being pretty muddled writing). Again, feel free to edit, but no reverts. I intend to write this up referencing every single detail as I go along. For now, think just about the outline, and possibly brief bullet points about what would go in. This is a somewhat longer term project, but I think it can result in a radical improvement all around.
ObsidianOrder 18:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
This is probably a total waste of time, but I sent the following message to helpdesk-l@wikimedia.org. People who know a lot about Wikipedia might wish to forward it to other addresses. -- JedRothwell 15:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Greetings
As you probably know, cold fusion is a very controversial subject. Until this week, the Wikipedia article on this subject contained a balance of statements from people who do not believe that cold fusion exists, and statements by cold fusion researchers who think that it does exist. The researchers and I added 40 references to experimental literature, mainly papers in peer-reviewed, mainstream journals (not those devoted only to cold fusion.)
Unfortunately, this week one of the opponents deleted all of this work, and he will not even allow us to add a tag saying this article is disputed. We consider it technically inaccurate and biased, but we are not even allowed to post a single sentence to this effect. We have never deleted or distorted the claims of opponents, but only clarified why we consider them technically incorrect. (See example below.)
Please note that the researchers include many of the world's top electrochemists, two Nobel Laureates, a Fellow of the Royal Society and so on. I added some relevant, uncontroversial quotes from a deceased Nobel Laureate regarding theory and reproducibility, but the opponents deleted these along with everything else. I believe that comment by someone like this represents a "significant viewpoint" but opponents will not allow it.
If you allow this to go unchallenged, I think it shows the Wikipedia cannot support an honest, fair debate about a truly controversial subject.
Sincerely,
Jed Rothwell
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AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT WAS DELETED. This discussion about energy storage versus production is vital. It is one of the most important aspects of cold fusion.
PRESENT VERSION:
Energy source vs power store
While the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. Since the mechanism under the power burst is not known, one cannot say whether energy is really produced, or simply stored during the early stages of the experiment (loading of deuterium in the Palladium cathode) for later release during the power burst.
A "power store" discovery would have much less value than an "energy source" one, especially if the stored power can only be released in the form of heat.
VERSION INCLUDING COMMENTS BY RESEARCHERS, AND REFERENCES TO LITERATURE:
Energy source vs. power store
Some skeptics hypothesize that while the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. (In other words, each positive exothermic power burst is balanced by a previous period of negative power, or endothermic storage.) Since the mechanism under the power burst is not known, one cannot say whether energy is really produced, or simply stored during the early stages of the experiment (during the loading of deuterium in the palladium cathode) for later release during the power burst. A "power store" discovery would yield only a new, and very expensive, kind of storage battery, not a source of abundant cheap fusion power.
However, this cannot be the case, because large endothermic storage is not observed. When the experiment begins, there are a few hours of endothermic storage as the palladium is loaded, and this is readily detected. (A calorimeter measures a heat deficit as accurately as it measures excess heat.) In most bulk palladium electrochemical experiments, this is followed by an incubation period of 10 to 20 days, during which there is neither excess heat nor storage. Following that, there is continuous excess heat production, which often continues longer than the incubation period, and produces far more energy than the initial endothermic storage. "Isothermal Flow Calorimetric Investigations of the D/Pd System" shows typical examples. [REF McKubre0] Since the excess heat is easily detected, at a high signal to noise ratio, if there were an initial endothermic storage phase to balance it, this would be even easier to detect, because it would have to be larger.
Furthermore, this energy storage hypothesis would violate the laws of physics, because most cells produce far more energy than any known chemical storage mechanism would permit. Chemical processes store (or produce) at most 12 eV per atom of reactant, whereas many cold fusion experiments have produced hundreds of eV per atom of cathode material, and some have produced ~100,000 eV per atom.
Finally, many researchers, notably Kainthla et al. [REF Kainthla] and McKubre et al. [REF McKubre1] have conducted careful inventories of chemical fuel and potential storage mechanisms in cold fusion cells, and they have found neither fuel nor spent ash that could account for more than a tiny fraction of the excess heat. Since many cells have released large amounts of energy, a megajoule or more, this chemical fuel would have to be present in macroscopic amounts. In fact, in many cases the volume of ash would greatly exceed the entire cell volume. These issues of energy storage and chemical fuel hypotheses have been discussed in the literature exhaustively. See, for example, "A Response to the Review of Cold Fusion by the DoE", section II.1.2.[REF Storms]
FrancisTyers writes, "please don't make personal attacks." That wasn't a personal attack. I do not know what person deleted all of the content and swept away my 40 footnotes, so I cannot attack him. My comment about "voodoo and mob rule" applies to all opponents, with strict impartiality. I do not insult any one them personally, but rather all of them, en mass. That appears to be perfectly okay judging by what they write about cold fusion researchers. (Or is it only okay for them to insult us?) My comment about mud wrestling with pigs is a folk expression, not an attack, and in any case I am fond of pigs and would not attack them. They are sweet animals, but you do not want to wrestle with one. --
JedRothwell
23:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I posted this as an RfC [2]. Please comment here. It is also posted on WikiProject Physics [3]. There is quite a bit of discussion at the featured article removal vote [4]. ObsidianOrder 02:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Summary of the dispute
Discussion
The main point I'm interested is how to move forward. Obviously, I'd like to see the Storms draft Cold fusion/tmp adopted, since in my opinion it is much better all around than either the current reverted version or the pre-revert version. For one thing, it is very meticulously sourced. Yes, it still has a few lingering NPOV problems, we can fix those. I have solicited comments and edits to the draft, but have so far received absolutely none (aside from links to online papers contributed by Jed). If you see specific problems with the draft, or have a reason why it is bad in general, please list it here. ObsidianOrder 03:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
No. I said that the Storms paper didn't refer to any. I presume that means that none of them are terribly important?
Ah. So many comments, Some get missed. Sorry. William M. Connolley 23:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
No, case not at all closed. Its a list of... what? "Clarke, W. B. (2001) Search for 3He and 4He in Arata-Style Palladium Cathodes I: A Negative Result. Fusion Sci. & Technol. 40:" - is this supposed to support your case? Can JJAP be the top phys journal in Japan with an IF of 1.142? All that says is that Japan doesn't really have a native top-ranked phys journal, and there's nothing odd about that. William M. Connolley 23:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC).
Errr, you're missing at least one point: as I said, the first two I checked weren't even proper journals, so the list has at the very least been bulked out. William M. Connolley 23:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC).
THIS REFERS TO ITEM 1. This is not part of the dispute as far as I am concerned. Storms & I do not care whether you use his draft or not. Someone posted a "tag" here saying they wanted a professional version of this article, so Storms wrote one as a favor, in the approved academic style. The content was pretty much the same as the version on Dec. 30, except it was shorter and better written. However, if the people do not want it, that is fine with us. The only dispute I have is that someone deleted everything that supports cold fusion and all of actual scientific content, leaving only imaginary skeptical dreck. --
JedRothwell
15:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
A few more general comments: The reason for the RfC is primarily because I feel the article could use more impartial editors who are involved in working towards a reasonable and more complete version. The listing at FARC drew in several new editors and has resulted in some fairly drastic changes, by editors who do not appear to be especially familiar with the subject (but maybe if they stick around they'll become more familiar ;) I may not like the specific changes but I do think we need more people looking at this and involved in improving it.
Some issues to consider: What claims can be made, especially far-reaching claims like "the scientific community considers cold fusion to be ..." or "cold fusion is a ..."? What are acceptable sources? How much space to allocate to different parts of the article, for example history of the field/Pons&Fleischman vs current work vs theoretical objections? Should some of those go in their own sub-articles?
ObsidianOrder
03:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Finally, let me solicit comments on an outline for a complete rewrite of the whole article:
User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion redux. I've tried to be reasonably impartial, but also to cover everything I felt was not covered in any version of this article, and to do so in a more organized and readable way. It's a long way from done, but I'd like to get some input on it now.
ObsidianOrder
03:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I've modified the intro to Cold fusion is the name for a postulated nuclear fusion reaction that is supposed to occur well below the temperature required for thermonuclear reactions adding the bits in bold. Without those, it asserts that CF works, which is the entire dispute. Per OO, I added some stuff about journal policy. William M. Connolley 21:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC).
After reading over the majority of the comments here on this page, I have to state that in my opinion the article in its current form is informative, interesting and balanced. I feel it does not require major surgery, although certainly cleanps and more information will definitely help it. I further agree that the version from Storms is biased, and versions suggesting CF to be total pseudoscience equally so.
As to the Storms version, I certainly think the ISSUES IN THE DEBATE section could be included, largely in its current form. As some have rightly pointed out, the "header" section under "Continuing efforts" seems highly arguable, and Storms has embedded a large number of emotional-based arguments in the text itself -- for instance "The stakes are now too high for trivial skepticism". But these can be easily removed without effecting the overall flow of the article, and the content within strikes me as an excellent overview of the topic in its current state of the art.
I argue for its inclusion.
Some have suggested (even in the block header on this page) that the history of the P&F experiment be condensed. As the primary author of that section, I have to argue against this. For one thing it runs to about one written page, which is hardly excessive for such a topic. But much more importantly, I think the Jones/P&F "argument" is absolutely vital to the understanding of the topic's cold reception in the scientific community. This is not the only concern, of course, but the "rush to publish" or "science by press release" that occured certainly taints the topic for many.
Does anyone disagree with this comment? I'm certainly open to the possibility that its not as important as I think it is.
Finally, I would argue that the Other kinds of fusion section could easily be reduced to a "see other" point form. This is an article on cold fusion, not other "coldish fusion" topics. Those are already listed in their proper place, the general fusion power article.
Maury 13:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, an addendum. I finally read ObsidianOrder's outline. It's superb. I have only one suggestion, and that is the addition of another section in the History about the release to the press. As I argue above, I think this is vital to the story.
I'll volunteer for much of the actual work. Obsidian, I need details on "Palmer", mentioned in the Early Work section. Maury 13:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
One of the things that should be added is that H2 dissociates to H atoms on palladium surfaces which goes into the bulk as protons ie you don't observe any hydrogen atoms as such in the palladium matrix.
josh halpern
I just added a couple of diagrams:
and
.
Steven Krivit added this photo:
. I think the first diagram could replace the one there now, and the picture be used in addition to the Charles Bennet pic which is used now. Comments?
ObsidianOrder
11:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
ObsidianOrder told me to join the discussion. So let me join and confirm that I agree with the comments by William M. Connolley.
I also assume that he agrees that it is essential for this page to explain clearly why cold fusion cannot work. The article IS about cold fusion and the most important fact about cold fusion is that it cannot work.
This is why I also find it necessary to explain the main reason: the nuclei can't be pushed closer together just by some silly 1-electronvolt games with the electrons because the energy we need to squeeze the nuclei, in order to overcome the Coulomb barrier, is of order many megaelectronvolts.
It seems clear that the current version is deliberately murky because it does not want this explanation to be clear.
I have again corrected the completely wrong statement that the DOE does not say that the experiments are flawed. Of course that DOE does say it. What we see here is the price that we often pay for diplomatic formulations. Do you want to be nice? Yes, you can, but be ready that whoeever will want, will try to misinterpret your statement.
Please, ObsidianOrder, do not revert this page unless there is a consensus on this talk page.
Best wishes, -- Lumidek 21:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Everyone can easily verify that you have made this error, and all the well-cited papers in your original list are by R M Fleischmann whose first name is Roy and whose field is biology. The only cited paper by Martin Fleischmann is the single original "bombastic" paper about cold fusion. Your other statements about MF are equally unjustifiable. What you say is certainly not true at Harvard, in the U.S., or in the rest of the civilized world. -- Lumidek 04:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Lumidek, you failed to justify why you reverted my edit. To repeat the justification of my edit: 1) Connelley's refs are not books, they are papers. If you, or someone feels so strong that these papers should be listed, then they should be listed in the "Papers" section. Second, I see no justification for the 4 Jan shuffle by WMC which appears to randomly place the last, pro-cf book at the bottom of the list.
STemplar 00:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Lubos - "OO's general sketch of a new version is relatively plausible, but whether or not it is better than the current version will depend on the details how the sections are completed." - of course, and I'd like your help in completing that. I have tried very hard to both not omit anything important, and to make a fair presentation of the different sides. I'd appreciate it if you could do the same. In the interest of peace and harmony, I have pointedly not engaged in an edit war to try to restore the pre-WMC-revert version [22]. Let's try to work together on the new version? ObsidianOrder 00:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello, a quick explanation of the changes I just made: I copied the list of papers cited in the Storms draft, and merged the "Issues in the debate" section of that with the "Continuing work" section of this article (thus leaving the "Arguments in the controversy" section intact). The "Continuing work" section was also moved down after the "Arguments", in order to give the "Arguments" more prominence. All of the new information is well sourced (much better than the rest of the article anyway), and has been looked over for NPOV by several people; any other changes are relatively minor and should not affect the balance of the article. I believe based on prior discussion that this set of changes would in principle be supported by a majority of the editors here (although possibly not the exact way I did them). I think this is a reasonable compromise state. If you object to it, please point out what exactly you object to, and I will try to fix it. ObsidianOrder 09:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Dear OO, I found a couple of minutes in the evening to look what happened with the page today, and I am moderately pleasantly surprised. It's not perfect but it's not a disaster. If you can keep the standards, instead of converging to some shallow promotion, you could actually gain a long-term support of people like me in your maintanance of this page. -- Lumidek 03:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Jed keeps misrepresenting the result of the DoE panel. Two-thirds believed that cold fusion did not exist. That's a clear majority that don't believe it exists. The only "split" is over whether or not excess power was produced, not whether or not it's cold fusion. Among the one-third remaining, all but one only found it somewhat convincing. There's no way you can reasonable interpret that to mean anything other than the majority of scientists disbelieving it and the vast majority not finding it fully convincing.
Also, where are the theories of how to overcome the electrostatic forces in the article? If we are to include pro-cold fusion views, they should at least include their theory.
Nathan J. Yoder 10:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I skimmed over the first 8 reviews and only found one stating that he thought cold fusion was real. Some were a bit leanient in suggesting that there should be some minimal funding, but that was only to investigate the cause of excess heat, not an acknowledgement that the cause was a result of fusion reactions. If you're going to make the claim that the DoE misrepresented its own panel, then please list how each reviewer stands and not just an anonymous tally of them. Nathan J. Yoder 06:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Very well, I went through them again:
The final tally is: 5 YES, 7 NO, 6 MAYBE (and 3 of the MAYBEs are leaning towards a YES). This turns out to be the same as Jed's tally, although I have no idea whether he assigned them the same way. I am still curious how you would count them, and why. Note: I would obviously not argue to include this analysis in the article, since it is original reseach. I can only suggest that people read the whole thing and decide for themselves (especially since many of the reviewers make very interesting points). However, this does provide compelling evidence in my mind that the scientific opinion is not nearly as uniformly against CF as others here have suggested, and of course that the DoE report substantially misrepresented the findings of the panelists. ObsidianOrder 08:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Here is my tally, from Talk Archive 4:
I got my arithmetic wrong, which I often do. It should say: "7 No, 4 Yes, 7 maybe." In my first tally I must have moved one of the "iffy maybe's" to Yes. This is pretty close to ObsidianOrder. It is surprisingly difficult to categorize these reviews. -- JedRothwell 16:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree. The last sentence written by reviewer number two says "there is no evidence for this being a nuclear physics phenomenon." Yet he is listed as MAYBE/YES. Likewise, reviewer three says "Have the authors provided evidence that LENR exists? Maybe!" However, rather than being listed as maybe, he was listed as yes. I haven't read the rest, but if this holds true for the others, this seems like a highly biased interpretation. In fact, an absurd interpretation. –
Joke
19:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Two comments: first, perhaps I should explain what I mean by "yes" and "no". To my mind, the controversy is on one hand between those who consider claims of cold fusion are somewhere between outright fraudulent and due to incompetence (experimental artifacts/errors/etc). Those are the NO votes. On the other hand are those who believe that there is some real phenomenon which is observed which cannot be explained by accepted theories (but which is not necessarily well understood). Those are the YES votes. In other words the split is between those who think it is pseudo/pathological science and those who think it is legitimate research dealing with what is probably a new phenomenon. For the yes votes, fusion does not have to be the only explanation, it is merely the least extraordinary hypothesis (and again, does anyone care to propose a different one?); and if it is fusion, then a particular mechanism or pathway (such as d+d->4He) does not have to be the correct explanation (and in any case evidence strongly suggests there is more than one pathway). If you go through my list you will find that it is entirely consistent with those ground rules.
Second, both Taxman and Joke questioned my assignemnt of particular items when a reviewer stated that there is evidence for one thing (e.g. excess heat, particles, isotopic products) but not another. If you read the actual comments, you will see that many of the revewers specifically state they will only evaluate the aspects which lie within their field of expertise (e.g. an electrochemist may only look at calorimetry but not detection of particles). If one of those guys says "I will only evaluate calorimetry... I see strong evidence for excess heat... I am not convinced it is a nuclear reaction" - that is a YES, because by their own statement they are not even trying to evaluate the evidence which may directly point to a nuclear reaction. And so on.
Let me again invite anyone who is interested to come up with their own tally, supported with citations just as mine is. ObsidianOrder 04:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there a source for these alleged reviews other than JedRothwell's personal web site? That 2/3 were unconvinced that low energy reactions occur is a fact taken from the official DoE site. -- Noren 16:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Earth to Noren: Come in please! Two Questions: 1. Do you seriously think I am capable of inventing these comments? I am flattered that you think I could master so many different fields and impersonate so many cranky, biased experts. 2. If I did invent them, why would I make so many of them hostile toward cold fusion? The source of the document is shown at the top, and the original source was, obviously, the DoE. No other institution would conduct such a sloppy review or issue such a document. When the Italian Government conducted a similar review last year under the auspices of the Italian Senate, they concluded that cold fusion is real and that it should be funded at the national level. This is how a sane government does a real review. -- JedRothwell 17:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
> My understanding of the discussion boils down to this. According to the reviewers' written comments and the summary by DOE, the reviewers have mixed feelings about the evidence of excess power, but, at the same time, they are generally convinced that nuclear fusion has not been observed. In other words, several reviewers said that something strange is going on, but it is not nuclear reactions. If we recognize this distinction, the summary report by DoE did represent the comments of the reviewers fairly. Depending on your definition of cold fusion, you could say that the panel did not see convincing evidences of cold fusion (defined as nuclear reaction), or that one half of the reviewers were somewhat convinced of it (if defined as excess heat). So, it's all about a question of definition. Pcarbonn 20:55, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm not talking about CF, but you may like to view http://www.aetherometry.com/antiwikipedia2/. Its not as funny as the first one, sadly.
William M. Connolley 17:12, 9 January 2006 (UTC).
My friend Séamus (now Professor of Bio and Electro Sensing at Cranfield) was at Southampton in the early 90s and actually ran some experiments for Martin Fleishmann. I think his conclusion was that there was something going on, but not fusion. There was a heck of a lot of energy released, though. All controlled by a BBC Model B computer, as I recall :-) -
Just zis Guy, you know?
[T]/
[C]
RfA!
17:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
In other but related news, you-all might be interested in knowing that Connolley is applying for Wikipedia adminship. You can vote here: [25] 64.48.73.126 01:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
This paragraph:
"It should be pointed out that the term "cold fusion" has also been used to describe generally unrelated research. The term was first coined by Dr Paul Palmer of Brigham Young University in 1986 in an investigation of what is today referred to as muon-catalyzed fusion. "Cold fusion" was also used by Steven Jones, also of BYU at the same time, to describe potential high-pressure events now referred to as piezonuclear fusion."
seems to contradict several established references:
1. The first paper to list the term "cold nuclear fusion" is credited to "Rafelski, Johann and Steven E. Jones," Palmer is not listed.
2. Several historical texts on this subject say nothing about Palmer. Even if Palmer did have a role in the BYU cold nuclear fusion work, to fail to primarily attribute the term to Jones appears to be contradictory to the established texts. As well, such failure to note Jones's role diminishes a very key aspect of the historical controversy; that of the conflict between Jones and Fleischamann/Pons.
Huizenga's "Fiasco" pp. 8 "Fifty miles from the University of Utah, a group of physicists, headed by Professor Steven E. Jones, at Brigham Young University (BYU), also claimed cold nuclear fusion."
Beaudette's "Excess Heat" pp.41 "Jones and a physicist at the University of Arizon had co-authored an article just the year before in "Scientific American" (July 1987) entitled, 'Cold Nuclear Fusion.' Jones's work offered two sources for the use of the term cold fusion."
Can anybody show qualified references for Palmer's role in this? If not, I suggest the following may be more accurate:
"The term "cold nuclear fusion" was first used in the scientific literature by Johann Rafelski and Steven E. Jones of Brigham Young University in 1986 in an investigation of what is today referred to as muon-catalyzed fusion.. This research was generally unrelated, however, the distinction was not immediately understood by the press in 1989. Consequently, the term "cold fusion" became associated with the Fleischmann-Pons experiment."
STemplar 19:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Interesting thing is, there have been two dominant historical perspectives of cold fusion; those accepting it and those rejecting it. Funny thing is, none of the authors I've read seem to attribute this to Palmer, but to Jones.
Huizenga's "Fiasco" pp. 8 , Beaudette's "Excess Heat" pp.41, Krivit/Winocur's "Rebirth" pp. 206, Taubes' "Bad Science" pp. 31, Mallove, "Fire from Ice" pp. 50, Peat's "Cold Fusion" pp. 67
Authors and publishers go to great lengths to get their facts right. The costs and legal risks in publishing are significant. It would seem unlikely to me that all these authors -- on both sides of the controversy -- in the span of 16 years, have made an error. I would propose that a Web reference, published on somebody's blog, that is autobiographical in nature, does not carry the same authority as the above-mentioned references.
STemplar 21:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. New contributors are always welcome. -- James S. 21:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
STemplar 09:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
several hundred researchers:
ICCF12 abstracts: http://newenergytimes.com/Conf/ICCF12/ICCF12-Abstracts.pdf
JCF6 abstracts: http://newenergytimes.com/Conf/JCF6/JCF6Abstracts.pdf
ICCF11 abstracts: http://newenergytimes.com/ICCF11/ICCF11Abstracts.pdf
ICCF10 abstracts: http://newenergytimes.com/ICCF10/ICCF10Abstracts.pdf
STemplar 06:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I will encourage this recent addition to be removed or justified: "(Nature has published papers regarding other types of "non-traditional" fusion, such as pyroelectric fusion)"
1. I don't see how it helps explain cold fusion 2. Attacking Nature may be counterproductive.
STemplar 19:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi James. Looks like someone beat me to it. STemplar 09:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I added that to point out that they aren't trying to suppress anything - they have published some things, and they reject a lot of papers (including most of the ones they get from mainstream scientists). I believe there may be something behind cold fusion (it seems implausible that all the researchers in the field are making up data). What that something is of course needs more research (and for various reasons I have doubts the world will ever run on cold fusion, even if it is a real effect - for example, if they're getting 3 units of extra heat out for one unit of electricity in, they'll need a pretty good heat engine to even break even). I wasn't trying to diss Nature. I was trying to imply that they aren't unthinkingly rejecting everything. As my user page indicates, I'm a computer science grad student. I don't know enough about physics to say what's possible or impossible; I know enough to realize that cold fusion isn't explained by current theory, which is an argument against it. Just a few talking points, sorry this was so long. -- Pak aran 00:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Pakaran. Oh. I get your point. No worries. I had the chance to meet some of the APS editors last year and understand the challenges they go through with "too many papers to review and not enough volunteers to review them." It seems quite clear to me that if there's an easy excuse to drop a paper from the proces, it's gonna happen, considering the capacity of at least some of the scientific publications. STemplar 09:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Pakaran writes: ". . . if they're getting 3 units of extra heat out for one unit of electricity in, they'll need a pretty good heat engine to even break even." That is not the situation, for several reasons:
Techniques such as gas loading and proton conductors have virtually no input energy. Input is in microwatts and output (if there is any) is sometimes in watts or hundreds of watts.
With electrolysis, the energy input has no direct correlation with output energy. Sometimes output continues after input is cut off; at other times input continues for weeks with no output. It seems unlikely that this will become a practical method of producing energy.
The electrolysis itself is extremely inefficient. It is not intended to be efficient, but to make the experiment easy. Anyone can think of ways to improve it, but they will interfere with, for example, loading measurements or particle detection.
Cells are suboptimal for various good reasons. They are run below boiling so that they do not have to be pressurized, for safety and convenience. They are not insulated. Reference electrodes, x-ray and neutron detectors and other gadgets are crammed into and around the cells. An aux heater is sometimes used to hold the cell temperature at the starting point (usually 30 deg C), to keep the calorimetry simple and accurate.
CF researchers are trying to understand the reaction. If they succeed, it will be easy to make cells with gigantic input to output ratios. Such cells have been made from time to time already, usually by accident, and sometimes with disastrous results: melted cathodes, explosions and so on.
-- JedRothwell 22:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to discuss these two deleted edits:
and:
I replaced the first because there is already a "Commercial developments" section in the article. The idea that pragmatic concerns aren't important should be troublesome to any reader or editor. Perhaps the text should be moved to that section?
Are there any materals which are claimed to have a better price/performance ratio than Szpak/Boss-style Pd/Pt electrolysis?
For the other passage, I really want to cite
[27] from what I believe is the leading commercial firm, showing a maximum power gain of less than 2.0. I recall that the essential facts are in the Beaudette analysis, too. The time to reach that level is hours, if I remember correctly, and note that it will decay after surface properties in the Pd change. (in a matter of days to weeks) Update: the electrolysis method begins without delay. --
James S.
02:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I think both of those points are crucial to the importance of the topic, which I have considered rather low since early 2002. Does anyone have some better sources on these topics? -- James S. 22:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
If cold fusion only works with palladium, this probably will limit its usefulness. I think Martin Fleischmann was the first person to point this out. As I recall he did a back of the envelope estimate that about half of the world energy could be generated with present supplies of palladium, and these supplies are not likely to increase. I discussed this issue in my book, pages 36 and 37. See: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusiona.pdf] Fortunately, it seems likely that titanium also produces the cold fusion effect.
This statement is incorrect: "Those who have claimed to reproduce cold fusion uniformly report that . . . the observed signal is so faint as to be difficult to separate from background noise." This may be true for some experiments performed by some researchers, but it is not what is generally reported. On the contrary, McKubre and others have said the effect is "neither small nor fleeting." See: McKubre, M. C. H., et al., Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear Processes in Deuterated Metals, EPRI TR-104195, Research Project 3170-01, August 1994
-- JedRothwell 20:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
James S wrote: "I really want to cite [28] from what I believe is the leading commercial firm,"
James, take care with your assumptions. The Web is a Wild Wild World. STemplar 02:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
James, does this help?
Over the last 5 years, turn-on time, the onset of excess heat, has decreased dramatically. Dennis Letts, along with Dennis Cravens pioneered a laser-triggering method which brought turn-on down to seconds.
Stan Szpak et al at SPAWAR San Diego use a co-deposition method. This electrolytic process facilitates the proper D/Pd ratio immediately, consequently excess heat is reported to start instantly. STemplar 02:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
STemplar 06:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
<opinion> I fail to see the relevance of any commercial references to this subject, at this time. To my knowledge, none of these companies are shipping cold fusion products at this time. That being the case, to include references to them in Wiki seems tantamount to promoting vapourware and providing free advertising to select companies in the midst of their pre-commercial R&D.
Even if some were shipping products, to feature any seems to cross, and blur the line between reference and promotion.
Do any Wikis feel that there are substantial advantages to listing, or using as "references," so-called commercial entitites, that outweigh the aforementioned concerns? </opinion>
STemplar 05:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi James/Nrcprm2026: Why did you add back the list of companies? I realized you commented "this list is very informative" but this fails to take into account a good part of the above discussion. STemplar 21:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Come on Jed, this invective is not neccesary. IMO, It doesn't accomplish anything except to further animosity between the two sides of the debate. Would you kindly look back at the "Jabs at Nature" discussion and consider what was said just recently on this matter? I think you should provide justification for what you just re-inserted. STemplar 01:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
STemplar writes:
I do not need to back up anything. The things I accuse them of doing, they brag about! They trumpet their lies to the world. They said cold fusion is "notorious" and "largely discredited" and in the past they have claimed it was never replicated. Who discredited it? When? What about all those published replications?
Not only have they lied, they have made outrageous statements contrary to academic ethics. In 1989 Nature demanded "more ridicule" to kill cold fusion quickly. In 1991, Maddox declared "broadly speaking its dead, and it will remain dead for a long, long time."
I am sure they will repeat these lies every time the subject comes up.
I did. See: lenr-canr.org/News.htm]
That is not a bit difficult to prove. It is their overt, publicly-stated editorial policy. Ask any one of them, and they will tell you they reject cold fusion papers without peer review. They do not consider this unreasonable any more than they think it unreasonable to reject a paper about creationism or flat Earth theory. Every cold fusion researcher I know has a pile of rejection letters saying they will not review or consider any paper on this subject. Kowalski published some examples here: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KowalskiLhistoryofa.pdf]
It is also the official policy of the DoE to reject any and all funding for cold fusion, despite the 2004 panel recommendation. Again, they make no bones about this. See: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf]
Regarding Time magazine, the print edition was much worse. It showed Fleischmann on the same page as Mengele. Yesterday, an editor from Time wrote to me: " . . . The correct year is 1989. We apologize for the error and appreciate your writing to us about it. . . . As for the ongoing controversy about cold fusion, we feel that our article correctly described the situation." Here is part of my response:
Some of Lemonick's comments to me are at lenr-canr.org/News.htm]. I can send you the whole exchange if you would like a good laugh. It is apparent that he does not know anything about cold fusion, or electrochemistry, or experiments. In fact, taken all in all, his letters give me the distinct impression that he is several tacos short of a platter.
-- JedRothwell 15:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I removed this because it was in "continuing efforts":
I'm ambivalent about whether it should be in a different section. I don't think it adds much if anything to the subject matter. Mallove has his own article. The case is unresolved, but there are two suspects in custody. The motive was apparently drug-related robbery. Finally, I don't think free energy is the right link for the use of the term. -- James S. 09:56, 21 January 2006 (UTC)