Greetings. Hipocrite has requested that I attempt to mediate a content dispute regarding Cold fusion.
These are facts about me that I consider relevant to this mediation:
I have decided to confine my attempted mediation to this subpage for two simple reasons: First, this mediation will likely become quite lengthy and require the use of multiple sections which would otherwise clutter up the talk page. Second, in the time that this mediation takes place, there will likely be unrelated discussions that spring up on the talk page. Such unrelated discussions would interrupt this mediation if it were to occur on the talk page. I would like to make it clear that in no way do I intend to use this subpage as a means of concealing the discussion contained herein. Upon completing my introductory statements, I will provide a link on the talk page and notify the involved editors. If someone wants to add a notice to the top of Talk:Cold fusion, you are more than welcome to do so.
What I have read thus far has illustrated to me that much of this dispute (as is the case with many disputes) is comprised of personal attacks, accusations of personal attacks, personal counterattacks, and, more generally, criticisms of how the involved parties present information rather than criticisms of the information being presented. This will not occur here. Debate and argumentation will occur at points during this mediation process, but posts (or even individual sentences) that serve no purpose other than to criticize another user will be deleted. If you have a problem with the way another user is behaving and I have not already intervened, take it up at Talk:Cold fusion, the talk page of the user, or my talk page. If you simply have a problem with the material that another user presents, please try to make your rebuttal as impersonal as possible: "I believe that your statement of 'such and such' is incorrect. According to 'so and so'..." or "Your reasoning is somewhat flawed in that the gilbo sprocket generator...".
As of yet, I do not have a detailed plan for how to go about resolving this content dispute. I intend to make sure that all the involved parties are aware of this page and agree to work within the guidelines that I have set forth. I then intend to gather from the involved parties a detailed outline of the individual statements, sections, or sources which are in dispute. From there, we will work to resolve those disputes.
If you have been actively involved in the Cold fusion content dispute, please sign your name below. While there may be discussions in which uninvolved parties may participate, this list is for those who are actively involved in the dispute.
This list will serve three purposes: First, it will insure that all involved parties have been made aware of this mediation process and help us identify any missing parties which should be notified. Second, it will provide an opportunity for the involved parties to ask preliminary questions before the mediation begins. Third, it will serve to verify that the involved parties have read through the introductory material, agree to participate in the process that I have set forth, and ultimately agree to respect the final content decisions that we collectively arrive upon. Alternatively, involved parties who believe that this process is unnecessary or that I am not the best possible choice for a mediator can also sign here and express their concerns or refusal to participate.
Collapsed discussion
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I just read [ the request for mediation]. I had somehow assumed that this would be about longer-term issues. Instead it's about determining which version to revert to while under protection, and there isn't any real dispute worth mediating over that. We have two polls going, one I started and then a competing poll that Hipocrite started for unknown reasons, but the two interpreted together show a strong result, and I doubt that it will get much muddier over the next few days. The list of users was a list of those who had been active with the article, it doesn't indicate dispute. I don't see the need for this mediation. There are many other issues with Hipocrite that have nothing to do with the specific question Hipocrite raised. It seemed you were thinking this would be about cold fusion issues, when, in fact, what Hipocrite asked about was pure process. It's possibly entirely moot if the article comes off protection. Sorry to waste your time. On the other hand, if it seems to you that there is something to mediate, I still would cooperate, but I'm not exercised to try to lay out a case for you, which is what you seem to assume would occur. Maybe Hipocrite will clarify what his issues are and maybe then I'll feel differently. -- Abd ( talk) 23:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
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I was planning on waiting until we had finished assembling a list of participants, but Coppertwig has taken the initiative to begin the list of content issues. All involved parties are welcome to expand or modify the list. Signing individual entries is not necessary. Current discussion is in bold.
Collapsed discussion regarding the banning Hipocrite and Abd. Consensus indicates desire to move forward with mediation.
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William M. Connolley has topic banned Hipocrite and Abd from editing Cold fusion and its talk page. He has also reduced the article's protection level from full to semi. In light of these changes, how does everyone feel about continuing this mediation? As I see it, there are three options:
I see no reason to exclude Hipocrite or Abd from the mediation. ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 00:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
I think that the lowering of protection will mean editing of the main article resumes, and this will influence what needs to be covered in the mediation. I think Abd and Hippocrite should be allowed to participate, as it lets content issues be raised by them or discussions to involve them whilst complying with WMC's ban. However, in order to keep discussions on track, I do very much hope that Cryptic will ensure behavioural issues and debates about policy are minimised as far as possible, and the discussion directed to content. EdChem ( talk) 06:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
For the record, I have decided to ignore the ban of William M. Connolley; administrators are not empowered to issue page bans or enforce them except for bans to enforce ArbComm remedies, community bans determined after discussion,or voluntary bans. It's not important here, except peripherally. I remain committed to the pursuit of maximized consensus at Cold fusion. The same argument would apply to Hipocrite. He is not banned, unless he chooses to respect the ban. -- Abd ( talk) 18:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC) |
It seems that all involved parties want to move forward with the mediation, though Hipocrite has not edited this page in some time. I have notified him of the fact that he is still allowed to participate here. In any case, does anyone have any suggestions for which issue we should discuss first? I would prefer to take on the "smaller" disputes first and build up to the larger ones. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Consensus reached. Full report can be found
here.
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In an article where there have been long-term struggles over balance, we need take care with respect to why text is being included, and it can point to how that text will be interpreted by readers. An editor inserted "life sciences journal," and we should ask why. The editor who inserted it has generally declined to participate here; so I will speculate as to the reason: he wanted to make it appear (and, I assume, believed) that Naturwissenschaften would not be a place to ordinarily publish research in chemistry or physics. This is a frequent claim with respect to peer-reviewed journals publications in this area, that the journal would not have the expertise to properly review the paper. But the point of mentioning Naturwissenschaften is actually that it's a mainstream journal, and not specialized in the life sciences. Probably because most papers published are in life science fields, Springer has classified it in the Life Science category, but the journal actually covers much more. From [14]:
Cold fusion is an interdisciplinary field, where chemistry and physics intersect -- or collide. Calling Naturwissenschaften a "life sciences journal" is misleading. That is why I removed this reference. Enric Naval disagreed, adding "peer-reviewed" in what he must have thought would be a reasonable compromise, but restoring the misleading "life sciences journal." I raised the issue in Talk, and, there being no response, the next day I removed it. I had assumed the issue was resolved, but apparently the editor who had removed it still considers the removal preposterous. Maybe it would be worthwhile to formally find a consensus on this. -- Abd ( talk) 01:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
I have looked into the journal in question as well. I am not finished all the checking I would like to do, but would comment the following:
As can be seen above, we often put the cart before the horse. To find agreement here, we first have to establish why we are even discussing this. It's clear above that there is a basis for calling the publication a "life sciences journal," and there is a basis for considering that misleading, because it is explicitly a multidisciplinary journal. But why do we mention what kind of journal it is at all. The mention, in context, wikilinks Naturwissenschaften. Above, I speculated as to why "life sciences" would be mentioned. I invite the other editors to justify it; I will repeat what I wrote above in a subsection, and ask that discussion in that subsection be toward the desirability of any characterization of the journal at all, other than provided by the wikilink. If we establish a need for characterization, then we can discuss how to characterize it. Otherwise we will be debating a matter without a clear basis. -- Abd ( talk) 16:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
From the article, references have been reduced to labeled links: On 22–25 March 2009, the American Chemical Society held a four-day symposium on "New Energy Technology", in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion. At the conference, researchers with the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) reported detection of energetic neutrons in a palladium-deuterium co-deposition cell using CR-39, ACS Press Release 'Cold fusion' rebirth? New evidence for existence of controversial energy source a result previously published in Die Naturwissenschaften. New Scientist: Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion Neutrons are indicative of nuclear reactions. AFP: Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough The New Scientist source refers to publication in a "peer-reviewed journal (Naturwissenschaft, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-008-0449-x)." -- Abd ( talk) 22:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
We mention it because it's been mentioned in reliable secondary source as significant, as I recall. I'll provide references; this statement wasn't added based on the simple publication, to my memory, but as derived from secondary source. -- Abd ( talk) 16:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC) The source: New Scientist, Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion, 23 March 2009. -- Abd ( talk) 19:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer to characterize it as a "mainstream journal," and "multidisciplinary journal primarily focusing on the life sciences" is accurate, but both of these involve OR, probably, though of the kind that we can sometimes allow with consensus. I believe, however, that there is a specific motive for characterizing it, which is to impeach it by implying that it would have inadequate peer review. If we don't characterize it as a "life sciences journal," will this mislead the reader into thinking that there has been publication of this work by the mainstream in a place where there might have been inadequate review? I will not open sections below on how to characterize it until there is a conclusion that we should characterize it, otherwise we may be debating a moot point.-- Abd ( talk) 16:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
(outdent)What is the Impact factor of these journals? And what are similar physics/multidiscipline journals impact factors? That should be a way for us to determine how highly regarded the journals are. -- Kim D. Petersen ( talk) 20:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
eigenfactor for Naturwissenschaften. EPJ AP doesn't seem to be listed. At journal-ranking.com, Naturwissenschaften (rank 8), 8/50, is just below Scientific American (rank 7), in the category "multidisciplinary sciences." In the Applied Physics category, EPJ-AP is 69/80. I don't think there is any doubt about why Mosier-Boss might prefer to publish in Naturwissenschaften, if they'll accept the paper, and it looks like they have accepted 3 from the SPAWAR group. -- Abd ( talk) 22:30, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
(Outdent) The main rationale I am hearing above from the proponents of characterizing the journal as "life sciences" seems to be related to some conjecture that the journal's peer-review standards are inadequate to the task of reviewing a nuclear physics article. Do we have any hard evidence from reliable sources that this is the case, or is this pure conjecture and therefore WP:OR on our part? -- GoRight ( talk) 17:50, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
This discussion seems to be losing focus. I don't believe that enough of the participating editors have weighed in on the issue after my statements above for consensus to have been reached. Involved editors: Without further discussing the use of Naturwissenschaften as a source (which will be covered in the next section) or Jed Rothwell (a situation I will deal with in the Participation section), and without making unnecessarily long arguments, state plainly and clearly your opinions on the following statement: "If the Naturwissenschaften article is discussed in the cold fusion article, it should not be characterized as 'life sciences'." I have explained my reasoning above, and as of yet I have not seen any arguments which tell me that the reasoning is flawed. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 05:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Making any effort to describe this journal, even in a positive light, will cause the reader to doubt the validity of the result. As I have stated above, we are not here to cast doubts or make vague implications without providing sufficient evidence and discussion to fully inform the reader. Any statements which do this, including the one proposed above, should be avoided. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
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Consensus reached. Full report can be found
here.
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Sorry, I'm a bit confused at this point. We all agree, it seems, that Naturwissenschaften is not a reliable journal for new advances in fusion, without replication in other, more traditional journals. We all agree, it seems, that new advances in cold fusion aren't being published in other, more traditional journals. From this, we determine that we will include information about the very exciting publication of random cold fusion results with limited notability based on their publication in Naturwissenschaften, without any kind of other reliable source publishing similar results? This dosen't seem kosher to me - in fact, it seems that the only logical conclusion is to exclude everything published in Naturwissenschaften that isn't in it's obvious field of editorial expertise - life sciences for a technical but not cutting-edge audience. Hipocrite ( talk) 14:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
On the basic issue. Original claims in the Naturwiss. article are primary source, to be used with caution. However, this article also reviews prior work, including work by others. Acceptance of this coverage of prior work, by peer review, creates a strong source, not impeachable by mere speculation. We could treat secondary review in the article of prior publications as authoritative, depending on details. -- Abd ( talk) 15:28, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
This discussion is splitting into separate discussions, making it somewhat difficult to keep track of (both for me and, I suspect, for those who have not yet participated). So far, these seem to be the solutions that people have proposed:
It seems to me that option 2 is the most reasonable compromise. As Objectivist pointed out, while it may be difficult or even impossible for cold fusion to ever make definitive statements regarding the validity of experiments, it can always simply state what the researchers have claimed without presenting it as fact. The (arguably) biggest strength of Wikipedia is how well it "rolls with the times", and I think this solution best serves that goal: If the article in question is given more media attention or is cited in other articles, the section which discusses it can be amended or expanded. If not, it can simply exist as a historical record and can be shortened as necessary later on. The question now is how to achieve a balanced and fair representation of the article in cold fusion, but I think that this can be worked out with a combination of editing and focused discussion here. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
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Abd notified me on my talk page that he was dissatisfied with the wording I chose in my conclusion. I must admit that I found it difficult to concisely summarize the position with a neutral wording. It was not my intention to put words into your mouths, and I will do my best to amend the conclusion to achieve the best possible wording. If anyone else has an issue with the wording, feel free to notify me on my talk page or here. This applies to past and future conclusions as well. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Recommendation published
here.
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(I restored the patent thing and I expanded it a lot before remembering that it was listed for discussion here. Sorry for that. It seems that the mediation is about mentioning primary sources like specific patents in addition to what secondary sources say. Sooo I will tentatively suppose that my edits won't disrupt this discussion, and that the specific patents can later be add where necessary.) See talk page discussion and the proposed addition. To start the discussion, I suggest this text:
right after the text that uses Simon's book to describe how cold fusion researchers avoid mentioning CF in order to get grants and patents that would be rejected directly if they self-identified as being related to CF. This should place it in the adequate context. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 07:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
On the point about patents, can anyone cite a precedent where an issue like this has been considered and consensus found, either with patents specifically, or with assertion of primary source in apposition with assertion of secondary source, where contradiction might be inferred and where assumption of the unconditional validity of the secondary source comment might be misleading? The "existence" of a patent includes the existence of the exact text of the patent, which is reliably established by the primary source. Note the very important point: we would not, absent secondary source so stating, note that there is a contradiction, we would merely state, without interpretation, the language of the patent, as Enric Naval did. We do have, I think, secondary source, but the reliability of that source is challenged above. -- Abd ( talk) 15:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Upon studying the above overall discussion, it appears to me that what we say or don't say about various patents should depend on an aspect of the CF article that may have been overlooked. The title of the article, of course, is "cold fusion", but a great deal of the data--especially all the original data--is about heat that is difficult to explain any other way. (There are too many workers in the field, replicating the data, for the explanation of "fraud" to hold water; fraud requires secrecy, and that many people can't keep such a thing secret.) Now, patents are generally supposed to be about things that the inventor, at least, thinks will be useful. A new method of generating heat could qualify. This is irrelevant to knowing where the heat comes from (do you think the discoverers of those ceramic high-temperature superconductors waited to know how it worked, before applying for patents? Hah!). So, if the article is going to discuss heat-generation, in that part of the article it could make sense to say that patents have been filed to claim it as a discovery. (Personally, I don't see how such patents can stand up; the original discovery goes back a bunch of decades, and there is a one-year time limit between a discovery becoming publicly available information, and the filing of a patent on it.) V ( talk) 13:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
OK, trying to address the criticism above, how about adding this paragraph after the paragraph describing the USPTO position:
-- Enric Naval ( talk) 16:36, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Ooook, I looked at the above and I add a 1999 Science article " `New Physics' Finds a Haven At the Patent Office", this Science article lists patents that are about CF processes, not just about CF materials (thanks to Bilby for his help with this one) The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. relevant parts of Science article "Dozens of recent patents have been awarded for devices that invoke principles outside accepted science, such as exotic nuclear physics and psychic forces." "The image reflects a common myth--that the government checks that an invention relies on accepted principles before granting a patent. But consider two recent patents: 5,616,219 and 5,628,886, issued to Clean Energy Technologies Inc. of Sarasota, Florida, for an electrochemical device that is claimed to put out more energy than is possible by chemistry alone. Or take Clean Energy's patent 5,672,259, for a process to transmute radioactive elements by electrochemistry. Physicists who have examined these patents say the claims resemble cold fusion; the company rejects that label but says its products do exploit "new nuclear physics."" "(...) Although the Patent Office initially rejected cold-fusion patents after Pons and Fleischmann's memorable Salt Lake City press conference in 1989, some experts say the Clean Energy patents show that such patents are now slipping into the books. James Reding, Clean Energy's chief executive officer (CEO), insists that his company's technology is not "cold fusion," although he says it does exploit nuclear processes. But every physicist Science has asked about the Clean Energy patents, including IBM's Richard Garwin and William Happer of Princeton University, says they describe what are essentially cold-fusion devices. And the March/April 1999 issue of Infinite Energy magazine, a publication for cold-fusion buffs, includes Clean Energy work in its list of "Key Experiments that Substantiate Cold Fusion Phenomena."" "The patents say that the devices generate excess heat by passing a current through a cell containing beads coated with a metal such as palladium and exposed to various hydrogen isotopes--the same setting where cold fusion was said to occur. Garwin and others say the devices are unlikely to prove viable, either as energy sources or as systems for rendering radioactive waste harmless. Conditions in an electrochemical cell fall far short of what is needed to trigger nuclear reactions, they note. "The cell has never produced any excess heat, in my judgment," says Garwin, who has looked at Clean Energy's data. "And this remediation of radioactive materials is incredible and has not been demonstrated."" "Reding responds that he knows the physics is controversial, but "the technology is very real." Reding says that the company's first attempts to patent the devices failed because the applications went through the group of patent examiners who specialize in nuclear science. But he says that by carefully structuring another application, the company was able to steer the patent to a different group of examiners, who handle electrochemistry. "Our patent attorney was very helpful in this process," says Reding. Attempts to reach the examiners who approved the patents have been unsuccessful. " The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
So, the above source + Nature source + Simon book, should be enough to source this little text:
This explains quite well why those patents exist, without the need to explicitely cite one. (Let's remember that wikipedia articles give summaries of the sources, and that people interested in the gory details should check the sources themselves). -- Enric Naval ( talk) 15:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
We are mashing up different things here. The source from the USPTO claiming that patents aren't issued for claims of "cold fusion" is from 2004, quoting the Deputy Commissioner of Patents then. The three patents cited in the Science article were by Patterson of Clean Energy Technologies, and were quite a few years earlier. There are also special rules if a patent application is 65 or older, for expedited approval, and my understanding is that this process was used for Patterson. [34] We might assume that the policy stated in 2004 still applies, reasonably. But, clearly, patents that are not of a cold fusion process itself, but of something that might be useful in experiments or devices that "generate energy from palladium and deuterium electrolysis," as well as other possible uses, have been issued, we have the Miles patents from 2004 and 2008 as examples, and they are blatantly for electrodes used for what we call cold fusion. They do not attempt to explain the source of the heat, and neither did the older Patterson patents. Both the Science article and Simon predate the Miles patents, so they are quite possibly talking about Patterson, which may have been an exception due to his age. Remarkably, Pons and Fleischmann are mentioned in at least one of the Patterson patents. -- Abd ( talk) 03:48, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to reintroduce my suggestion, for it seems to have drowned in the seas of discussion: "The USPTO rejects all patents claiming cold fusion.[cite] Melvin Miles, author of a 2004 patent claiming to generate "excess heat",[cite patent] later described his efforts to remove all instances of "cold fusion" from the patent description to avoid having it rejected outright.[cite that other thing]" This follows Coppertwig's notion that "less is more" while still incorporating the patent that Enric presented. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:00, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
I am inclined to agree that I should close this discussion for the simple fact that it has been stale for quite some time now. Whatever the original issue may have been, this ended up being a fruitful discussion on how to go about phrasing and citing the text regarding this particular patent. I'm sure that the Enric Naval (and any others who wish to introduce material about patents) has benefited from this discussion. However, rather than publish a detailed conclusion advocating a particular version of the paragraph in question, I think it would be better to simply recommend the inclusion of patents which have been discussed in reliable secondary sources. I fully expect that, upon being added to the article, this fairly uncontroversial topic will eventually be presented in a more perfect way due to the great volume of editing activity that will undoubtedly occur. Sound good? --
Cryptic C62 ·
Talk 16:46, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
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My conclusion didn't have any support diffs to link to, as this discussion panned out differently than the others. Please indicate your support or any concerns below. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I based that part of the recommendation off of the following:
I object on using it as a
reliable source. It's a self-published source outside of the main-stream, it could be used as a reference to opinions of individual authors, where such are experts (per rules on SPS) and only where such is useful in correspondence to
weight, but not as a general source. --
Kim D. Petersen (
talk) 15:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Did I misinterpret these statements, or do you disagree with them? -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
The above three sections were present in the article briefly, and were the subject of edit warring.
Background: the present article has text relevant to theory:
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We have no coverage of actual proposed explanations in the article, and the edit wars of May 21 and June 1 were largely about attempts to insert them. Coverage of the hydrino hypothesis had remained after May 21, and the Be-8 theory after June 1, but were both removed by the reversion under the June 1 protection to May 14, and have not been reasserted. The article implies that no serious theories that could possibly explain cold fusion "using existing physics" have been proposed.
What exists in peer-reviewed reliable source and in academic and peer-reviewed secondary sources on this?
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The Be-8 and hydrino theories are covered in Storms (2007) as to current notability; we have reference above to older theories, such as those of Hagelstein and Schwinger, which are no longer considered within the field to be of much import. In addition, there is Widom-Larsen theory, which I have not researched. Hydrino theory is new physics, and was apparently allowed on May 21, ultimately, because of RS covering it, and it was balanced with negative RS on hydrino theory. The Be-8 theory, more accurately, the Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate theory, does not involve new physics, but only, apparently, the consideration of a previously unconsidered physical possibility, which is double-deuterium (molecular) fusion under lattice confinement, possibly through the formation of a two-molecule Bose-Einstein condensate, which Takahashi then predicts, from quantum field theory, will fuse within a femtosecond or so, 100%. This theory, if correct, predicts nearly all the observed phenomena: Be-8 rapidly decays to two alpha particles at 23.8 MeV each, they will transfer most of their energy to the experimental environment, there will be no primary neutron or gamma radiation, the nuclear ash is helium, matching experimental observations, it will happen at the surface (the molecular form is not present inside the lattice), the TSC itself is neutrally charged and thus experiences no Coulomb barrier and may directly cause some heavy-element fusion with the kind of atomic number plus 4 that has been observed, energetic alpha particles can cause secondary fusion resulting in low levels of neutrons and other products. Mosier-Boss (Naturwissenschaften, 2009) cite Takahashi's theory to explain their neutron results, and the theory is cited by He Jing-Tang (Frontiers of Physics in China, 2007), a peer-reviewed secondary source. This explanation is my own, based on reading many papers by Takahashi and discussion of the theory on-line, it is here for background, not for inclusion in the article; at this point what we have,for the article, is mention of the Takahashi theory in two or three reliable secondary sources. It should be covered, based on what is in reliable secondary source about it. |
On Hydrino, here there are four sources that cite hydrino in relationship with CF. We don't need a whole sub-section for the theory, just a few sentences will do, maybe one paragraph. Maybe under "Non-nuclear explanations for excess heat"
On Be-8, there are no secondary sources dealing with that. In the link given in the opening post there are 3 sources. First one is Takahashi himself talking about his theory. Second one is from the He Jing-tang paper Front. Phys. China which was already found at the talk page as a paper that appeared to be very flawed and low-quality in a journal of unknown quality. Third one is a conference at a CF conference that appeared in Krivit's sourcebook, which is a compilation of conference papers. So, no, not enough good-quality sources at all. No way it's appearing with only those sources.
On Storms, it was already discussed at the talk page that he is a retired scientist who works from his garage, holds fringe views, gave credence to very fringe views even those verging in crackpottery, it was unknown how much quality control there was at the house editing the book, his views are not representative of mainstream, etc. There were only two book reviews, one in Journal of Scientific Exploration, and one by Sheldon that was discussed here. Additionally, the proposed text placed Storms at the start of the "proposed explanations" section, as giving a summary of the acceptance of explanations on the mainstream, which gave it a lot of undue prominence as is problematic due to Storms not representing the mainstream in the first place. So, not a reliable source. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 05:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Just prurient curiousity... is this still live? Or does Abd's block and ban resolve the issues? William M. Connolley ( talk) 13:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, let me be more explicit. I didn't follow this mediation in any detail, but: If the *only* cause of this mediation existing (at the time, or in retrospect) is Abd, then it can now be closed-moot (I would say). If there were issues needing mediation amongst other participants, then it could still be live. I'm not sure which of those two is the case, so was trying to find out. As a separate issue, I agree that even if it is now dead it might have useful info for future discussion William M. Connolley ( talk) 16:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Obviously you are mistaken; it takes two to make an argument. And Hipocrite has neither been banned from the CF article, nor has (so far as I know) changed his POV. And of course we could easily have another edit war in the future even without either of them, due to new editors arriving. So I personally think that no matter how dead is this mediation, on account of just one party being banned, it should continue to be available for immediate use. I even have in mind a particular point that seems already to have become polarized on the CF Talk page: Arata's 2008 experiment has been cited as a reference to a somewhat similar experiment that was very recently published in Physics Letters A. This gives the earlier experiment some RS that it didn't have before (and it is Secondary RS, at that!), and logically implies Arata's 2008 experiment could now be described in the CF article. But Kirk Shanahan and others are focussing on the "recent-ness" of the PLA article, as if that somehow makes the earlier experiment too recent to talk about. Tsk, tsk. V ( talk) 17:20, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
This page is quite inactive, yes, but it certainly seems reasonable to believe that it may be of use again in the future (assuming my work here has been helpful). For the meantime, however, it may make sense to link to this page as though it were inactive. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:50, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Greetings. Hipocrite has requested that I attempt to mediate a content dispute regarding Cold fusion.
These are facts about me that I consider relevant to this mediation:
I have decided to confine my attempted mediation to this subpage for two simple reasons: First, this mediation will likely become quite lengthy and require the use of multiple sections which would otherwise clutter up the talk page. Second, in the time that this mediation takes place, there will likely be unrelated discussions that spring up on the talk page. Such unrelated discussions would interrupt this mediation if it were to occur on the talk page. I would like to make it clear that in no way do I intend to use this subpage as a means of concealing the discussion contained herein. Upon completing my introductory statements, I will provide a link on the talk page and notify the involved editors. If someone wants to add a notice to the top of Talk:Cold fusion, you are more than welcome to do so.
What I have read thus far has illustrated to me that much of this dispute (as is the case with many disputes) is comprised of personal attacks, accusations of personal attacks, personal counterattacks, and, more generally, criticisms of how the involved parties present information rather than criticisms of the information being presented. This will not occur here. Debate and argumentation will occur at points during this mediation process, but posts (or even individual sentences) that serve no purpose other than to criticize another user will be deleted. If you have a problem with the way another user is behaving and I have not already intervened, take it up at Talk:Cold fusion, the talk page of the user, or my talk page. If you simply have a problem with the material that another user presents, please try to make your rebuttal as impersonal as possible: "I believe that your statement of 'such and such' is incorrect. According to 'so and so'..." or "Your reasoning is somewhat flawed in that the gilbo sprocket generator...".
As of yet, I do not have a detailed plan for how to go about resolving this content dispute. I intend to make sure that all the involved parties are aware of this page and agree to work within the guidelines that I have set forth. I then intend to gather from the involved parties a detailed outline of the individual statements, sections, or sources which are in dispute. From there, we will work to resolve those disputes.
If you have been actively involved in the Cold fusion content dispute, please sign your name below. While there may be discussions in which uninvolved parties may participate, this list is for those who are actively involved in the dispute.
This list will serve three purposes: First, it will insure that all involved parties have been made aware of this mediation process and help us identify any missing parties which should be notified. Second, it will provide an opportunity for the involved parties to ask preliminary questions before the mediation begins. Third, it will serve to verify that the involved parties have read through the introductory material, agree to participate in the process that I have set forth, and ultimately agree to respect the final content decisions that we collectively arrive upon. Alternatively, involved parties who believe that this process is unnecessary or that I am not the best possible choice for a mediator can also sign here and express their concerns or refusal to participate.
Collapsed discussion
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I just read [ the request for mediation]. I had somehow assumed that this would be about longer-term issues. Instead it's about determining which version to revert to while under protection, and there isn't any real dispute worth mediating over that. We have two polls going, one I started and then a competing poll that Hipocrite started for unknown reasons, but the two interpreted together show a strong result, and I doubt that it will get much muddier over the next few days. The list of users was a list of those who had been active with the article, it doesn't indicate dispute. I don't see the need for this mediation. There are many other issues with Hipocrite that have nothing to do with the specific question Hipocrite raised. It seemed you were thinking this would be about cold fusion issues, when, in fact, what Hipocrite asked about was pure process. It's possibly entirely moot if the article comes off protection. Sorry to waste your time. On the other hand, if it seems to you that there is something to mediate, I still would cooperate, but I'm not exercised to try to lay out a case for you, which is what you seem to assume would occur. Maybe Hipocrite will clarify what his issues are and maybe then I'll feel differently. -- Abd ( talk) 23:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
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I was planning on waiting until we had finished assembling a list of participants, but Coppertwig has taken the initiative to begin the list of content issues. All involved parties are welcome to expand or modify the list. Signing individual entries is not necessary. Current discussion is in bold.
Collapsed discussion regarding the banning Hipocrite and Abd. Consensus indicates desire to move forward with mediation.
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William M. Connolley has topic banned Hipocrite and Abd from editing Cold fusion and its talk page. He has also reduced the article's protection level from full to semi. In light of these changes, how does everyone feel about continuing this mediation? As I see it, there are three options:
I see no reason to exclude Hipocrite or Abd from the mediation. ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 00:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
I think that the lowering of protection will mean editing of the main article resumes, and this will influence what needs to be covered in the mediation. I think Abd and Hippocrite should be allowed to participate, as it lets content issues be raised by them or discussions to involve them whilst complying with WMC's ban. However, in order to keep discussions on track, I do very much hope that Cryptic will ensure behavioural issues and debates about policy are minimised as far as possible, and the discussion directed to content. EdChem ( talk) 06:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
For the record, I have decided to ignore the ban of William M. Connolley; administrators are not empowered to issue page bans or enforce them except for bans to enforce ArbComm remedies, community bans determined after discussion,or voluntary bans. It's not important here, except peripherally. I remain committed to the pursuit of maximized consensus at Cold fusion. The same argument would apply to Hipocrite. He is not banned, unless he chooses to respect the ban. -- Abd ( talk) 18:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC) |
It seems that all involved parties want to move forward with the mediation, though Hipocrite has not edited this page in some time. I have notified him of the fact that he is still allowed to participate here. In any case, does anyone have any suggestions for which issue we should discuss first? I would prefer to take on the "smaller" disputes first and build up to the larger ones. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Consensus reached. Full report can be found
here.
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In an article where there have been long-term struggles over balance, we need take care with respect to why text is being included, and it can point to how that text will be interpreted by readers. An editor inserted "life sciences journal," and we should ask why. The editor who inserted it has generally declined to participate here; so I will speculate as to the reason: he wanted to make it appear (and, I assume, believed) that Naturwissenschaften would not be a place to ordinarily publish research in chemistry or physics. This is a frequent claim with respect to peer-reviewed journals publications in this area, that the journal would not have the expertise to properly review the paper. But the point of mentioning Naturwissenschaften is actually that it's a mainstream journal, and not specialized in the life sciences. Probably because most papers published are in life science fields, Springer has classified it in the Life Science category, but the journal actually covers much more. From [14]:
Cold fusion is an interdisciplinary field, where chemistry and physics intersect -- or collide. Calling Naturwissenschaften a "life sciences journal" is misleading. That is why I removed this reference. Enric Naval disagreed, adding "peer-reviewed" in what he must have thought would be a reasonable compromise, but restoring the misleading "life sciences journal." I raised the issue in Talk, and, there being no response, the next day I removed it. I had assumed the issue was resolved, but apparently the editor who had removed it still considers the removal preposterous. Maybe it would be worthwhile to formally find a consensus on this. -- Abd ( talk) 01:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
I have looked into the journal in question as well. I am not finished all the checking I would like to do, but would comment the following:
As can be seen above, we often put the cart before the horse. To find agreement here, we first have to establish why we are even discussing this. It's clear above that there is a basis for calling the publication a "life sciences journal," and there is a basis for considering that misleading, because it is explicitly a multidisciplinary journal. But why do we mention what kind of journal it is at all. The mention, in context, wikilinks Naturwissenschaften. Above, I speculated as to why "life sciences" would be mentioned. I invite the other editors to justify it; I will repeat what I wrote above in a subsection, and ask that discussion in that subsection be toward the desirability of any characterization of the journal at all, other than provided by the wikilink. If we establish a need for characterization, then we can discuss how to characterize it. Otherwise we will be debating a matter without a clear basis. -- Abd ( talk) 16:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
From the article, references have been reduced to labeled links: On 22–25 March 2009, the American Chemical Society held a four-day symposium on "New Energy Technology", in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion. At the conference, researchers with the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) reported detection of energetic neutrons in a palladium-deuterium co-deposition cell using CR-39, ACS Press Release 'Cold fusion' rebirth? New evidence for existence of controversial energy source a result previously published in Die Naturwissenschaften. New Scientist: Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion Neutrons are indicative of nuclear reactions. AFP: Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough The New Scientist source refers to publication in a "peer-reviewed journal (Naturwissenschaft, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-008-0449-x)." -- Abd ( talk) 22:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
We mention it because it's been mentioned in reliable secondary source as significant, as I recall. I'll provide references; this statement wasn't added based on the simple publication, to my memory, but as derived from secondary source. -- Abd ( talk) 16:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC) The source: New Scientist, Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion, 23 March 2009. -- Abd ( talk) 19:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer to characterize it as a "mainstream journal," and "multidisciplinary journal primarily focusing on the life sciences" is accurate, but both of these involve OR, probably, though of the kind that we can sometimes allow with consensus. I believe, however, that there is a specific motive for characterizing it, which is to impeach it by implying that it would have inadequate peer review. If we don't characterize it as a "life sciences journal," will this mislead the reader into thinking that there has been publication of this work by the mainstream in a place where there might have been inadequate review? I will not open sections below on how to characterize it until there is a conclusion that we should characterize it, otherwise we may be debating a moot point.-- Abd ( talk) 16:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
(outdent)What is the Impact factor of these journals? And what are similar physics/multidiscipline journals impact factors? That should be a way for us to determine how highly regarded the journals are. -- Kim D. Petersen ( talk) 20:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
eigenfactor for Naturwissenschaften. EPJ AP doesn't seem to be listed. At journal-ranking.com, Naturwissenschaften (rank 8), 8/50, is just below Scientific American (rank 7), in the category "multidisciplinary sciences." In the Applied Physics category, EPJ-AP is 69/80. I don't think there is any doubt about why Mosier-Boss might prefer to publish in Naturwissenschaften, if they'll accept the paper, and it looks like they have accepted 3 from the SPAWAR group. -- Abd ( talk) 22:30, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
(Outdent) The main rationale I am hearing above from the proponents of characterizing the journal as "life sciences" seems to be related to some conjecture that the journal's peer-review standards are inadequate to the task of reviewing a nuclear physics article. Do we have any hard evidence from reliable sources that this is the case, or is this pure conjecture and therefore WP:OR on our part? -- GoRight ( talk) 17:50, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
This discussion seems to be losing focus. I don't believe that enough of the participating editors have weighed in on the issue after my statements above for consensus to have been reached. Involved editors: Without further discussing the use of Naturwissenschaften as a source (which will be covered in the next section) or Jed Rothwell (a situation I will deal with in the Participation section), and without making unnecessarily long arguments, state plainly and clearly your opinions on the following statement: "If the Naturwissenschaften article is discussed in the cold fusion article, it should not be characterized as 'life sciences'." I have explained my reasoning above, and as of yet I have not seen any arguments which tell me that the reasoning is flawed. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 05:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Making any effort to describe this journal, even in a positive light, will cause the reader to doubt the validity of the result. As I have stated above, we are not here to cast doubts or make vague implications without providing sufficient evidence and discussion to fully inform the reader. Any statements which do this, including the one proposed above, should be avoided. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
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Consensus reached. Full report can be found
here.
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Sorry, I'm a bit confused at this point. We all agree, it seems, that Naturwissenschaften is not a reliable journal for new advances in fusion, without replication in other, more traditional journals. We all agree, it seems, that new advances in cold fusion aren't being published in other, more traditional journals. From this, we determine that we will include information about the very exciting publication of random cold fusion results with limited notability based on their publication in Naturwissenschaften, without any kind of other reliable source publishing similar results? This dosen't seem kosher to me - in fact, it seems that the only logical conclusion is to exclude everything published in Naturwissenschaften that isn't in it's obvious field of editorial expertise - life sciences for a technical but not cutting-edge audience. Hipocrite ( talk) 14:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
On the basic issue. Original claims in the Naturwiss. article are primary source, to be used with caution. However, this article also reviews prior work, including work by others. Acceptance of this coverage of prior work, by peer review, creates a strong source, not impeachable by mere speculation. We could treat secondary review in the article of prior publications as authoritative, depending on details. -- Abd ( talk) 15:28, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
This discussion is splitting into separate discussions, making it somewhat difficult to keep track of (both for me and, I suspect, for those who have not yet participated). So far, these seem to be the solutions that people have proposed:
It seems to me that option 2 is the most reasonable compromise. As Objectivist pointed out, while it may be difficult or even impossible for cold fusion to ever make definitive statements regarding the validity of experiments, it can always simply state what the researchers have claimed without presenting it as fact. The (arguably) biggest strength of Wikipedia is how well it "rolls with the times", and I think this solution best serves that goal: If the article in question is given more media attention or is cited in other articles, the section which discusses it can be amended or expanded. If not, it can simply exist as a historical record and can be shortened as necessary later on. The question now is how to achieve a balanced and fair representation of the article in cold fusion, but I think that this can be worked out with a combination of editing and focused discussion here. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
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Abd notified me on my talk page that he was dissatisfied with the wording I chose in my conclusion. I must admit that I found it difficult to concisely summarize the position with a neutral wording. It was not my intention to put words into your mouths, and I will do my best to amend the conclusion to achieve the best possible wording. If anyone else has an issue with the wording, feel free to notify me on my talk page or here. This applies to past and future conclusions as well. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Recommendation published
here.
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(I restored the patent thing and I expanded it a lot before remembering that it was listed for discussion here. Sorry for that. It seems that the mediation is about mentioning primary sources like specific patents in addition to what secondary sources say. Sooo I will tentatively suppose that my edits won't disrupt this discussion, and that the specific patents can later be add where necessary.) See talk page discussion and the proposed addition. To start the discussion, I suggest this text:
right after the text that uses Simon's book to describe how cold fusion researchers avoid mentioning CF in order to get grants and patents that would be rejected directly if they self-identified as being related to CF. This should place it in the adequate context. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 07:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
On the point about patents, can anyone cite a precedent where an issue like this has been considered and consensus found, either with patents specifically, or with assertion of primary source in apposition with assertion of secondary source, where contradiction might be inferred and where assumption of the unconditional validity of the secondary source comment might be misleading? The "existence" of a patent includes the existence of the exact text of the patent, which is reliably established by the primary source. Note the very important point: we would not, absent secondary source so stating, note that there is a contradiction, we would merely state, without interpretation, the language of the patent, as Enric Naval did. We do have, I think, secondary source, but the reliability of that source is challenged above. -- Abd ( talk) 15:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Upon studying the above overall discussion, it appears to me that what we say or don't say about various patents should depend on an aspect of the CF article that may have been overlooked. The title of the article, of course, is "cold fusion", but a great deal of the data--especially all the original data--is about heat that is difficult to explain any other way. (There are too many workers in the field, replicating the data, for the explanation of "fraud" to hold water; fraud requires secrecy, and that many people can't keep such a thing secret.) Now, patents are generally supposed to be about things that the inventor, at least, thinks will be useful. A new method of generating heat could qualify. This is irrelevant to knowing where the heat comes from (do you think the discoverers of those ceramic high-temperature superconductors waited to know how it worked, before applying for patents? Hah!). So, if the article is going to discuss heat-generation, in that part of the article it could make sense to say that patents have been filed to claim it as a discovery. (Personally, I don't see how such patents can stand up; the original discovery goes back a bunch of decades, and there is a one-year time limit between a discovery becoming publicly available information, and the filing of a patent on it.) V ( talk) 13:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
OK, trying to address the criticism above, how about adding this paragraph after the paragraph describing the USPTO position:
-- Enric Naval ( talk) 16:36, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Ooook, I looked at the above and I add a 1999 Science article " `New Physics' Finds a Haven At the Patent Office", this Science article lists patents that are about CF processes, not just about CF materials (thanks to Bilby for his help with this one) The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. relevant parts of Science article "Dozens of recent patents have been awarded for devices that invoke principles outside accepted science, such as exotic nuclear physics and psychic forces." "The image reflects a common myth--that the government checks that an invention relies on accepted principles before granting a patent. But consider two recent patents: 5,616,219 and 5,628,886, issued to Clean Energy Technologies Inc. of Sarasota, Florida, for an electrochemical device that is claimed to put out more energy than is possible by chemistry alone. Or take Clean Energy's patent 5,672,259, for a process to transmute radioactive elements by electrochemistry. Physicists who have examined these patents say the claims resemble cold fusion; the company rejects that label but says its products do exploit "new nuclear physics."" "(...) Although the Patent Office initially rejected cold-fusion patents after Pons and Fleischmann's memorable Salt Lake City press conference in 1989, some experts say the Clean Energy patents show that such patents are now slipping into the books. James Reding, Clean Energy's chief executive officer (CEO), insists that his company's technology is not "cold fusion," although he says it does exploit nuclear processes. But every physicist Science has asked about the Clean Energy patents, including IBM's Richard Garwin and William Happer of Princeton University, says they describe what are essentially cold-fusion devices. And the March/April 1999 issue of Infinite Energy magazine, a publication for cold-fusion buffs, includes Clean Energy work in its list of "Key Experiments that Substantiate Cold Fusion Phenomena."" "The patents say that the devices generate excess heat by passing a current through a cell containing beads coated with a metal such as palladium and exposed to various hydrogen isotopes--the same setting where cold fusion was said to occur. Garwin and others say the devices are unlikely to prove viable, either as energy sources or as systems for rendering radioactive waste harmless. Conditions in an electrochemical cell fall far short of what is needed to trigger nuclear reactions, they note. "The cell has never produced any excess heat, in my judgment," says Garwin, who has looked at Clean Energy's data. "And this remediation of radioactive materials is incredible and has not been demonstrated."" "Reding responds that he knows the physics is controversial, but "the technology is very real." Reding says that the company's first attempts to patent the devices failed because the applications went through the group of patent examiners who specialize in nuclear science. But he says that by carefully structuring another application, the company was able to steer the patent to a different group of examiners, who handle electrochemistry. "Our patent attorney was very helpful in this process," says Reding. Attempts to reach the examiners who approved the patents have been unsuccessful. " The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
So, the above source + Nature source + Simon book, should be enough to source this little text:
This explains quite well why those patents exist, without the need to explicitely cite one. (Let's remember that wikipedia articles give summaries of the sources, and that people interested in the gory details should check the sources themselves). -- Enric Naval ( talk) 15:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
We are mashing up different things here. The source from the USPTO claiming that patents aren't issued for claims of "cold fusion" is from 2004, quoting the Deputy Commissioner of Patents then. The three patents cited in the Science article were by Patterson of Clean Energy Technologies, and were quite a few years earlier. There are also special rules if a patent application is 65 or older, for expedited approval, and my understanding is that this process was used for Patterson. [34] We might assume that the policy stated in 2004 still applies, reasonably. But, clearly, patents that are not of a cold fusion process itself, but of something that might be useful in experiments or devices that "generate energy from palladium and deuterium electrolysis," as well as other possible uses, have been issued, we have the Miles patents from 2004 and 2008 as examples, and they are blatantly for electrodes used for what we call cold fusion. They do not attempt to explain the source of the heat, and neither did the older Patterson patents. Both the Science article and Simon predate the Miles patents, so they are quite possibly talking about Patterson, which may have been an exception due to his age. Remarkably, Pons and Fleischmann are mentioned in at least one of the Patterson patents. -- Abd ( talk) 03:48, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to reintroduce my suggestion, for it seems to have drowned in the seas of discussion: "The USPTO rejects all patents claiming cold fusion.[cite] Melvin Miles, author of a 2004 patent claiming to generate "excess heat",[cite patent] later described his efforts to remove all instances of "cold fusion" from the patent description to avoid having it rejected outright.[cite that other thing]" This follows Coppertwig's notion that "less is more" while still incorporating the patent that Enric presented. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:00, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
I am inclined to agree that I should close this discussion for the simple fact that it has been stale for quite some time now. Whatever the original issue may have been, this ended up being a fruitful discussion on how to go about phrasing and citing the text regarding this particular patent. I'm sure that the Enric Naval (and any others who wish to introduce material about patents) has benefited from this discussion. However, rather than publish a detailed conclusion advocating a particular version of the paragraph in question, I think it would be better to simply recommend the inclusion of patents which have been discussed in reliable secondary sources. I fully expect that, upon being added to the article, this fairly uncontroversial topic will eventually be presented in a more perfect way due to the great volume of editing activity that will undoubtedly occur. Sound good? --
Cryptic C62 ·
Talk 16:46, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
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My conclusion didn't have any support diffs to link to, as this discussion panned out differently than the others. Please indicate your support or any concerns below. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I based that part of the recommendation off of the following:
I object on using it as a
reliable source. It's a self-published source outside of the main-stream, it could be used as a reference to opinions of individual authors, where such are experts (per rules on SPS) and only where such is useful in correspondence to
weight, but not as a general source. --
Kim D. Petersen (
talk) 15:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Did I misinterpret these statements, or do you disagree with them? -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
The above three sections were present in the article briefly, and were the subject of edit warring.
Background: the present article has text relevant to theory:
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We have no coverage of actual proposed explanations in the article, and the edit wars of May 21 and June 1 were largely about attempts to insert them. Coverage of the hydrino hypothesis had remained after May 21, and the Be-8 theory after June 1, but were both removed by the reversion under the June 1 protection to May 14, and have not been reasserted. The article implies that no serious theories that could possibly explain cold fusion "using existing physics" have been proposed.
What exists in peer-reviewed reliable source and in academic and peer-reviewed secondary sources on this?
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The Be-8 and hydrino theories are covered in Storms (2007) as to current notability; we have reference above to older theories, such as those of Hagelstein and Schwinger, which are no longer considered within the field to be of much import. In addition, there is Widom-Larsen theory, which I have not researched. Hydrino theory is new physics, and was apparently allowed on May 21, ultimately, because of RS covering it, and it was balanced with negative RS on hydrino theory. The Be-8 theory, more accurately, the Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate theory, does not involve new physics, but only, apparently, the consideration of a previously unconsidered physical possibility, which is double-deuterium (molecular) fusion under lattice confinement, possibly through the formation of a two-molecule Bose-Einstein condensate, which Takahashi then predicts, from quantum field theory, will fuse within a femtosecond or so, 100%. This theory, if correct, predicts nearly all the observed phenomena: Be-8 rapidly decays to two alpha particles at 23.8 MeV each, they will transfer most of their energy to the experimental environment, there will be no primary neutron or gamma radiation, the nuclear ash is helium, matching experimental observations, it will happen at the surface (the molecular form is not present inside the lattice), the TSC itself is neutrally charged and thus experiences no Coulomb barrier and may directly cause some heavy-element fusion with the kind of atomic number plus 4 that has been observed, energetic alpha particles can cause secondary fusion resulting in low levels of neutrons and other products. Mosier-Boss (Naturwissenschaften, 2009) cite Takahashi's theory to explain their neutron results, and the theory is cited by He Jing-Tang (Frontiers of Physics in China, 2007), a peer-reviewed secondary source. This explanation is my own, based on reading many papers by Takahashi and discussion of the theory on-line, it is here for background, not for inclusion in the article; at this point what we have,for the article, is mention of the Takahashi theory in two or three reliable secondary sources. It should be covered, based on what is in reliable secondary source about it. |
On Hydrino, here there are four sources that cite hydrino in relationship with CF. We don't need a whole sub-section for the theory, just a few sentences will do, maybe one paragraph. Maybe under "Non-nuclear explanations for excess heat"
On Be-8, there are no secondary sources dealing with that. In the link given in the opening post there are 3 sources. First one is Takahashi himself talking about his theory. Second one is from the He Jing-tang paper Front. Phys. China which was already found at the talk page as a paper that appeared to be very flawed and low-quality in a journal of unknown quality. Third one is a conference at a CF conference that appeared in Krivit's sourcebook, which is a compilation of conference papers. So, no, not enough good-quality sources at all. No way it's appearing with only those sources.
On Storms, it was already discussed at the talk page that he is a retired scientist who works from his garage, holds fringe views, gave credence to very fringe views even those verging in crackpottery, it was unknown how much quality control there was at the house editing the book, his views are not representative of mainstream, etc. There were only two book reviews, one in Journal of Scientific Exploration, and one by Sheldon that was discussed here. Additionally, the proposed text placed Storms at the start of the "proposed explanations" section, as giving a summary of the acceptance of explanations on the mainstream, which gave it a lot of undue prominence as is problematic due to Storms not representing the mainstream in the first place. So, not a reliable source. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 05:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Just prurient curiousity... is this still live? Or does Abd's block and ban resolve the issues? William M. Connolley ( talk) 13:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, let me be more explicit. I didn't follow this mediation in any detail, but: If the *only* cause of this mediation existing (at the time, or in retrospect) is Abd, then it can now be closed-moot (I would say). If there were issues needing mediation amongst other participants, then it could still be live. I'm not sure which of those two is the case, so was trying to find out. As a separate issue, I agree that even if it is now dead it might have useful info for future discussion William M. Connolley ( talk) 16:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Obviously you are mistaken; it takes two to make an argument. And Hipocrite has neither been banned from the CF article, nor has (so far as I know) changed his POV. And of course we could easily have another edit war in the future even without either of them, due to new editors arriving. So I personally think that no matter how dead is this mediation, on account of just one party being banned, it should continue to be available for immediate use. I even have in mind a particular point that seems already to have become polarized on the CF Talk page: Arata's 2008 experiment has been cited as a reference to a somewhat similar experiment that was very recently published in Physics Letters A. This gives the earlier experiment some RS that it didn't have before (and it is Secondary RS, at that!), and logically implies Arata's 2008 experiment could now be described in the CF article. But Kirk Shanahan and others are focussing on the "recent-ness" of the PLA article, as if that somehow makes the earlier experiment too recent to talk about. Tsk, tsk. V ( talk) 17:20, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
This page is quite inactive, yes, but it certainly seems reasonable to believe that it may be of use again in the future (assuming my work here has been helpful). For the meantime, however, it may make sense to link to this page as though it were inactive. -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:50, 22 September 2009 (UTC)