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What happened to cold fusion?
- Thread starter spinnaker
- Start date
In fairness, there have been other discoveries that took a long time to reproduce. High current-density superconductors were an example. This was because of the critical role that impurities played in pinning the flux within the conductor. Some think that impurities might play a critical role in whatever is going on in whatever cold fusion is.
As for the pentagram mode (TiC noted), if it were reproducible it would quickly gain acceptance, but it would sure open up a whole new field of scientific inquiry that would be interesting and entertaining to watch.
As for the pentagram mode (TiC noted), if it were reproducible it would quickly gain acceptance, but it would sure open up a whole new field of scientific inquiry that would be interesting and entertaining to watch.
Glenn Holland
- Joined Dec 26, 2014
- 703
As I've said before, the claim that this experiment was a form of "fusion" -IE- a nuclear process that released energy is absurd.
Nuclear fusion releases gamma radiation which has an extremely short wavelength and is extremely hazardous. So if it was nuclear fusion, the experimenters would not be around long enough to brag about it.
Nuclear fusion releases gamma radiation which has an extremely short wavelength and is extremely hazardous. So if it was nuclear fusion, the experimenters would not be around long enough to brag about it.
We don't but we also don't know for sure that magic fairy dust can't exist. Everyone should have a marker somewhere on the unlikely scale that says "BS".
As long as that marker doesn't write over the word imagination... I'm just sayin'
Seriously now, the big Q here would be, "how much time and resources are you willing to spend investigating this sort of anomaly?" ... yes, one should have a BS alarm installed in one's intellect so as not to waste time with tall tales and far-fetched ideas. But then again, one shouldn't close all doors to unusual phenomena without a solid explanation either.
IMO cold fusion is a modern version of the The Turk. A fantastic facade of electrochemical gears, nuclear levers and pseudoscience designed to misdirect by a “secret mix” of catalyst with the power of a supernova and none of the radiation.
I'd be willing to spend more if the proponents could actually show there IS an anomaly, in the sense of a science anomaly instead of an experimental one. You need good equipment and good experiments before you can rule out established science. But it always seems like the good labs with good researchers and good equipment can't find these elusive phenomenon.
Is it really that dangerous?
As with any form of radiation, it depends on how much you get over how short a period of time. Designing an experiment in which the potential radiation release remains below a safety threshold is not that difficult, though it can make the instrumentation needed to detect the events more demanding.
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Lets say this paper is true: http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf
Unlikely to be true: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-ba...n-or-scientific-fraud-624f15676f96#.gyl8jang7
The E-cat process claims to produce large amounts of excess heat (~1.5 MWh over a month of operation) from a 'cold fusion' process on a machine shielded by aluminum foil and tape. My simple understanding is the nuclear reaction (even a new type of nuclear reaction) always results in some level of gamma radiation due to the electrical length (atomic nucleus) of the separated particles during the reaction.
Unlikely to be true: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-ba...n-or-scientific-fraud-624f15676f96#.gyl8jang7
The E-cat process claims to produce large amounts of excess heat (~1.5 MWh over a month of operation) from a 'cold fusion' process on a machine shielded by aluminum foil and tape. My simple understanding is the nuclear reaction (even a new type of nuclear reaction) always results in some level of gamma radiation due to the electrical length (atomic nucleus) of the separated particles during the reaction.
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Easy, make a working device that independent researchers can reproduce. Until then, it's just the same old BS.
Agreed ... but she's also right in that research should continue, if only to actually prove that it will never work ...
Nobody has stopped actual research but there have been Cold Fusion Con-Men that needed to be stopped.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i44/Cold-fusion-died-25-years.html
Scientists continue to study unusual heat-generating effects, some hoping for vindication, others for an eventual payday
Back when Pons and Fleischmann first made their announcement, I was an undergrad in physics and a couple of the faculty who specialized in solid state and nuclear physics jump on the wagon to try to replicate the results. I was talking to one of them and he said that there was clearly some interesting physics going on that couldn't be readily explained, but it wasn't fusion in any meaningful sense.
Despite the fraudsters that immediately came out of the woodwork, not to mention the serious weaknesses discovered in the original work and disclosures, the fact that there was interesting, but unexplainable, physics going on warrants further investigation in order to understand and explain it, regardless of whether it leads to true cold fusion or not. The knowledge gained will almost certainly result in further developments, possibly in completely unrelated settings, that will have practical benefits.
My brother in-law is a physics professor and said that every physics lab in the world tried to run the Pons Fleischmann experiment back in the day. As physics go, it's a pretty cheap thing to try. A handful of them may have seen things hard to explain but most saw nothing and quietly moved on.
Hello there, just saw this thread.
The reason I believe the so-called Cold Fusion went south is because there was no cold fusion in the first place. The people working on it made some bad measurements. Here's an analogy of what I think they did, after reading more about this, and keep in mind that one of the telltale signs of the nuclear reaction is some amount of heat that is in excess of what should be there for the given input power. Say we input 1 watt and get 10 watts out. In theory that's possible in some other nuclear process that would be real life fusion. It's not really greater than 100 percent efficiency though it's just what happens during real life fusion.
Here's the analogy...
Imagine you are cooking a frozen midsized steak in the microwave oven, and let's say it's shaped like a large hockey puck. Now we all know you are supposed to cook meat up to around 160 degrees F, so you stick the thermometer into the meat near the edge (or place it on top near the edge). The thermometer eventually reads 160 degrees, so you take the steak out. It's done, right? Well, no. Because we measured the temperature near the edge only, we only measured the heat near the edge and ignored the middle. But now calculate heat energy considering that the ENTIRE steak had reached 160 degrees and what do you get? You get a calculation that shows more energy must have reached the steak than we applied as input, which is an indicator that a nuclear reaction had taken place and not a regular chemical reaction. Thus, the conclusion is, cold fusion works.
It is of course a false conclusion because we only measured the excess heat at the edge of the steak and then assumed that the entire steak had reached 160 degrees not just the edges. That of course means that although it appeared that we saw excess heat, it really did not happen, and that means no nuclear reaction took place, and thus no fusion.
This is only part of it I think though, I am not sure how they had shown that they got some excess helium which is another indicator, and possibly a couple other elements that were not there before the 'reaction' took place. One opinion is that they spiked it with external elements added to make it look more convincing, but I do not know how much truth there is behind that.
It's a shame that all this took place because it became harder to get funding for projects that aim to discover more about fusion in general. From what I read now though, the US is finally funding some US based fusion experiments, presumably 'hot' fusion though.
I can see why so many people were so interested in this and are still interested in the more convincing 'hot' fusion, because the possible benefits are so incredible. We'd have plenty of power all over the world and we would not need any more coal burning that messes up the atmosphere.
It's also pretty amazing when you think about how it would work in the practical situation. First we would input some energy, then once the reaction started, we just provide small amounts of 'fuel'. It would look to the casual observer as a greater than 100 percent efficient machine, but it would not really be one, it would just be taking advantage of the energy in the atom.
The reason I believe the so-called Cold Fusion went south is because there was no cold fusion in the first place. The people working on it made some bad measurements. Here's an analogy of what I think they did, after reading more about this, and keep in mind that one of the telltale signs of the nuclear reaction is some amount of heat that is in excess of what should be there for the given input power. Say we input 1 watt and get 10 watts out. In theory that's possible in some other nuclear process that would be real life fusion. It's not really greater than 100 percent efficiency though it's just what happens during real life fusion.
Here's the analogy...
Imagine you are cooking a frozen midsized steak in the microwave oven, and let's say it's shaped like a large hockey puck. Now we all know you are supposed to cook meat up to around 160 degrees F, so you stick the thermometer into the meat near the edge (or place it on top near the edge). The thermometer eventually reads 160 degrees, so you take the steak out. It's done, right? Well, no. Because we measured the temperature near the edge only, we only measured the heat near the edge and ignored the middle. But now calculate heat energy considering that the ENTIRE steak had reached 160 degrees and what do you get? You get a calculation that shows more energy must have reached the steak than we applied as input, which is an indicator that a nuclear reaction had taken place and not a regular chemical reaction. Thus, the conclusion is, cold fusion works.
It is of course a false conclusion because we only measured the excess heat at the edge of the steak and then assumed that the entire steak had reached 160 degrees not just the edges. That of course means that although it appeared that we saw excess heat, it really did not happen, and that means no nuclear reaction took place, and thus no fusion.
This is only part of it I think though, I am not sure how they had shown that they got some excess helium which is another indicator, and possibly a couple other elements that were not there before the 'reaction' took place. One opinion is that they spiked it with external elements added to make it look more convincing, but I do not know how much truth there is behind that.
It's a shame that all this took place because it became harder to get funding for projects that aim to discover more about fusion in general. From what I read now though, the US is finally funding some US based fusion experiments, presumably 'hot' fusion though.
I can see why so many people were so interested in this and are still interested in the more convincing 'hot' fusion, because the possible benefits are so incredible. We'd have plenty of power all over the world and we would not need any more coal burning that messes up the atmosphere.
It's also pretty amazing when you think about how it would work in the practical situation. First we would input some energy, then once the reaction started, we just provide small amounts of 'fuel'. It would look to the casual observer as a greater than 100 percent efficient machine, but it would not really be one, it would just be taking advantage of the energy in the atom.
It's amazing what could change if hot fusion ever goes commercial. It would surely be the best thing ever invented in the history of mankind.
That's until we get carried away with it and discover the down sides to it years later
