I found this article in the Washington Post on "Halfnium bombs" profoundly depressing. This is exactly the way science is _not_ supposed to work (and why am I not surprised the Rumsfeld DoD had a part in it?).
We're talking about the next cold fusion in the sense that cold fusion also turned out to be a pipe dream. This is supposed to be _science_, boys and girls; if it can't be independently verified, it's a fairy tale. In this case, they tried to verify it once, failed, got yelled at by the kook who made the original claims because they supposedly did it wrong, ran it _again_ to his new specifications, and it still failed. On top of that, a group of the best and brightest reviewed the concept and said it didn't work, hadn't worked, and fundamentally couldn't work. In other words, independent verification failed. Spectacularly. So why the fuck are we still spending money on this horse shit?
On top of it all, the episode has all the telltale signs of pseudo-science. When you start claiming that the reason your idea has not been accepted is because of a cabal of established scientists who are too closed-minded to accept a "revolutionary" idea, that's pretty much sign #1 in my mind that you're probably a crackpot. The number of Galileos and Einsteins in the world is greatly outnumbered by nutcases with genuinely stupid ideas. Moreover, you'll notice that Einstein's theories were quickly proven _correct_ once objective experiments were devised. Reproducible results: there's a novel idea!
But you're right...I'm sure Einstein had much less resistance to his idea that time slowed down the faster you traveled and that gravity wasn't so much a force as a curvature in the 4th dimension. Clearly your ideas are much more threatening to the scientific establishment, and they're all just too incompetent to reproduce your results correctly.
Sigh.
I can't help but think this kind of shit is kith and kin to other forms of magical thinking Americans seem to be especially prone to lately like homeopathy and naturopathy. The terms "alternative" and "complementary" medicine, which have been bandied about a lot lately, drive me insane. They are idiotic, meaningless terms meant to suggest that somehow, you know, the scientific method just isn't quite cutting it. This is exactly the same logic used by people who try to tell you that you're being closed-minded when you won't consider the Bible as "another source of knowledge," "different" from science. Not inferior, or the refuge of crackpots, no! It's just "different."
Horse. Shit. I am so incredibly tired of this line of reasoning. Let's dispell it right now, shall we?
Science _is_ knowledge. The two are synonymous. If your "knowledge" is not scientifically acquired, it isn't knowledge. That was the whole point of the scientific method. Namely, if an independent 3rd party can't verify something, it isn't true. Period. End of statement. You can believe that extract of whosiwhatsis improves your mental health all you want, but if a double-blind study shows no difference between your extract and placebo, you're full of shit.
And indeed, that's the crux of the whole issue: the revolution that was science was the ability to objectively show someone was full of shit. See, the human imagination is powerful. It's capable of coming up with lots and lots of weird ideas about the world. But...psst...most of them are _wrong_. Hate to break your bubble, but there are certain rules the universe operates by, and if your rules contradict the universe's, hey, guess what? You lose. You can believe that your crushed DirtyHippyBerries will inspire your aura to enhance your body's natural disease resistance all you want, but in the meantime that cancer is going to keep merrily metastasizing until you're dead. Universe: 1, stupid hippy: 0.
There's no truth in belief, sunshine.
(In fact, it's even worse than that: the moment there _is_ truth in belief, it's not belief any more. It's been objectively verified, which means it's *gasp* science! So _by the very definition of it_, belief is not truth!)
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16 comments:
You wrote:
"We're talking about the next cold fusion in the sense that cold fusion also turned out to be a pipe dream. This is supposed to be _science_, boys and girls; if it can't be independently verified, it's a fairy tale."
You are completely wrong. Cold fusion was independently replicated at high signal to noise ratios by hundreds of world-class laboratories, such as China Lake, Amoco, SRI, Texas A&M, Los Alamos, Mitsubishi Res. Center and Tsinghua U. Hundreds of positive, peer-reviewed papers on cold fusion were published in mainstream journals.
You will find a bibliography of 3,000 papers on cold fusion, and over 500 full text reprints of scientific papers from all of the institutions listed above, and many others, at our web site:
http://lenr-canr.org
I suggest you review this literature before commenting on this subject.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Sigh. Case in point...
The literature? You mean the myriad of papers sent to obscure journals, ones that will print anything they're given, because you couldn't get anything published in a bona fide peer-reviewed journal? Yes, I'll get right on reading those, right after I finishing reading all the scintillating submissions to the SCI 2005 conference on computer science.
You're defending a theory that's synonymous with crackpot pseudoscience that never panned out there, Sparky. Moreover, your web site talks about the "attacks" by Nature on the subject. Need I say more?
And who the hell _are_ you? A Google search suggests that you're basically a guy in his basement with an inferiority complex who wanders around forums posting self-righteous comments. I don't even think you have a PhD. Or any academic credentials whatsoever. So why are you talking?
And to preempt the obvious objection, no, I don't have a PhD in physics either, but _I'm_ not the one going around claiming that his pet theory is being covered up in a giant conspiracy involving all the major researchers and editors in the field. _I'm_ not the one wearing the tinfoil hat.
_My_ assertion is not that I've reviewed all the relevant literature and concluded, in my expert opinion, that cold fusion is crap. _My_ assertion is that the established processes, composed of actual experts in the field (unlike you or I) have evaluated it and concluded, at minimum, that the evidence doesn't justify the claims.
I am going to believe the peer review process at Nature and the review committee in the DoE well before I believe your pathological science.
Get over your pariah complex and either go find something more useful to be self-righteous about.
And for God's sake find some humility. Even if there is a giant conspiracy out there against cold fusion, that doesn't say jack squat about whether cold fusion actually exists. It might _still_ be an illusion, even if you were given all the funding in the world. Read Feynmann's books if you haven't. Real science is about constant, unyielding skepticism, not self-righteous zealotry.
Nick wrote:
"The literature? You mean the myriad of papers sent to obscure journals, ones that will print anything they're given, because you couldn't get anything published in a bona fide peer-reviewed journal?"
No, I mean 1,300 papers in mainstream, long established journals such as Fusion Technology, the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics (Japan's most prestigious journal), the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, the Journal of Fusion Energy, Naturwissenschaften and many others.
Since you do not even know the journal names, you have clearly not read any papers! You are not alone; most people who criticize this field know nothing about it.
"Moreover, your web site talks about the "attacks" by Nature on the subject."
I think you mean Scientific American. I have not quoted Nature on the web site HTML. However, they have published many derogatory comments, similar to yours. I think that Nature’s comments constitute attacks. Are you suggesting that there are no controversies in science, and that Nature and other journals never attack unpopular ideas?
"And who the hell _are_ you?"
I am the Librarian, as noted. I have nothing to do with these claims. I have not published any experiments or theories. Roughly 2,500 professional scientists have published these claims. They include, for example, the former chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission; three editors of major plasma fusion and physics journals; a Fellow of China Lake, A Fellow of the Royal Society, a retired member of the French Atomic Energy Commission, two Nobel laureates, and so on. Who the hell are you to assert that they are all wrong?
"I don't even think you have a PhD. Or any academic credentials whatsoever. So why are you talking?"
I am not talking: the authors are. You need to address their claims, rather than attacking me.
"_My_ assertion is not that I've reviewed all the relevant literature and concluded, in my expert opinion, that cold fusion is crap. _My_ assertion is that the established processes, composed of actual experts in the field (unlike you or I) have evaluated it and concluded, at minimum, that the evidence doesn't justify the claims."
Your assertion is obviously incorrect. The 2,500 scientists who have published cold fusion papers are experts, and so are the reviewers and editors at the Jap. J. Applied Physics and Naturwissenschaften and the other journals that publish cold fusion papers. They concluded that the claims are valid. Other editors concluded that the claims are not valid. This is a scientific controversy -- one of many. However, it should be noted that the editors at Nature and Scientific American reject papers without peer review, and they have told me and others that they have not read any papers on the subject. They are certain the claims are wrong a priori. That is not a scientific attitude.
"I am going to believe the peer review process at Nature and the review committee in the DoE well before I believe your pathological science.
As I said, Nature has not submitted papers to peer review. It rejects them summarily. Even if it had reviewed them, why would you automatically believe their peer-review while you reject Naturwissenschaften's?
Roughly a third of the DoE panel concluded that the claims are valid. That is remarkable, considering how little the panel members know about the subject. You can read the full text of their opinions here:
http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/DoeReview.htm
"And for God's sake find some humility."
I think you should have a little more respect for the opinions of 2,500 professional scientists. You should also respect the peer-review system, and professional journals. It has worked correct. The claims were tested and confirmed by hundreds of world-class laboratories.
"Even if there is a giant conspiracy out there against cold fusion, that doesn't say jack squat about whether cold fusion actually exists."
There is no conspiracy. A conspiracy is an organized and surreptitious effort. The opposition to cold fusion is spontaneous, unorganized, and completely out in the open. Robert Park and others boldly publish attacks in the Washington Post and Time magazine saying that all cold fusion researchers are lunatics, liars or frauds.
"It might _still_ be an illusion, even if you were given all the funding in the world."
That is out of the question. The effect has been observed thousands of times, often at very high signal to noise ratio; i.e. with heat over 100 W, and with hundreds of autoradiographs showing the effects of ~10E10 to 10E14 tritium atoms. For cold fusion to be a mistake you would have to repeal the laws of thermodynamics and prove that x-ray film, mass spectrometers and gamma ray detectors stopped working in 1989.
"Read Feynmann's books if you haven't. Real science is about constant, unyielding skepticism, not self-righteous zealotry."
You seem to have no skepticism regarding anti-cold fusion propaganda. I suggest you read some original source scientific papers, instead of making up facts as you go along, or relying on rumors.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
>> Moreover, your web site talks about the "attacks" by Nature on the subject.
> I think you mean Scientific American. I have not quoted Nature on the web site HTML. However, they have published many derogatory comments, similar to yours. I think that Nature’s comments constitute attacks. Are you suggesting that there are no controversies in science, and that Nature and other journals never attack unpopular ideas?
No, I'm suggesting that using language like that strongly suggests your movement is more interested in promoting an image of unjust persecution than it is in having an honest scientific debate.
> I am the Librarian, as noted. I have nothing to do with these claims.
Oh really? Then why are you trolling forums (fora...whatever) and blog comments pushing an agenda? You are not a librarian, and what you have is not a library. A library is an impartial, objective store of knowledge. Even the Presidential library of GW Bush, arguably the most partisan figure of the last century, isn't just going to have books that promote what he believes in. It's going to be a _library_. You have an agenda.
Call yourself what you are, at least euphemistically: an activist. Calling yourself a librarian is like a drug company representative calling himself a doctor.
> Roughly a third of the DoE panel concluded that the claims are valid.
See? This is why I object to you calling yourself a librarian. I've read enough background to know that statement is false. A third of the DoE panel said there were anomalies in the experiments that are worth investigating. That is a very, very far cry from claiming those anomalies constitute cold fusion.
This is why people like you are dangerous. You have an assumption, and you are cherry-picking and spinning facts to justify that assumption. This is the hallmark of pseudoscience, and if I were to do that as a graduate student, I would be summarily tossed out on my ass for academic dishonesty.
>> It might _still_ be an illusion, even if you were given all the funding in the world.
> That is out of the question.
...and that statement alone tells me you don't understand science. There is no surety in science. Ever. For anything. Doubt, and self-doubt, is quintessential. Even quantum mechanics or relativity, concepts which harbor orders of magnitude more consensus and have orders of magnitude more evidence for them, are merely highly probable. We might find new evidence that throws these ideas out the window. Unlikely, but possible. It happened to Newtonian mechanics. That had a lot going for it right up until the beginning of the 20th century. It turned out, nonetheless, to be wrong.
Scientists are not lawyers. The process is not one of adversarial advocacy. Scientists have a responsibility to objectively look at their results and to present even the things that tend to weaken their hypothesis.
Scientists don't use terms like "anti-cold fusion propaganda" unless it's highly tongue-in-cheek. Conspiracy theorists use those terms. UFO theorists use those terms. "9/11 Truth" people use those terms. Water fluoridation opponents use those terms. Even if you had a valid point, your methods and terminology paint you as a nutcase.
Stop it. Please. If you feel the need to cast yourself as a pariah, find a more worthy cause. Fight for the poor. Fight for the uninsured. Use your energies for worthwhile fights. Don't be a loony ranting from his basement about fringe scientific theories he doesn't have the technical background to be talking about in the first place.
Librarians all have an agenda: we favor reading original sources, learning, and knowing rather than inventing facts as you go along.
Your post-modern view is charming but kind of creepy. You say I should ignore massively replicated experimental evidence of excess heat, neutrons, tritium, and so on, and I should instead believe the opinions of a handful of journal editors, even though these editors know nothing about cold fusion. This is the opposite of "humility" You advocate bowing our heads to vaunted authorities, never questioning their knowledge, and never looking at actual thermocouple readings, autoradiograms, mass spec data and so on. This is not humility. It is pre-Renaissance thinking, more akin to religion than science. You claim to be a skeptic, but you and most other cold fusion deniers are just the opposite of skeptics: you are slavishly devoted to the status quo, closed-minded, unwilling to question authority or read original sources, and blind to experimental data, which is the only standard of truth in science.
Researchers at BARC, India's preeminent nuclear research laboratory, proved beyond doubt that cold fusion is real when they made hundreds of autoradiograph exposures, such as this one:
Autoradiograph
No one can dispute this. No one can overrule it, or declare that x-ray film does not work. Of course one or two researchers might botch an exposure, but this one was made by tritium and reactor safety experts who have 50 years experience with some of the largest power reactors on earth. Furthermore, researchers in Los Alamos and over a hundred other labs have published compelling evidence for tritium obtained with autoradiographs and many other techniques. Are you quite certain that all of these people are wrong, and that you know more about tritium than they do? You are the one who needs to learn some humility!
To their credit, the editors at Nature, the Washington Post and elsewhere have never tried to dispute this image. Instead they say that I fabricated it, or the Government of India fabricated it. They apparently believe in conspiracy theories. Science is based upon instrument readings and the laws of physics and chemistry, and upon the absolute primacy of replicated experimental data over theory. Ten thousand ignorant journal editors cannot overrule this autoradiograph, or any of the thousands of other data sets. If every scientist on earth asserted that cold fusion does not exist, this autoradiograph would prove they are all wrong.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
You wrote:
"Scientists don't use terms like "anti-cold fusion propaganda" unless it's highly tongue-in-cheek.
Okay, let's look at actual quotes, shall we? Here is what scientists on both sides of the dispute said. The APS attacked cold fusion researchers including the late Nobel laureate Julian Schwinger. Schwinger resigned from the APS in protest, and he wrote:
"The pressure for conformity is enormous. I have experienced it in editors’ rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous referees. The replacement of impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science."
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SchwingerJcoldfusiona.pdf
I hope you will agree that Schwinger thought cold fusion was being suppressed. He could hardly have said it more clearly. Hundreds of cold fusion researchers agree with him.
Here is how the APS Science Policy Administrator responded to Schwinger, in the New Scientist:
Cold fusion scientists are "a cult of fervent half-wits" "While every result and conclusion they publish meets with overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, they resolutely pursue their illusion of fusing hydrogen in a mason jar. . . . And a few scientists, captivated by [Fleischmann and Pons'] fantasy . . . pursue cold fusion with Branch Davidian intensity."
I would call that an ad hominem attack. Wouldn't you? Or do you think it is fair and objective to ridicule thousands of professional scientists this way?
I would also call it an attack when the Washington Post accuses researchers of criminal fraud. None of these opponents has ever published a peer-reviewed paper showing errors in any of the paper. All they have ever published is shrill, unfounded invective -- like yours. Do you think these scientists have fulfilled their "responsibility to objectively look at their results and to present even the things that tend to weaken their hypothesis"? Have you?
I suggest you heed your own words for once.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
At the risk of further fanning the cold fusion war flames, I do have to take issue with something you said, Jed. I don't know much about cold fusion, but I am a scientist as well, and feel the need to respond to this:
"Science is based upon instrument readings and the laws of physics and chemistry, and upon the absolute primacy of replicated experimental data over theory. Ten thousand ignorant journal editors cannot overrule this autoradiograph, or any of the thousands of other data sets. If every scientist on earth asserted that cold fusion does not exist, this autoradiograph would prove they are all wrong."
One of the fundmental problems we face in doing science is that we have a very incomplete picture of how the world works. So we make theories based on our best guesses and do experiments to see whether our theories hold up. If we do a number of different types of independent experiments that all suggest that our theory is correct, then we become more and more convinced that our theory might have elements of truth. However, the picture (particularly in biology, my field) is always more complicated.
There are essentially two parts to any experiment: the experimental design/performance and the interpretation. The design can be flawed, have experimental error, or not include appropriate controls. These types of errors are often the most obvious and the easiest to control. The interpretation, however, is another matter. If I design and perform an experiment perfectly, then I can be reasonably confident that 100 years from now, someone could take the exact same reagents and same protocol and obtain the same results. However, I am similarly confident that by that point the field will have changed so much and our understanding of it will have gained so much depth that the interpretation might be the complete opposite of mine, and will probably at minimum be much more nuanced. The experiment is the experiment, but one experiment on its own never _proves_ anything. It is always open to reinterpretation as we gain more insight into the way the world works.
"No one can dispute this. No one can overrule it, or declare that x-ray film does not work."
Not for nothing, Jed, but why doesn't anyone, I dunno, do it again? I honestly don't know if they've tried but it would seem strange that Nature and the Post and every other "cold fusion denier" would be so adamantly against the theory if they could recreate such an indisputable test.
> Librarians all have an agenda: we favor reading original sources, learning, and knowing rather than inventing facts as you go along.
Please stop referring to yourself as a librarian. I find it, frankly, offensive, both personally and to those people who dedicate their lives to the impartial preservation of knowledge. You have a very clear agenda, and you cherry-pick articles and information that suits your purposes. That is the antithesis of what a librarian does.
That you regard your opinion as unassailable fact, so much so that you believe your collection of evidence in support of your belief can be called a "library," and yourself a "librarian," is both a symptom of your delusional zealotry and deeply troubling.
In fact, let's review the concept of a library here, Jed. When you walk into your town's library, do you see signs that say, "Liberals are trying to destroy America! Learn about all their Conservative-denying plans in our 'New Books' section!"? If you walk up to the counter and say, "I'd like a book about the Roswell landing," do they say:
a) "Sure...right over here.", or
b) "I'm sorry. There was no Roswell landing. We only carry books on stuff that isn't wrong."
Hmm? Right. The correct answer is a), because libraries agnostically store information. They don't make assumptions about what is and isn't true, and filter out everything they believe isn't true. That's what you do, Jed, and that's why you aren't a librarian, and why your web site isn't a library, desperate though you seem to believe you are.
But hey, look on the bright side: you're in good company. Every conspiracy theorist compiles vast amounts of evidence in support of whatever they believe in and calls it a "library," or "information center," or what have you. Look at these "libraries" and their associated euphemisms:
"The UFO Information Network":
http://www.pufoin.com/
"Educate Yourself":
http://www.educate-yourself.org/
The latter is a, "...free educational forum dedicated to the dissemination of accurate information in the use of natural, non-pharmaceutical medicines and alternative healing therapies in the treatment of disease conditions."
You know, come to think of it, these web sites seem to have a lot of evidence, so I can only conclude that you're ignoring the vast, irrefutable evidence available that shows the moon landing was a hoax, vaccines are inherently dangerous, Zionists control our national banks, and, I don't know, let's throw in the Illuminati Depopulation Plan for poisoning the water in LA.
Finally, Jed, let's clear one thing up: I'm not suggesting you ignore scientific evidence. I'm suggesting that given that you have no advanced degree in physics and are not competent to participate in technical discussions about the topic (don't feel bad...I'm not either), you should stop trying to argue the technical merits of something you can't possibly fully understand, at least until you go get a PhD and have worked on novel research that is ultimately vetted in a peer review process. You know, actual science.
Moreover, given that it's hard to know whether an institution like Nature ignored its own standards of peer review on the issue without understanding the highly technical details of fusion experimental design, for example, it doesn't really make sense to accuse them of being "anti-cold fusion propagandists." You're not qualified to make that judgment. Neither am I. Which is why I tend to give Nature, Scientific American, the DoE, and the Navy, the benefit of the doubt. Those entities are part of the top tier of a peer review process that has served us pretty well so far. If I am to be convinced that those entities are no longer functioning as they should, it won't be by a cold fusion enthusiast with delusions of librarianship.
So, I'll reiterate: stop erroneously referring to yourself as a librarian, and go find a cause you're more qualified to champion. You seem to have a lot of energy. It's sad it's not being put to good use.
You wrote:
"a) "Sure...right over here.", or
b) "I'm sorry. There was no Roswell landing. We only carry books on stuff that isn't wrong.'"
You are implying that our library has no papers opposing cold fusion. That is incorrect. Only a handful of peer-reviewed papers against cold fusion have been published. We have 6, which is nearly all of them, as far as I know. A few anti-cold fusion authors have refused permission.
"Finally, Jed, let's clear one thing up: I'm not suggesting you ignore scientific evidence. I'm suggesting that given that you have no advanced degree in physics and are not competent to participate in technical discussions about the topic (don't feel bad...I'm not either) . . ."
First of all, I am describing conclusions arrived at by the authors, who are all professional scientists. Second, many of the experiments do not require an advanced degree to understand. Most of them depend upon laws of physics and experimental techniques that were perfected in the late 18th and mid-19th century. Anyone who has studied physics will understand them, and I have studied physics and biology as an undergraduate. I have written about these experiments in some detail. If you would like to judge whether I understand them correctly or not, you can read my papers. I have also translated and edited hundreds of papers, and edited two books, so I am quite familiar with many aspects of the subject.
"You know, actual science."
Are you suggesting that Nobel leaureate Schwinger and the other 2,500 authors do not do actual science?
"Moreover, given that it's hard to know whether an institution like Nature ignored its own standards of peer review on the issue without understanding the highly technical details of fusion experimental design, for example . . ."
No, it is not hard to know this. The U.S. editor of Nature told me that cold fusion papers are rejected without peer-review and without reading. They send out a form letter to authors saying that. They did make one exception, however. Lewis wrote an anti-cold fusion paper in Nature (one of the few we do not have). When Miles and two others wrote a critique of it, Nature submitted the critique to peer-review by Lewis, the original author. He informed the editor that he was right and Miles was wrong. In peer-review, you are not often allowed to reject a critique of your own paper, but that’s what happened. You can read about the dispute in my introduction to Miles.
". . . it doesn't really make sense to accuse them of being "anti-cold fusion propagandists." You're not qualified to make that judgment. Neither am I."
This is not a technical issue. When Nature and the Washington Post accuse 2,500 researchers of being criminals and lunatics, that is political. It is anti-cold fusion propaganda. It is also a lie. I know hundreds of researchers and I assure you, they are not criminals or lunatics.
"Which is why I tend to give Nature, Scientific American, the DoE, and the Navy, the benefit of the doubt."
Why do you not give the benefit of the doubt to editors at Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry or the Journal of Fusion Energy? The editors of Scientific American told me that they have not read any papers on cold fusion because it is "not their job." So I do not think you should give them any befit of a doubt. Researchers at the Navy have published ~50 papers on cold fusion. Since you give the Navy the benefit of the doubt, I suggest you read some of their papers. See:
http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/USNavy.htm
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Okwui said...
"'No one can dispute this. No one can overrule it, or declare that x-ray film does not work.'
Not for nothing, Jed, but why doesn't anyone, I dunno, do it again?"
X-ray film has been used in dozens of labs, and other methods of detecting tritium have been used successfully in well over 100 labs, in thousands of runs. See, for example, the results from Los Alamos, Amoco, TAMU and the ENEA labs (Italian National Nuclear Labs.)
X-ray film is old fashioned but reliable. I think it is best when combined with more modern techniques, which has often been done.
"I honestly don't know if they've tried but it would seem strange that Nature and the Post and every other 'cold fusion denier' would be so adamantly against the theory if they could recreate such an indisputable test."
It is odd, isn't it? I do not understand the psychology of people who accuse thousands of scientists of criminal fraud because those scientists have published peer-reviewed results.
But anyway, the people at the Washington Post are not capable of doing experiments! It takes an expert many months, a fully equipped lab, and anywhere from $100,000 to $20 million to replicate cold fusion, depending on the technique. Maddox, the editor at Nature, was certainly not qualified to do electrochemistry. He knows nothing about the experiment, and he does not have a PhD or any relevant expertise. He and the other hard-core critics have written many assertions about fusion that you can compare to the actual literature. You will see that they know nothing about it.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Alissa wrote:
"One of the fundmental problems we face in doing science is that we have a very incomplete picture of how the world works."
Very true! For example, no one can explain in detail why different radioactive elements decay at different rates, or why cold fusion works.
"There are essentially two parts to any experiment: the experimental design/performance and the interpretation. The design can be flawed, have experimental error, or not include appropriate controls. These types of errors are often the most obvious and the easiest to control."
Agreed.
"The interpretation, however, is another matter."
Okay, so here are some widely replicated, high-sigma observations of cold fusion:
* It produces hundreds of megajoules per mole of material, with no chemical changes. Power levels have been as high as 100 W, often with no input power, which simplifies calorimetry.
* It produces helium in the same ratio to heat as plasma fusion does.
* It transmutes metals. This has been confirmed dozens of times with 100% reproducibility in a complex experiment replicated at Mitsubishi, Tokyo U., the National Synchrotron Lab., and Toyota.
* It often produces tritium, usually as precursor to excess heat.
* It sometimes produces gamma rays and, x-rays.
* It produces neutrons at a level ~11 million times lower than plasma fusion.
SO . . . what is your interpretation? Do you think that the effect is chemical, or nuclear?
Or do you think it might be an experimental error, even though it has been replicated in hundreds of labs, often at high s/n ratios?
I conclude that it is nuclear, by definition, since it changes the nucleus and it produces no chemical changes. Because it releases energy and produces helium at the same rate as plasma fusion, I conclude that it is probably fusion. Obviously it is not the same as plasma fusion, or I and thousands of others who have observed working cells would be dead. It may also produce fission reactions, probably as a side effect.
These seem like safe and very defensible conclusions to me. Frankly, I cannot imagine how anyone can dispute them.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
I wrote:
"X-ray film has been used in dozens of labs, and other methods of detecting tritium have been used successfully . . ."
X-ray film with titanium cathodes, that is! See Rout et al., who described "characteristic X-ray measurement of titanium excited by the tritium beta."
X-ray film is often used to detect x-rays within liquid cells, but that would be from the cold fusion reaction directly.
Tritium is usually measured with a liquid scintillator or Si detector, I believe, and/or later by measuring He3.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Let me clarify something. Nick wrote:
"Moreover, given that it's hard to know whether an institution like Nature ignored its own standards of peer review on the issue without understanding the highly technical details of fusion experimental design, for example . . ."
I wrote:
No, it is not hard to know this. The U.S. editor of Nature told me that cold fusion papers are rejected without peer-review and without reading.
The important thing is, he also told me why they reject papers: because cold fusion is pathological science and the researchers are all frauds and lunatics.
Nature publishes countless papers about complex subjects, so that is not a problem.
The editors of the Scientific American, Time, the Washington Post and many others have told me in writing that they reject all cold fusion claims because cold fusion is "garbage" "fraud" and the researchers are "lunatics" who "bay at the moon." They have also said that in editorials and columns, so I am sure they mean it. I am also sure they have rejected all papers without reading them because their assertions about cold fusion are technically incorrect, to say the least.
Like Nick, they also make up facts, such as the claim that the effect was never replicated. Like Nick, they know nothing about the research and yet they presume to pontificate about it and ridicule and attack researchers. They never address technical details; it is always an ad hominem attack on the researchers, or on their employers, wives, families, facial appearance, etc. For example, one of the members of the 1989 DoE ERAB panel that rejected cold fusion, Prof. W. Happer, said: "Just by looking at Fleischmann and Pons on television you could tell they were incompetent boobs."
(Nick and many others have attacked me, which is an honor I do not deserve).
This is not how scientists are supposed to act, but scientists are political primates, like everyone else. Very few of them are fair, objective or open minded.
This blog is a classic example of mindless, unfounded, rabid opposition to cold fusion. Nick has performed a public service by writing these intemperate comments. I thank him for that.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
I wrote that I conclude that it is nuclear, by definition, since it changes the nucleus and it produces no chemical changes. As a librarian, I should quote other people's conclusions, not my own. Our host, Nick, believes that "there is no surety in science." Some scientists disagree with him, especially distinguished scientists over age 60. Here are two affirmative conclusions:
"In spite of my earlier conclusion, - and that of the majority of scientists, - that the phenomena reported by Fleischmann and Pons in 1989 depended either on measurement errors or were of chemical origin, there is now undoubtedly overwhelming indications that nuclear processes take place in the metal alloys."
- Heinz Gerischer, the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin
Note that he said "undoubtedly overwhelming indications." No waffling there. He found the evidence compelling.
And here, in a nutshell, is why most researchers conclude that the effect is nuclear:
"The calorimetry conclusively shows excess energy was produced within the electrolytic cell over the period of the experiment. This amount, 50 kilojoules, is such that any chemical reaction would have had to been in near molar amounts to have produced the energy. Chemical analysis shows clearly that no such chemical reactions occurred. The tritium results show that some form of nuclear reactions occurred during the experiment. . . . The main point of the tritium in this experiment is then that there are some nuclear processes involved. . . "
- Lautzenhiser and Phelps, Amoco Production Company
Note the use of words such as "conclusively" and "no such chemical reactions." These are not marginal results. The signal is strong and the conclusions are inescapable.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Okay, Jed, I think we're about done here. I told you I'm not doing to spend time debating the technical details of something I don't have the background to understand with someone else who also doesn't have the background to understand them (but still, for some reason, spends his time doing so). You may move on to the next obscure blog that happens to mention cold fusion. Those conspiracy theories are not going to advocate themselves!
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