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U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document

A November 13, 2009 report on cold fusion: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/2009DIA-08-0911-003.pdf ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:13, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Can someone show the Provenance of that document? Hipocrite (talk) 11:50, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

It appears to have popped up in a number of places. I'm still looking, but.... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22defense+intelligence+agency%22+%22cold+fusion%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi= V (talk) 14:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

All of those cite the document to a single, unreliable source. Hipocrite (talk) 14:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Just because you CLAIM a source is unreliable, that doesn't mean it actually is (and vice-versa, of course, but I'm not making that claim). What evidence have you got, to support your claim? The document itself claims to have been prepared by the "Defense Warning Office". It doesn't seem to have an ordinary Web presense, but I did find this: "by visiting the DIA homepage on INTELINK and selecting the Defense Warning Office site", at this link: https://acc.dau.mil/CommunityBrowser.aspx?id=22190 --I would tend to conclude from that reference on a .mil page that the DWO actually exists. This of course does not mean that the DWO actually did (or did not) originate the document; it just means someone with greater authority/access than myself would be needed to verify it. V (talk) 14:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me to mention the "WikiLeaks" site. They post a lot of documents that arrive by less-than-open means. Some of those posted documents may be forgeries --the only way I know that proves a document to be a non-forgery is for the originator to raise a fuss!. Does this mean that if the originators get wise and stop raising a fuss, whenever a new document is posted, the whole "WikiLeaks" site must therefore be declared to be an unreliable source? V (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikileaks is an unreliable source. Hipocrite (talk) 15:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course the office exists. The issue is that NET is not a reliable source by WP standards. If this is news, let a reliable source document it. Phil153 (talk) 15:55, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

How about the WikiSource site? They shouldn't have any objection to hosting a copy of the .pdf, which is an unclassified government-released document. V (talk) 16:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

WikiSource would probably accept it as an upload, however, WikiSource is not a reliable source. Hipocrite (talk) 16:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

That's stupid; WikiSource is closely associated with Wikipedia, and therefore cannot be considered less reliable than Wikipedia. Are you going to insist that all the links to other Wikipedia articles, from the CF article, must be eliminated on such ridiculous grounds? V (talk) 16:13, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. See WP:CIRCULAR. Hipocrite (talk) 16:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Circularity does not apply in this case; the origin of the .pdf has nothing to do with Wikipedia or WikiSource. What definition of "source" are you using, anyway? Do note that even Wikipedia Policies acknowledge that not everything that qualifies an acceptable source is available on the Web (old back issues of magazines, for example, like "Electronics", a tech reference that last I heard went belly-up because of the Web). Not to mention that while government sources as a whole might not be reliable, it is the job of government intelligence sources to be reliable. So, what other stupidly specious and unsupported arguments can you raise, against referencing this article? V (talk) 16:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

(undent)There's no evidence that document is from a government agency. If it is, it's a primary source. Primary sources are not notable unless they are adressed by secondary sources. Hipocrite (talk) 16:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

right, "no evidence" except a document id number, official seal, names of authors, and names of offices coordinated by. All of which faking is highly illegal. Kevin Baas^talk 18:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

If Joe Shmoe posts a scientific paper by Richard Feymann that doesn't automagically make said paper bullsh*t. New Energy Times is not the source. They did not write the document. That's what source means. That's why it's called "source". Look at the end of the document for the source(s). You want to verify its authenticity? Send an email to the DIA. Document id DIA-08-911-003. Presumably they authored and published it (made it an official record). THEY are the source. You can contact the authors individually if you like, their names and offices are on the report. Kevin Baas^talk 18:20, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

You presumed wrong, which is why our WP:RS rules exist, and why we don't pay attention to sites like New Energy Times. It may become official but is not yet. Phil153 (talk) 10:31, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

You say that they did not author or publish it, yet their names are on the document. Thus you are saying that the document is a forgery. That is an extraordinary claim. When you make such claims, you have to provide proportional evidence. You did not provide any evidence. In my post I gave the means to acquire such evidence. Did you check with the offices? The authors? Please provide. If you cannot provide such evidence, then your unsupported claim means nothing to me; then you leave me entirely unconvinced. I hope you understand. I am simply being rational. Kevin Baas^talk 16:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC) I suppose you're right about the publishing part. I didn't say "I presume" I said "presumably", though both are true. (true or not, it is a reasonable supposition, which is why i used the word as a qualifier) In any case it is still they that are the original source and the first question is to get some handle on the document's authenticity (or lack thereof), then it's status as a primary source. I don't see any reason why we'd have to use it in any way that requires a secondary source (by WP:RS, but if that comes up, we can deal with that then. Kevin Baas^talk 20:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I propose that people put off discussing this further unless someone proposes an edit to the article. Olorinish (talk) 16:44, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

One thing at at time, Olorinish; if we can't have the document as a reference, then we can't edit the CF article to reference it. Hipocrite's argument still doesn't hold water; we have the N.E.T. and all those other places identified by that Google search linked above, as secondary references to this document. All that matters is evidence that the document is genuine. AND Hipocrite has now kindly eliminated himself from objecting to a completely different edit to the article, one that would describe Arata's 2008 pressurization CF experiment, since it was secondary-sourced in a recent high-quality RS article. (discussion of that now archived off this page) V (talk) 17:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

This is exactly why we only use WP:RS as sources for articles. The email also makes it clear this is merely an employee who's been convinced of the likelihood of cold fusion and wants to "get the word out", not the official position (yet) of the DIA. Phil153 (talk) 04:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It's now been removed from the New Energy Times site. The link above had a letter from the paper's author at the DIA asking for the report to be taken down. The article had not been approved for public release by her bosses...i.e. it's not yet official. The author said: "I would like to not antagonize anyone in my food chain who could insert negative input into the dissemination process since the info needs to get out". Phil153 (talk) 10:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The document is still there as I write this. http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/ The requesting letter is there, also, but it's existence doesn't matter (except in one way), because copyright law does not apply to government (public) documents; there is no such thing as a DMCA takedown notice for govt docs. The way in which the letter does matter is: It is evidence that the document is genuine. You have a point regarding the appearance of the document outside any traditional process of publication. On another hand, the document is not actually a "primary source" of CF data; it is a secondary compilation of CF data, like Storm's book, and the RS standards are not quite so strict for secondary compilations; Wikipedia needs such compilations per the "recent items" rule that was invoked when the anti-CFers were arguing about that just-published report concerning a modifed version of Arata's 2008 experiment (hey, why can't I find that rule on the "list of policies" page???). So, let's take a quick look at the references in this document; those are about things that we might be able to mention in this CF article. I see quite a number of them are from standard pro-CF sources like the annual "Conference" they hold, and I won't argue that this document gives them any more weight than they ever had. But what about #7? (Dechiaro, Louis, "Recent Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions", briefing prepared by NAVSEA, Dahlgren, for DDR&E, 28 August 2009) ---the heavy-duty acronyms imply a military facility like SPAWAR, and of course the Defense Intelligence Agency could be expected to have access to such briefings. Then there are some other references to "Thermochimica Acta" and "Naturwissenschaften" articles that we already use in the CF article; it only makes sense for the DIA document to reference them if its purpose is to show increased international interest in CF research. Hey, Phil, even if that document does get released formally by the DIA, it would still be outside the normal publication process, so my question is, "How does Wikipedia treat Government releases, per the RS rules?" V (talk) 15:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm unclear and curious about that, too. Perhaps something to be brought up on the WP:RS talk page or wherever the proper venue for that kind of thing is. (I forget.) Kevin Baas^talk 21:03, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Nobody is claiming that the document represents an "official position" of any agency. And I don't think WP:RS has anything in it pertaining to speculations about authors (or compilers) feelings and motivations. I certainly hope not. Kevin Baas^talk 17:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

TLDR. Propose a change to the article or don't. Hipocrite (talk) 15:25, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Emails and a suggested edit

I emailed Pamela Mosier-Boss, one of the contributors to the report, today, to inquire about the status of the document. In her reply she states that she contacted Bev [the lead author] and that it is an unclassified document.

I haven't seen the email mentioned by some other editors above. Perhaps the email was itself retracted from the New Energy Times website?

I was one who saw the letter, but now also cannot find it. Perhaps the please-retract letter has been retracted! V (talk) 14:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure other changes will be proposed, bur for now I simply suggest that this document be added as a citation in a footnote in the lead at the end of the sentence "...some have reported positive results in peer-reviewed journals", a statement for which this document is a secondary source. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:36, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Cmon...it hasn't even been reported in RS and we don't yet know if it is an official DIA position, or the work of one employee. Why the enthusiasm to go against WP:NOTNEWS, which says While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information? I really don't understand why anyone would include an as yet uncertain document apart from pushing a POV on cold fusion. I mean that comment in good faith - I don't get it. If a new skeptical report came out I wouldn't push to put it in immediately before it was reported or verified. Phil153 (talk) 00:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Phil, while this document may be new, I don't see that it contains anything that can be called "news". There is a "meta" thing about it, though, which could be called news, but only if the document becomes "Official". In other words, a the moment (time of this writing) we know someone in an obscure corner of the DIA thinks that CF is something that should not be allowed to take the US economy by surprise. If the document becomes "Official", then that would be "news" ---a governmental agency would at that time be recommending to the rest of the government that CF research be taken more seriously. At the moment, though, the document is no more official --and no less! --than Storm's book. Which fact might be useful to some part of the CF article here (I'd like to know what was in that "Dechiaro, Louis, 'Recent Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions' briefing"). V (talk) 14:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Besides which an editor's private email correspondence is exactly the sort of OR that can't be used to verify the provenance of a source for an article. Get a copy of the paper directly from the DIA or find a copy in a technical library (a real one). --71.174.168.21 (talk) 09:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Really? Then if I want to find out who wrote, say, an article in the new york times, who do I contact for that information? Kevin Baas^talk 19:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Coppertwig, what link do you propose placing in the article? Olorinish (talk) 14:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps you should tell that to CBS, NBC, etc. They've been doing it that way for years. Kevin Baas^talk 14:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

When a reader wishes to verify something in the article, how exactly would they know what is in that email?LeadSongDog come howl 15:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Ask the same question to CBS, NBC, Wall Street Journal, etc. What do you think they would say? "We asked them if the documents were geniune and/or if the information in it was accurate, and they said "yes"". What more does the reader need to know? "Yes. Oh, and btw, it's a little chilly here over in Florida, and the kids are doing fine." I mean, really, c'mon! Does the reader really need to know everything we discussed regarding the reliability of a particular source? Do we really need to put the whole talk page discussion in the article every time we vet a source? The reader needs to know that we vetted it. They know that by seeing it in the biblio. And you know what, sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes sources in the biblio aren't vetted. But you know how we fix that? By vetting them or removing them. Not by giving the reader every detail about the author's day or exactly how he chose to phrase the word "yes" one particular evening. If they want to know what the WSJ thinking when they published a particular article that we use as a source on one of wp's articles, well, they can ask them - WP is not the place for that kind of info. Kevin Baas^talk 16:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

"We"? "C'mon" indeed. Are you suggesting that:

1. we should rely on an email, seen by just one pseudonymous editor, to confirm that Dr Boss said that Bev said that the "DIA" document is unclassified (like my grocery list);
2. we take that hearsay to imply that the "DIA" document is not just unclassified but published, authentic, unaltered, credible, and correct (oh, I'd better add magic beans to the grocery list); or
3. we take the further step to infer that the document is significant (better take the family's cow to market to pay for those magic beans, wouldn't want to miss out on those great beans).

Really, even if we could trust it, it doesn't say anything new. Fusion involves much more energy than chemical process - we know that. Some researchers say they think CF is for real - we know that. DOD should keep an eye on the contingency that they might be right - haven't they've been funding Boss' work for years? What's new? LeadSongDog come howl 20:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

LeadSongDog, you ought to know that the government is big enough for sections of it to be doing things unknown to most of its other sections. It's probably because the SPAWAR team was outside the control of DOE funding that they managed to do their research. So, the news here would be, if formally released, that the US govt should ramp up research in this field --a direct hint to the Department Of Energy --and who cares if the hot-fusion people get in a snit about it! V (talk) 16:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

yikes! I seemed to suggest all that?! wow. definitely not my intention. To answer you question: none of the above. I am not suggesting anything. I am stating - or have stated, rather - what I stated. Please don't read so much out of what I write -- if i don't say it i don't mean to. Kevin Baas^talk 16:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

And you asked me "...would they know what is in that email?", and I responded to that. Now you respond to that as if I was trying to answer a different question altogether. Please read what I wrote as a response to that question and that question alone. That's the way it was meant and it will make more sense that way. Kevin Baas^talk 18:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Can I take that as a "no" to my questions 1, 2, and 3? LeadSongDog come howl 20:37, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Pretty much. Though though you did get a little bit right.

1. "...to confirm that Dr Boss said that Bev said that the "DIA" document is unclassified (like my grocery list);" -- I didn't realize we were "confirming" anything, nonehteless the lack of being classified, which it says right on the document. Which means that if it is classified, then the document is a fake, in which case it's status as classified or not isn't even applicable. Hence, authenticity takes precedence. Kevin Baas^talk 16:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
2. "we take that hearsay to imply that the "DIA" document is not just unclassified but published, authentic, unaltered, credible, and correct (oh, I'd better add magic beans to the grocery list);" -- authentic is the only thing implied. I don't know where the others came from. but ya, that's kind of my point: That's how one confirms authenticity, generally speaking: they ask the source if they wrote it. "authentic" means that the presumed source actually did write it, and who would know the answer to that better than the presumed source? So then how do you find out other than asking them? (I suppose if it was a physical document, you could take fingerprints and DNA samples. But in the information age that's kind of out of the question. Not that anyone ever went to those lengths, anyways; that's undue burden.) Kevin Baas^talk 16:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
3. "we take the further step to infer that the document is significant (better take the family's cow to market to pay for those magic beans, wouldn't want to miss out on those great beans)." -- nothing at all of what i said there speaks of future courses of action and empirical observations are by their very nature mute on that topic. Regarding magic beans - I have no idea where you were going with that, or how it relates. Kevin Baas^talk 16:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

So in sum, you were right that there is a certain implied authenticity in a member of the DIA explicitly speaking of a document which purports to be a DIA document as matter-of-factly a "DIA" document. But that much should be obvious. Everything else, however, was pure speculation - at best.

In any case, it seems (below) like someone else has contacted the source to verify the document's authenticity. If you would like to add your name to the list, go ahead. But let us be wary lest we pester those who have done us no harm. Kevin Baas^talk 16:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Pentagon Report Warns of 'Technological Surprise' http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/17/cold-fusion-bomb-next-weapon-of-mass-destruction/ StevenBKrivit (talk) 00:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I sent an email to the department, to the public affairs email address (DIA-PAO_at_dia.mil), and they told me that this is a DIA document. I quote their reply:

email text
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
from DIA-PAO <DIA-PAO_at_dia.mil> to enric naval <xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx> date Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 9:39 PM subject RE: request about report hide details 9:39 PM (12 hours ago) Sir: This is a DIA document. Thank you. DIA Public Affairs - Hide quoted text - -----Original Message----- From: enric naval [mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 2:45 PM To: DIA-PAO Subject: request about report Please could you confirm if unclassified report #DIA-08-0911-003 exists, and if it's called "Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance" Additionally, could you confirm if it's the same document as the one in this internet address: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/2009DIA-08-0911-003.pdf I'm sending this email because this document is discussed in wikipedia as a possible source for one of its articles, and we don't know if it's a real DIA document, or if someone has faked it. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cold_fusion#U.S._Defense_Intelligence_Agency_document

I sent it a few days ago when I saw Kevin's comment that we should mail directly to the agency[1]. I didn't ask if this was classified or not, or if it had been released publically, since these topics had not still been mentioned here. As far as I know, this is a legit DIA document that has been leaked out of the agency before it reached the publication phase, and the author/s was/were still trying to navigate the bureaucracy and the pre-publication controls. I saw the please-retract-the-document letter before it disappeared from the NET site, which had a comment about "someone has emailed a link to the document to my boss", and I'm sorry for the problems that I unadvertingly caused to the author. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

New Peer-Reviewed Journal Paper Published

"A New Look at Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction Research," Journal of Environmental Monitoring, (Accepted for publication: 26 August) Vol. 11, p. 1731-1746, 2009, DOI:10.1039/B915458M

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EM/article.asp?doi=B915458M

StevenBKrivit (talk) 06:51, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Journal of Environmental Monitoring? For a controversial physics/chemistry topic? Our WP:RS guidelines say: Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. I'm sure the good folks at the Journal of Environmental monitoring are authoritative in environmental monitoring...fringe nuclear physics/chemistry might be a of a stretch though. :) Phil153 (talk) 07:53, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Phil, the environmentalists are interested in alternate non-polluting energy sources. Why shouldn't they be interested in finding out if CF has any validity? V (talk) 16:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm interested in many things. That doesn't necessarily make me a reliable source on all of them. No doubt there exist a few people who are qualified to publish on both environmental and hypothetical non-polluting energy sources. But being A and interested in B doesn't make you B.LeadSongDog come howl 20:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

We went through that idiotic argument over Naturwissenschaften. A journal that is RS for its normal subject matter does not suddenly become non-RS just because it publishes something a little off the beaten path. Peer-reviewed is peer-reviewed, period. Also, to the extent the particular article at issue in this journal is a review of the field more than it is an in-depth description of a single experiment, that is the extent to which we can treat the article the same as if it had appeared in, for example, Scientific American. V (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll not respond to that insult. If you think that nuclear physics is just "a little" off of the Journal of Environmental Monitoring's "beaten path", you are of course welcome to raise the suggestion at WP:RS/N. LeadSongDog come howl 05:24, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Tsk tsk, you are insulting, too; environmentalists have been aware of at least some things about nuclear physics for decades; they made their objections quite well known after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl events. SOME of them are most certainly aware of hot-fusion research, if for no other reason that that research has been ongoing for the last 60 years or so, and promises to be more environmentally benign than fission. How dare you imply that there are no environmentally responsible nuclear physicists out there, who might publish an article such as the one under discussion here! Not to mention, who says the CF effect must be related to nuclear physics? Only those who observe more energy than they can explain by other means. Like the few who had their electrolysis experiments boil; not even Kirk Shanahan's CCS hypothesis can explain that away. Or the guys who published this, that we've discussed before: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2009.06.061 Now, I don't know what published-references-of-observations were chosen for the "Environmental Monitoring" article because I haven't seen the article yet, but to the extent it matches references accepted as RS in the main CF article here (as do some of the references in that DIA analysis discussed elsewhere on this page), you cannot use that as a basis to object to the publication of that article, no matter where it got published! V (talk) 14:21, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Unless someone has a proposed edit to the article I suggest we stop responding to users who are not interested in editing the article. Hipocrite (talk) 14:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Good advice. I'll take it.LeadSongDog come howl 16:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

New Energy Times article

Unless there is a way to prevent prejudiced fools (almost by definition prejudice is foolish) from deleting edits as fast as they are made, why bother? I see there is no Wikipedia article about the magazine called "New Energy Times", but there is an article about the "National Enquirer". Regardless of whether or not either or neither qualifies as a Reliable Source for information for other Wikipedia articles, it is a simple fact that both publications exist, and Wikipedia has no policy restricting the existence of articles about things that are known to exist. I find it difficult to believe that nobody has ever tried to create a Wikipedia article about the New Energy Times, which has been publishing issues for more than five years, so why doesn't the article exist? Are the anti-CF prejudiced fools even more fanatic than Kirk Shanahan claims are the pro-CF prejudiced fools? V (talk) 16:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

There was an article on NET, PRODed in September per this. See WP:Deletion review if you think the deleting admin was in error. LeadSongDog come howl 17:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the so-called "rationale" given for the request for deletion. What does "establishing notability" have to do with the fact that something exists? What of the distinction between "notable" and "notorious" --I'm sure there are quite a few WP articles about things or people that are far more notorious (anti-notable!) than notable...the National Enquirer comes to mind as a specific example. Off-hand I'd say the NET qualifies as both, depending on the perspective: Notable because dares to publish things contrary to Orthodox Nuclear Science; notorious to anyone wedded to that particular orthodoxy. Was it deleted because the two cancel out, leaving a notability-level of zero? Stupid rationale, that would indeed have been! V (talk) 18:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I see there currently exists an article about another pro-CF source, Infinite Energy (magazine), which includes a warning that it might be subject to deletion for "notability" reasons. Hmmm...do I sense a potential conspiracy-of-silence? Obviously if no Official RS Journal ever mentions the existence of this magazine (or NET), then the pretense that it doesn't exist can, per the "notability" rules, be converted into a rationale to prevent Wikipedia articles from existing. On the other hand, deliberate snubbing any sort can only occur after something has been noticed (achived a kind of notability)! Censors never win in the end, so why do they bother? (short-sighted selfish personal gain, usually....) V (talk) 18:34, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

New Energy Times has plenty of reliable citations establishing its notability. See their press room. 91.180.173.49 (talk) 22:41, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Heh, in the earlier page section here, regarding the DIA CF analysis, I mentioned the magazine "Electronics", which also seems not to have a Wikipedia article about it. I sort-of dare anyone to read this http://download.intel.com/museum/Moores_Law/Articles-Press_Releases/Gordon_Moore_1965_Article.pdf and claim that now-defunct magazine was not notable. V (talk) 01:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you are looking for Electronics (magazine)? LeadSongDog come howl 02:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, somehow I missed it in my looking. V (talk) 04:10, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If the article was deleted by PROD, there's no need for deletion review; if someone disagrees with the deletion they can ask any administrator to restore the page. See proposed deletion for details. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Reliable Sources

Quoting Phil:

Journal of Environmental Monitoring? For a controversial physics/chemistry topic? Our WP:RS guidelines say: Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. I'm sure the good folks at the Journal of Environmental monitoring are authoritative in environmental monitoring...fringe nuclear physics/chemistry might be a of a stretch though.

Note that reliable sources thus far deemed acceptable for the "cold fusion" article include:

The Guardian

Wired Magazine

New Scientist

Houston Chronicle

Philosophy of Science: Alexander Bird

CBS Evening News

New York Times

13 things that don't make sense,Brooks, Michael

GroundReport

Scientific American

Physics Today

Discover Magazine

IEEE Spectrum

Boston Herald

Chemistry World

StevenBKrivit (talk) 07:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I think I'd like to see some statistics regarding those sources, the extent to which each is used as a "pro" source and/or as a "con" source. Because I do wonder...if that article in "Environmental Monitoring" had been con-CF, how many anti-CF people would be objecting to it on RS grounds? V (talk) 17:13, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I certainly would. I objected to the use of some of Shanahan's work, which is as con as you get. A Journal of Environmental Monitoring is not capable of vetting controversial claims in nuclear physics or chemistry. This happens often in fringe fields and has been discussed before on the RS noticeboard: respectable on topic journals will not publish, so authors journal shop the thousands of off topic journals to find someone that will print it. Phil153 (talk) 22:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

There are two sides to that coin. We know full well that ONE reason many CF articles are not published in high-level RS journals is because of editorial prejudice --the editors have pre-judged CF to be garbage, and therefore won't publish even high-quality research (and yes, I'm aware that the field has its share of low-quality research). So, where should the researcher who actually did high-quality work get that work published?

Then there is a different coin altogether, as pointed out below: generic descriptions of experiments and experimenters don't need quite as high level of peer-review as specific descriptions of experiments and experimental techniques. Are you claiming that the article in "Environmental Monitoring" requires high-level peer-review? If so, why? V (talk) 15:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

What is and isn't reliable depends on the context and what it's used for. It's not a binary thing. The New York Times is reliable for reporting on the attitudes of the scientific community toward cold fusion. The Houston Chronicle is reliable for reporting on the buzz prior to the DOE report.

It's not a difficult concept. A Journal of Environment Monitoring is not a reliable source for vetting claims related to fringe nuclear science/chemistry, especially when journals such as Nature, one of the highest impact journals in the world, won't even publish them (the same as they won't publish perpetual motion theories). The same would happen if disputed claims about fossil hominids being published in the Journal of Environment Monitoring - our paleontology article would pay it little mind. There is no conspiracy or double standard, although fringe promoters of all types believe there is (i.e. MSG,homeopathy, etc). WP:RS is worth reading, if you care. Also, please read WP:COI. You've brought your writings to our attention (it seems as if one of the authors of the article isn't even a scientist...), which is fine, but continually arguing for the inclusion of your own work is not good form. Phil153 (talk) 22:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

If the New York Times can be used to show the attitudes of scientists, then so can the Journal of Environmental Monitoring. While we may not necessarily use the article to establish facts about physics, it can nevertheless show, for example, notability of the various theories etc. (as theories and speculation). For example, it's interesting that certain secondary sources mention transmutation but not biological transmutation. This sort of thing can guide us as to what is worth mentioning in the article. It's not about "vetting claims" as if this were an article about a well-established topic in science, or as if it were up to us to determine whether claims were true or not: it's "verifiability, not truth". For example, we can verify that the article mentioned certain theories: that contributes to the notability of the theories. If we required that things be established as accepted physical facts before mentioning them at all, we would have no article on Flat Earth, no article on Cold fusion, and no article on any religious topic. That's not how Wikipedia works.

Steven Krivit, the lead author of the peer-reviewed review article, has been referred to as a "leading authority" on the topic in an article released by the American Chemical Society. ("'Cold fusion' rebirth? New evidence for existence of controversial energy source", Salt Lake City, 2009-March-23, Contact: Michael Bernstein, American Chemcial Society [2])

I may have missed something, but it seems to me that in recent years we now have three peer-reviewed review articles on the topic, all three taking a decidedly nuclear POV. (By nuclear POV I mean the point of view that there's good evidence that there's something not merely chemical happening in these experiments; as opposed to the non-nuclear POV, that there is no convincing evidence of such.) Other major categories of sources are books, government reports, and media; in each of these three categories both the nuclear and non-nuclear POVs are expressed: for example, in the 2004 DOE report, the reviewers were divided as to whether there was convincing evidence. It has become more difficult, though perhaps still tenable, to argue that the non-nuclear POV is to be presented by Wikipedia as the majority POV, but I think it's not currently tenable to argue that the nuclear POV is a "tiny-minority" POV. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Wikipeople. Every once in a while I check in here and see how you are all doing. I noticed you had missed my review paper (wasn't someone searching for a recent review?) so I've informed you of it. Use it if you like. Of course I don't touch the main article and it is unreasonable for you (especially K.S.) to expect me to watch, reply to or comment on this page on a regular basis. And for full disclosure, I am involved in two other (print) encyclopedia projects so it would be somewhat of a conflict of interest for me to make any substantial contributions here.

I'd like to mention one thing to you - to try to help you keep your facts straight. I came into the field 10 years ago relatively ignorant of nuclear physics. In my ignorance, I was easily "impressed" by MIT's Peter Hagelstein, and Los Alamos' Ed Storms and SRI's Mike McKubre. And so I easily accepted what Gene Mallove critically called the "Mainstream Cold Fusion Hypothesis." http://www.infinite-energy.com/resources/iccf10.html

But as many of you know, it does't add up - that is, "cold fusion" doesn't look like fusion. Never did. Gene knew it didn't add up, and along with his interests in fringe/esoteric physics, he saw the holes in the "Mainstream Cold Fusion Hypothesis," clearly and objectively. It took me a few years to figure out the holes for myself. Bottom line, I think there is something real, no doubt. Nuclear, yes, absolutely. Potential for energy, yes. But fusion? I can't know for sure, but at this point in time, I highly doubt it.

References:

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET26.shtml#wl

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET29-8dd54geg.shtml#FROMED

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2008/2008-Krivit-ACS.pdf

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET30-jgk39gh12f.shtml#FROMED

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET30-jgk39gh12f.shtml#24hagel

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET30-jgk39gh12f.shtml#24xr

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET30-jgk39gh12f.shtml#looklike

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/TheDecouplingOfColdFusionFromLENR.shtml

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2009/2009Krivit-ACS-1w.pdf

StevenBKrivit (talk) 05:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Bose–Einstein condensation

What do editors here think of the Bose–Einstein condensate theory?

Recently, there have been many reports of experimental results which indicate occurrences of anomalous deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in metals at low energies. A consistent conventional theoretical description is presented for anomalous low-energy deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in metal. The theory is based on the Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) state occupied by deuterons trapped in a micro/nano-scale metal grain or particle. The theory is capable of explaining most of the experimentally observed results and also provides theoretical predictions, which can be tested experimentally. Scalabilities of the observed effects are discussed based on theoretical predictions.

-- Kim, Y.E. (2009) "Theory of Bose–Einstein condensation mechanism for deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in micro/nano-scale metal grains and particles," Naturwissenschaften 96(7):803-11. Dual Use (talk) 02:24, 13 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Mentioning this one paper provides undue weight to a fringe theory. Hipocrite (talk) 13:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Any one tree provides insufficient evidence for the forest. There are three possible positions a tertiary source can hold about a phenomenon: (1) the secondary sources say the phenomenon is not real; (2) the secondary sources say that opinion is divided on the matter; (3) the secondary sources say the phenomenon is real. If you were to plot actual secondary sources over time, you would see support for (1) peaked around 1991, support for (2) took off shortly thereafter and has dominated since, and support for (3) was losing out to (1) in the 1990s but is now completely trouncing it. The point is, there are three camps: those who want the article to take a stand pro-or-con, and those who want the article to reflect the actual uncertainty in the secondary sources. The best way to do that would be to continue the "proposed explanations" section at the end of the article where it leaves off in the 1990s. And the best way to do that would be to add experimental and theory papers like the experimental report of charged particles from the U.S. Navy SPAWAR center (how's their reputation in the physics community?) and a selection of theory papers such as these. Otherwise you're just trying to impose an absolutist pro-or-con point of view against the secondary sources which, in total, clearly indicate that opinion is divided. That's clear from the introduction; why isn't it clear from the end of the article? 99.27.202.101 (talk) 13:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Provide sources for any changes you would like to make. Hipocrite (talk) 14:03, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Is it not clear that I did just that in the text above you replied to? 99.27.202.101 (talk) 14:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not. Provide sources by referencing specific sources. Propose changes by stating what you would like to change in the article, and what you'd like to change it to. Provide sources for proposed changes. Hipocrite (talk) 14:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

When I said "the best way to do that would be to add experimental and theory papers like the experimental report of charged particles from the U.S. Navy SPAWAR center" I was referring to Szpak S, Mosier-Boss PA, Gordon FE (2007) "Further evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd–D lattice: emission of charged particles" Naturwissenschaften, vol. 94 pp. 511–514. When I said "and a selection of theory papers such as these" I was referring to Kim, Y.E. (2009) "Theory of Bose–Einstein condensation mechanism for deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in micro/nano-scale metal grains and particles," Naturwissenschaften 96(7):803-11 and others such as the paper immediately below this section, Collins, G.S., et al (1990) "Deuteron tunneling at electron-volt energies," Journal of Fusion Energy -- however, in theory papers I have to say I prefer the more recent, as they have had the time to build on the results of emperical studies. And as for reports of empirical studies, I strongly prefer academic journals to the popular science press, for what should be quite obvious reasons. It is disappointing so many editors prefer to turn their backs on peer-reviewed empirical reports. 99.27.202.101 (talk) 14:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Propose changes by stating what you would like to change in the article, and what you'd like to change it to. Please note that referencing those specific papers is likley providing undue weight to fringe sources. Hipocrite (talk) 14:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I did that, when I wrote, "to reflect the actual uncertainty in the secondary sources. The best way to do that would be to continue the 'proposed explanations' section at the end of the article where it leaves off in the 1990s. And the best way to do that would be to add experimental and theory papers," above, didn't I? What would it take to convince you that the U.S. Navy SPAWAR center and Naturwissenschaften are not on the fringe? 99.27.202.101 (talk) 15:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we're communicating. Why not submit the text you would like added or subtracted to or from the article now. Notation by multiple reliable secondary sources would convince me that something is not fringe. Could you list your prior accounts? Hipocrite (talk) 15:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Because I believe it would probably be removed by bullies who refuse to familiarize themselves with the peer reviewed literature, relying only on the popular press for their opinions which they express in the form of quick, undiscussed reverts. Are you willing to say, straight out, that the U.S. Navy SPAWAR center and Naturwissenschaften are or are not on the fringe, and give your reasons for saying so? 99.27.202.101 (talk) 15:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I want to point out that this article has had a SPAWAR-generated image of pits for over a year, which shows that it is possible for well-documented and notable pro-CF information to be retained. Olorinish (talk) 15:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I certainly am not going to ask you to make the changes that would seem to be deserved by a source which has garnered such longstanding respect from the editors of this article, because I am sure someone would then accuse you of meatpuppetry-by-proxy or something similar. 99.27.202.101 (talk) 16:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I want to point out how sad it is that one actually has to "show that it is possible for well-documented and notable pro-CF information to be retained." Kevin Baas^talk 16:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I note with disgust that instead of responding in response to the question of whether the U.S. Navy SPAWAR center and Naturwissenschaften are fringe sources, Hipocrite has instead decided to file a checkuser investigation. Is that the sort of mindset you want from someone performing rapid reverts on this article without discussing them first? 99.27.202.101 (talk) 15:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Correction: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nrcprm2026#Evidence submitted by Hipocrite explicitly states that Hipocrite thinks the sources I've been "pushing" from this IP are "fringe". 99.27.202.101 (talk) 16:16, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Deuteron tunnelling at electron-volt energies

There is another recent theory paper published in the reputable Journal of Fusion Energy : http://www.springerlink.com/content/q82817562k6n0185/ 80.201.49.54 (talk) 10:24, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

1990 is not particularly recent; that's at the other end of this article's bibliography. 99.27.202.101 (talk) 14:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Mentioning this one paper provides undue weight to a fringe theory. Hipocrite (talk) 13:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Hey, Hipocrite, if ALL the proposed explanations for cold fusion are mentioned, then none of them is given any more weight than any of the others. On the other hand, I suspect you are using "fringe theory" to describe the basic idea of CF, instead of any one particular proposed explanation for it. I take issue with that, on the grounds that it leaves you with a dilemma; how do you explain all the reports of anomalous energy production? There are too many for "fraud" to be true, since fraud requires secrecy and there are too many people involved for such a fraud to be kept a secret across 20+ years. There also appear to be enough careful researchers and different experiments that "experimental error" is becoming increasingly unlikely as the explanation (example, if Arata (one person) had committed experimental error, then Kitamura's team should have had more difficulty in also producing anomalous energy). In recent years reports of successful anomalous energy production far outweigh the failures and the experimental-hole-poking. So if we take this as evidence that something unusual has indeed been happening, that experimental error is not an adequate explanation, then it needs a different explanation. At the moment of this writing I don't care one whit if fusion is the explanation or not; I simply care that this production-of-anomalous-energy appears to be a real and not a fringe thing (it got reported in Physics Letters A, remember!). Which takes me back to the beginning of this paragraph; real anomalous energy production needs an explanation, and we agree that there is no scientific consensus regarding that. Which means that as many theories as possible need to be presented to scientists (they have journals for that), so that further experiments can sort them out to find the truth. Wikipedia need not report all those published theories as "news", but it can report them for historical purposes, kind of like reporting the history of the development of flight; a lot of blind paths were taken.... V (talk) 14:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)The above phrase "committed experimental error" seems to misunderstand the usual meaning of "experimental error". While it could be interpreted by a casual reader as meaning the experimenter did something wrong in executing the experiment, it is normally read by scientists as a recognition that every measurement has an inescapable, characteristic amount of "imprecision" or "uncertainty" (part random and part systemic) contributing to an error in the result. LeadSongDog come howl 16:02, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

If experimental error is at the root of a claim of detection of anomalous energy production, then the details of how the claim was reached, and the exact type of error, matter little. Not to mention, per Quantum Mechanics, the experimenter and the experiment are intertwined.... :) V (talk) 16:32, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what the policy regarding that is (or if there is one), but as far as rational thinking is concerned, I beg to differ on this point: i could say of anything that their conclusion is the result of "experimental error" and dismiss it out of hand. but unless i provide some specific falsifiable empirical claim, such as "the temperature variation was net positive, but w/in the margin of error" or "the solution was contaminated with xx which when exposed to xx produces an exothermic reaction that accounts fro the discrepancy" or something like that, the claim is worth about as much as the breath used to make it, and arguably less. though that's not to say that saying something like "it is possible that there was experimental error." or even that it was likely, is objectionable -- statistical arguments for that are ready-at-hand. but to claim outright that there was without any knowledge or evidence to support the claim is just plain retarded. And I certainly won't consider some random unsupported assertion to be equal in value or weight to empirical evidence. They have places for people like that: they're called mental institutions. Kevin Baas^talk 18:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

You misinterpreted what I wrote; see that "if/then" in there (OK I just added the "then" for clarity)? The "then" is simply a logical consequence of the "if". I could say, "If the moon is made of green cheese, then NASA should have been able to prove it." The "if" doesn't make any claim about the truth or falsity of the thing it precedes; it is merely a way of allowing us to say that such-and-such 'conclusion --the "then" clause--- depends on a certain thing being true. V (talk) 19:52, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh I see now. Thanks. I thought you meant that if error is claimed then the experiment is of little significance, whereas in fact you meant that if error is the true cause then the conclusion is of little consequence. I.e. the conclusion of an invalid argument is worth little. Subtle, but crucial difference. My bad. Kevin Baas^talk

my issue is much simpler: how do you write an article on a "fringe" topic if you can't include any papers that give weight to a "fringe" topic? E.g. how do you write a referenced article on cold fusion if you can't use any references about cold fusion. That seems very one-sided. Or no-sided, actually. Can't get any more specious than that. D.O.A. Kevin Baas^talk 15:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

See WP:RS and WP:FRINGE. To get material included in this article you will need to find reliable secondary sources for information. Hipocrite (talk) 17:35, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

firstly, that's not the argument you made. which means it's not a rebuttle to my counterargument to it. secondly, whether or not you need a secondary source depends on the context and usage. Kevin Baas^talk 18:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia relies on secondary sources, per Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources. If the secondary sources say one thing, and a very small number of unremarkable primary sources say something else, Wikipedia disregards the primary sources until they are adressed by reliable secondary sources, to avoide providing undue weight to minority of fringe opinions, like I said the first and second time. If you gained a broader editing experience on the encyclopedia, this would not be surprising. Hipocrite (talk) 18:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Woa, now you are insulting my competence! Out of line. Per precisely what you cited: "Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources" primary sources are in certain cases acceptable. What I was saying was that you were creating a false dichotomy and I stand by my statement, and offer as evidence -- ironically -- the very same passage you offered as evidence. (It appears one of us should be reading more carefully!) In addition, I also refer you to Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Attributing_and_specifying_biased_statements and Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Sourcing_and_attribution.

And furthermore, regarding "Wikipedia disregards the primary sources until they are adressed by reliable secondary sources, to avoide providing undue weight to minority of fringe opinions, like I said the first and second time": you never said that; this is not the third time you said it, but the first. that's a matter of record. since the record on what you said in this section is pretty short, i'll save the unneccessary step of copying it for you. Now please remember the guideline that we discuss the article, not the editors. Kevin Baas^talk 18:34, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

OR by SYNTH and undue weight

In this revert of two edits, is the charged particle report from 2007 OR by SYNTH or undue weight? It is unclear from the edit summary. That 2007 paper has been cited several times in peer-reviewed papers, so I don't think it's fallen out of favor. That would seem to put it beyond the bounds of OR by SYNTH. And what possible argument could there be in favor of saying that the detection of charged particle radiation is undue weight?

Is the attribution of the late 1990s sources to the late 1990s OR by SYNTH or undue weight? Again, I think it is neither. As the introduction indicates, the number of scientists involved with the DOE review who are in favor of more investigation has been growing. Therefore, it is an important fact about the sources cited. Omitting it implies, or at least strongly suggests, that most scientists still feel the same way. If we assume that most scientists will agree with the peer-reviewed secondary literature, then I don't think there are any sources supporting the idea that "most scientists" still hold a consensus viewpoint. On the other hand, I think almost everything published in the peer-reviewed literature since 2000 supports the opposite, that "most scientists" no longer hold any consensus viewpoint on the subject. Is there any reason to believe otherwise? Dual Use (talk) 17:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The Feder, Kruglinksi, Hutchinson, and Anderson articles are strong post-2000 evidence that the cold fusion field is not respected. Also, the lack of pro-cold fusion results in the top journals (Science, Nature, Physical Review) is good evidence that the field is not respected by mainstream scientists. Olorinish (talk) 18:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I have to say I think your edits over the past month have been really good. I took a closer look at those sources, and it appears that none of them are peer reviewed. Am I correct that they are all articles from the unreviewed popular science press? When was the last negative peer-reviewed report? Dual Use (talk) 19:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know when the last negative peer-reviewed report was. I do ask people to keep in mind this line from reliable sources: "Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market." Olorinish (talk) 21:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

So, surely "60 minutes" would qualify. Here is what it said last April : "When first presented in 1989 cold fusion was quickly dismissed as junk science. But, as Scott Pelley reports, there's renewed buzz among scientists that cold fusion could lead to monumental breakthroughs in energy production." "Well, a funny thing happened on the way to oblivion - for many scientists today, cold fusion is hot again. " etc... 130.104.236.154 (talk) 09:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The charged particle report provides undue weight to a primary fringe source. The implication behind the 1990's statement is OR by SYNTH, and was rejected on this talk page recently. If you have reliable secondary sources that show there is a change in mainstream scientific opinion, feel free to provide them. Primary sources published by a few true-believer researchers will not result in changes in this article. Hipocrite (talk) 17:34, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Someone else has proposed attributing the 1990s sources to the 1990s belief? Not me. I have not seen that discussion. Dual Use (talk) 17:36, 14 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

This was adressed at Talk:Cold_fusion/Archive_34#Synthesis.2C_again. Hipocrite (talk) 17:39, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I see, but am not at all convinced. As for the 2007 source on charged particles, how many years do you believe it should stand referenced without challenge by other peer-reviewed sources before you would consider it non-fringe? Dual Use (talk) 17:52, 14 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

When it's referenced by reliable secondary sources. Hipocrite (talk) 17:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Why is that stance preferable to allowing material referenced by peer-reviewed primary sources? If the citations pass peer review, doesn't that make the references to them secondary? Concerning statements about the opinions of "most scientists," how evenly would opinion need to be split, and by what margin of error, before you would agree that "most scientists" no longer hold a consensus view? Dual Use (talk) 17:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia relies on secondary sources, per Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources - papers by primary researchers in the cold-fusion field should only be referenced if they are mentioned by reliable secondary sources, lest they are provided undue weight. I don't have opinions on anything except that this article must be policy compliant. Hipocrite (talk) 18:01, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I do have to correct this again, lest the error be indefinitely promulgated: While we should try to use secondary sources wherever possible, the above statement is not completely accurate. refer to Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources, Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Attributing_and_specifying_biased_statements, and Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Sourcing_and_attribution. Kevin Baas^talk 19:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty of primary sources from the popular press in the article, but they are almost all biased towards the 1990s consensus viewpoint. Why are current opposing primary peer-reviewed sources excluded? Have there been any peer-reviewed publications in agreement with the '90s consensus viewpoint since Shanahan's early '00s work? 99.27.202.101 (talk) 13:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Newspaper reports are secondary sources. Providing the viewpoint of any fringe primary source provides it undue weight. If a view expressed by a primary source were notable, it would be adressed by secondary sources. Hipocrite (talk) 14:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you consider newspapers more or less fringe than the academic journals? 99.27.202.101 (talk) 14:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Then how do you explain the span of time between when it's published in a primary source and when it's published in a secondary source? Does it go from not notable to notable, without actually changing what it is? And in that respect, there are many things in secondary source that are not in the article because do not consider them notable. Are they wrong? what besides being published in a secondary source do they have to be to be notable? Kevin Baas^talk 14:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

"Why are current opposing primary peer-reviewed sources excluded?" This is not quite correct. The current article has pro-CF articles from Di Giulio, Biberian, Szpak, Mosier-Boss, and Iwamura, which are all published after 2000. Olorinish (talk) 14:16, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I hope that trend continues to follow publications in the peer-reviewed press. 99.27.202.101 (talk) 14:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess the problem comes down to whether to ascribe a viewpoint to a lot of people who don't agree. How about if we follow the last sentence in the article "These reports, combined with negative results from some famous laboratories,[119] led most scientists to conclude that no positive result should be attributed to cold fusion, at least not on a significant scale.[120][121]" with the sentence "However, peer-reviewed publicatinons on the subject since ____ (2000?) have been consistent with a positive result, and the number of Department of Energy reviewers in favor of more study has increased" -- is that a reasonable compromise? Dual Use (talk) 18:52, 14 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

No. That's OR by synth. No source says "peer-reviewed publications on the subject since xxxx have been consistent with a positive result." What you need to do is find sources that say what you want them to say, not cobble together disparate sources to imply what you believe to be true. Hipocrite (talk) 18:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Some RS and Non-RS news

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/update-from-latest-cold-fusion.html Just in case anyone around here wants to keep up on the latest claims made in the field, heh. I see on that linked page a comment by Jed Rothwell that permission has been obtained for the Kitamura paper discussed elsewhere on this page, originally published in Physics Letters A, to become available at his lenr/canr site. http://l...-c....org/acrobat/KitamuraAanomalouse.pdf (you will have to replace some of the dots in the link to get around the blacklist imposed by the anti-CFers.) I'm pretty sure that an article that is RS when published in Physics Letters A does not become less RS when legally posted elsewhere; perhaps a hole in the blacklist can be made to allow general Wikipedia access to this article? Anyway, I took the opportunity to look into it to see exactly how it references Arata's work (where did he publish his claims?) There appears to be a Japanese "Journal of [the] High Temperature Society" --does anyone know anything about the extent to which it qualifies as RS? V (talk) 19:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Good to see you saw it first: Almost 50 presentations at ICCF15 in Italy this year.

One way to cite the Kitamura paper so that the link is available on Wikipedia is: Kitamura, A. et al (2009) "Anomalous effects in charging of Pd powders with high density hydrogen isotopes" Physics Letters A 373(35):3109-12 doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2009.06.061

I was particularly impressed with ICCF-15 presentations on the ENEA-Brookhaven-NRL x-ray diffraction study looking for phase changes but finding rapid loading-unloading at the cathode surface, Miles & Fleischmann's new fishtank calorimeter, and Hagelstein's outright admission that laser difference frequency controls excess power output. It was good to see Hagelstein collaborating with McKubre as well.

Does anyone believe those three sources are out of the mainstream? 99.55.162.180 (talk) 17:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure that an article that is RS when published in Physics Letters A does not become less RS when legally posted elsewhere." Good luck convincing the anti-CF-ers of that. Kevin Baas^talk 18:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I understand your point, but the goal here is to allow readers to access the body of the article, rather than only a mere abstract. That's where the background information I previously discussed is to be found, after all. What we could do is include both links, the first (to abstract) to show that the article is Reliably Sourced, and the second to allow access to its body. It would be interesting to see what sort of ridiculous objections might be offered in response. V (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Confirmation of neutrons with the CR-39 method was nice, as were all three of the opening presentations. It's also fantastic to see two days go by without anyone claiming any of it is out of the mainstream. I hope that holds up in edits to the article, but I'll leave that up to more experienced editors of the page, for now. 99.34.78.67 (talk) 18:00, 24 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Why would anyone pay that much attention? It's just a collection of primary sources: conference presentations.LeadSongDog come howl 18:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is filled with primary sources, from the popular press even, but only in support of the point of view that cold fusion is bunk. Sources suggesting it isn't have been blacklisted by administrators, and sources suggesting that there is still some controversy are not represented in this article anywhere near in proportion to the extent they appear in the popular and academic press. 99.34.78.67 (talk) 19:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

All the ICCF-15 abstracts (in one 9.6 MB PDF) are easier to text-search through. They indicate Fleischmann apparently approves of the Pd-B cathodes of Miles and Imam. Also, what does it mean that Hagelstein has been doing laser experiments for two years (p. 8)? 99.34.78.67 (talk) 00:28, 25 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Is Elsevier considered a reliable source on Wikipedia ? I would think so. It has now published an encyclopedia of electrochemical power source, and Steve Krivit has contributed an article on cold fusion in it, another proof that he should be considered as a reliable source too. See his blog on new energy times.com Pcarbonn (talk) 17:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not reliable just because its from Elsevier - some Elsevier journals are RS, some are not. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:38, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish

Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources Five-Volume Set http://www.elsevierdirect.com/brochures/ecps/

Krivit, S.B, “Cold Fusion: History,” Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 271–276, ISBN 9780444520937

Krivit, S.B, “Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions,” Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 255–270, ISBN 9780444520937

Notes:

1. These articles were peer-reviewed.

2. The articles were invited.

3. I believe the "Precursor" article may be the first comprehensive encyclopedia article on CF/LENR to publish in a PRINT encyclopedia. (Please correct if this assertion is wrong.)

4. Anybody wishing a complementary copy of the articles may send an email to steven1@newenergytimes.com.

StevenBKrivit (talk) 22:21, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Page 49 (PDF page 4) of http://www.elsevierdirect.com/brochures/ecps/PDFs/PowerTools_Batteries.pdf has a table which seems more useful than anything in battery (electricity), although we don't do too bad[3]. Do you have a plot of excess power along a Pd:B alloy ratio axis? 99.27.201.92 (talk) 08:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Leaked DIA document

optical character recognition

Page 1 UNCLASSIFIED Defense Intelligence Agency Defense Analysis Report DIA-08-0911-003 13 November 2009 Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance Scientists worldwide have been quietly investigating low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) for the past 20 years. Researchers in this controversial field are now claiming paradigm-shifting results, including generation of large amounts of excess heat, nuclear activity and transmutation of elements.1'2'3 Although no current theory exists to explain all the reported phenomena, some scientists now believe quantum-level nuclear reactions may be occurring. DIA assesses with high confidence that if LENR can produce nuclear-origin energy at room temperatures, this disruptive technology could revolutionize energy production and storage, since nuclear reactions release millions of times more energy per unit mass than do any known chemical fuel.4'5 Background In 1989, Marlin Fleisch mann and Stanley Pons announced thai their electrochemical experiments had produced excess energy under standaid temperature and pressure conditions.ft Because they could not explain this physical phenomenon based on known chemical reactions, they suggested the excess heat could be nuclear in origin. However, their experiments did not show the radiation or radioactivity expected from a nuclear reaction. Many researchers attempted to replicate the results and failed. As a result, the physics community disparaged their work as lacking credibility, and the press mistakenly dubbed it "cold fusion." Related research also suffered from the negative publicity of cold fusion for the past 20 years, but many scientists believed something important was occurring and continued their research with little or no visibility. For years, scientists were intrigued by the possibility of producing large amounts of clean energy through LENR, and now this research has begun to be accepted in the scientific community as reproducible and legitimate. Source Summary Statement This assessment is based on analysis of a wide body of intelligence reporting, most of which is open source information including scientific briefings, peer-reviewed technical journals, international scientific conference proceedings, interviews with scientific experts and technical media. While there is little classified data on this topic due to the S&T nature of the information and the lack of collection, DIA judges that these open sources generally provide the most reliable intelligence available on this topic. The information in this report has been corroborated and reviewed by U.S. technology experts who are familiar with the data and the international scientists involved in this work. Although much skepticism remains, LENR programs are receiving increased support worldwide, including state sponsorship and funding from major corporations.7'8'9'1(1 DIA assesses that Japan and Italy are leaders in the field, although Russia, China, Israel, and India1 ' are devoting significant resources to this work in the hope of finding a new clean UNCLASSIFIED Page 2 UNCLASSIFIED energy source. Scientists worldwide have been reporting anomalous excess heat 4 and transmutation.15',fi'17 Y. Iwamura1!i at Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries first detected transmutation of elements when permeating deuterium through palladium metal in 2002. Researchers led by Y. Arata at Osaka University in Japan and a team led by V.Violante at ENEA in Italy (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and the Environment—the equivalent to the U.S. Department of Energy)20 also made transmutation claims. Additional indications of transmutation have been reported in China, Russia, France, Ukraine, and the United States.21'22 Researchers in Japan, Italy, Israel, and the United States have all reported detecting • Chinese researchers described LENR experiments in 1991 that generated so much heat that they caused an explosion that was not believed to be chemical in origin."" • Japanese, French, and U.S. scientists also have reported rapid, high-energy LENR releases leading to laboratory explosions, according to scientific journal articles from 1992to2009.26'27 • Israeli scientists reported in 2008 that they have applied pulsating electrical currents to their LENR experiments to increase the excess energy production.28 • As of January 2008, India was reportedly considering restarting its LENR program after 14 years of dormancy.29 U.S. LENR researchers also have reported results that support the phenomena of At the March 2009 American Chemical Society annual meeting, researchers at U.S. Navy SPAWAR Pacific reported excess energy,33 nuclear particles,34 and • A research team at the U.S. company SRI International has been studying the electrochemistry and kinetics of LENR since the early 1990's, reporting excess heat and helium production.38 2 UNCLASSIFIED Page 3 UNCLASSIFIED • In May 2002, researchers at JET Thermal in Massachusetts reported excess heat and optimal operating points for LENR manifolds.39 • Researchers at the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center in California first reported anomalous power correlated with Helium-4 production in 1996.40 Although no one theory currently exists to explain all the observed LENR phenomena, some scientists now believe these nuclear reactions may be small-scale deuterium fusion occurring in a palladium metal lattice.41 ■42"43 Some others still believe the heat evolution can be explained by non-nuclear means. Another possibility is that LENR may involve an intricate combination of fusion and fission triggered by unique chemical and physical configurations on a nanoscale level.44 45 This body of research has produced evidence that nuclear reactions may be occurring under conditions not previously believed possible. Recent results suggest these anomalous LENR phenomena can be triggered by various energetic stimuli (electric and magnetic fields, acoustic waves, infrared, lasers)4r'" 47 and may have a variety of operational modes. Nuclear Fusion Nuclear fusion as currently understood occurs only in the core of stars, in nuclear weapons, in high temperature plasmas, or in inertially confined high-energy collisions. Scientists for years have attempted to harness nuclear fusion through high-temperature plasma techniques but have been unable to produce moie energy output than supplied. Fusion was once thought to be the answer to the world's future clean energy needs, but after 60 years of research still has yet to live up to this promise. "Hot" fusion researchers do not believe fusion can occur at near-room temperatures based on the Coulomb barrier that repels like nuclear charges and have dismissed much of the "cold fusion" research conducted since 1989. As a result, such research has received limited funding and support over the past 20 years. Potential Applications of LENR: The Technology Surprise Factor LENR's potential as a future clean energy source is still unknown. However, recent results indicating nuclear activity and transmutation are intriguing and pose the following questions: • If the excess heat from these experiments could be captured and intensified, could LENR be used as a power source for engines, batteries, or other equipment? • If nuclear particles could be generated and transmute elements, could LENR be used to mitigate hazardous waste or to neutralize weapons of mass destruction?48 • If the various modes of energy production could be identified and optimized, could LENR be used to create designer materials or critical resources that are in short supply or serve as a tailored, "dial-a-mode" power source? 3 UNCLASSIFIED Page 4 UNCLASSIFIED • If rapid, explosive energy output can occur in one or several modes, could LENR serve as a new high-energy-density explosive? International LENR research was highlighted in April 2009 on a U.S. television program focused on the 20th anniversary of the Fleischman and Pons announcement.49 Many U.S. researchers are collaborating with foreign scientists, but each team has proprietary aspects of their experiments that are not shared. Because some peer-reviewed journals are reluctant to review or publish LENR data due to past controversies, most results are presented at international conferences, and foreign scientists have access to much of the U.S. data. In addition, U.S. experts have been invited to brief on LENR to nuclear institutes in India,50 Belgium,5 and South Korea,52 and a reciprocal visit by South Koreans to SPA WAR Pacific to initiate collaboration is planned. This relatively free flow of information increases the likelihood of a technology breakthrough—as well as the potential for technology surprise—by an international team, especially those from countries that are devoting more resources to this research than is the United States, and are supported with major corporate funding (Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Honda in Japan; Pirelli in Italy).53 The Experiments Most LENR experiments involve electrodes immersed in solutions of metal salts such as lithium chloride or lithium sulfate, with heavy water substituted for natural water. Electric current is sent through the experimental apparatus, in most instances producing excess heat. This effect occurs over long periods (several hundreds of hours), and many early experimenters achieved negative results because they were unaware of this incubation period. Israeli researchers used pulsating electric fields to increase heat production. The application of magnetic fields has been shown to stimulate increased heat and power. Usually one of the electrodes is palladium, because it has a high ability to adsorb (hold on the surface) and absorb deuterium atoms in its metal matrix. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen that undergoes fusion in nuclear weapons at high temperatures and pressures; it also undergoes fusion and is one of the basic building blocks of the heavier elements formed in stars. The Navy SPA WAR experiments used a unique technique to place the palladium atoms in the heavy-water solution and to codeposit palladium and deuterium, which rapidly increases the deuterium "loading" necessary for the LENR phenomena to occur. A Notional LENR Electrochemical Cell (Left) and a French LENR Apparatus After an Unexplained Explosion (Right)54 4 UNCLASSIFIED Page 5 UNCLASSIFIED Who's Hot in Cold Fusion? The countries with the most advanced LENR programs are Japan, Italy, and Israel. In addition, Russia, France, China, South Korea, and India are spending significant resources on LENR research. The following are among the most notable effoits: • In Japan, Iwamura at Mitsubishi has been studying transmutation of elements in LENR experiments and multilayer palladium (Pd) complexes. His team includes the Japanese Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute and SPring-8 at Riken. Kitamura and other researchers at Kobe University are investigating Pd nanopowders and Helium-4 ash. Arata at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has worked on catalysts containing nanopalladium. Yamaguchi at Kobe noted transmutation using multilayered Pd samples. Mizuno at Hokkaido is studying transmutations and heat generation. A team led by Hioki at Toyota is investigating deuterium gas permeation through Pd as well as transmutations. Toriyabe at Tohoku University is developing charged-particle detectors for LENR. Kasagi is looking at electron and ionic screening in LENR effects. • Vittorio Violante, a leader in the field of Pd metallurgy and the role of surface effects in LENR, heads a team at ENEA, Frascati Rome, (the Italian equivalent to the U.S. Department of Energy (performing LENR experiments. A team led by Francesco Celani at INFN that includes STMicroelectronics and Pirelli labs is studying deuterium migration in nanocoated Pd for fast-loading and anomalous heat effects. The Italian Physical and Chemical Societies are supporting LENR research in Italy. • Srinivasan in India noted that India is restarting its LENR program: the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre had several groups working on LENR from 1989 to the early 1990s. Sinha at IISc in Bangalore is studying models for fusion in metal deutendes. Lakshmanan at Saveetha College is exploring fusion in sodium metal solutions. • Andrei Lipson and other researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences and scientists in Tomsk are studying the emission of charged particles during the use of electron beams to excite palladium/deuterium (Pd/D) and titanium/deuterium (Ti/D) targets. Karabut and others at LUCH also are conducting LENR experiments. A Dubna team led by Gareev is studying nuclear fusion during cavitation and molecular transitions. LUCH's Savvatimova, Dash, Muromtsev, and Artamonov also aie conducting LENR experiments. Adamenko and Vysotskii of Kiev aie looking for magnetic monopoles in LENR experiments. Kurchatov-based scientist Goiyachev is investigating LENR for alternative energy sources and for mitigating radioactive waste. • Xing Z. Li at Tshinghua University claims 20 institutions in China are investigating LENR with governmental support. Tian's team at Cahnchun University of Science and Technology is investigating laser triggering in Pd/D systems. Zhang and other researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have studied Pd-D kinetics in LENR since 1991. • Israeli scientists at Energetics in Omer have shown that variations in energy output can be increased using variable frequency or pulsed "superwaves" to stimulate LENR effects. • The French Atomic Energy Agency had an offici al LENR program from 1997 to 1999. EDF also had one for several years. Currently, Jean-Paul Biberian from the Université Marseille and Jacques Dufour at CNAM are working on LENR in France. • Jan Marwan of Dr. Marwan Chemie in Berlin, Germany, is studying the nano structure of palladium hydride systems. Huke and others from the Technische Universität Berlin are working with Czerski in Poland and Ruprecht in Can;n.l;¡ on olearon sclvuiììiìl; [íK'cIkmiímii^ l'or deuteron fusion. 5 UNCLASSIFIED Page 6 UNCLASSIFIED Outlook and Implications If nuclear reactions in LENR experiments are real and controllable, DIA assesses that whoever produces the first commercialized LENR power source could revolutionize energy production and storage for the future. The potential applications of this phenomenon, if commercialized, are unlimited. The anomalous LENR effects seen in these metal lattices containing deuterium may also have as-yet undetermined nanotechnology implications. LENR could serve as a power source for batteries that could last for decades, providing power for electricity, sensors, military operations, and other applications in remote areas, including space. LENR could also have medical applications for disease treatment, pacemakers, or other equipment. Because nuclear fusion releases 10 million times more energy per unit mass than does liquid transportation fuel, the military potential of such high-energy-density power sources is enormous. And since the U.S. military is the largest user of liquid fuel for transportation, LENR power sources could produce the greatest transformation of the battlefield for U.S. forces since the transition from horsepower to gasoline power. Prepared by: Beverly Barnhart, DIA/DI, Defense Warning Office. With contributions from: Dr. Patrick McDaniel, University of New Mexico; Dr. Pam Mosier-Boss, U.S. Navy SPAWAR/Pacific; Dr. Michael McKubre, SRI International; Mr. Lawrence Forsley, JWK International; and Dr. Louis DeChiaro, NSWC/Dahlgren. Coordinated with DIA/DRI, CPT, DWO, DOE/IN, US Navy SPAWAR/Pacific and U.S. NSWC/Dahlgren, VA. Boekris, John. "The History of the Discovery of Transmutation ai Texas A&M University," paper presented at the 10th Internationa] Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF). Cambridge. MA. 2003. 14th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF), Washington, DC, 10-15 August 2008. 1 The number of protons in the nucleus of an atom determines the identity of the chemical element. Nuclear transmutation occurs when the number of protons in the nucleus is changed by adding or removing protons or converting them toother nuclear particles. Thus transmutation changes one chemical element into another through a nuclear process. 4 Benedict. M.. T. Pigford. and H. Levi. "Nuclear Chemical Engineering." McGrau Itili .Series in Nuclear Engineering, 1981. ?Hecker, S., "Plutonium, A Historical Overview." Challenges in Plutonium Science, Vol. l.Los Alamos. National Laboratory. No. 26, 2000. 6 Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 261, 263, 287, pp 187, 301, 293. 7 DeChiaro. Louis. "Recent Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, "briefing prepared by NAVSEA, Dahlgren, for DDR&E, 28 August, 2009. s Iwamura, Yashiro, et al., "Transmutation Reactions Induced by D: Gas Permeation Through Pd Complexes (Pd/CaO/Pd), "14"' International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF). Washington. DC, 10-15 August 2008. 9 Hioki, Tatsumì, et al.. "Influence of Deuterium Gas Permeation on Surface Elemental Change of Ion-Implanted Pd," 14th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF), Washington, DC, 10-15 August 2008. 10Celani. Francesco, et al.. "Deuteron Eleciromigraiioii in Thin Pd Wires Coated with Nano-Particles: Evidence for Ultra-Fast Deuterium Loading and Anomalous. Large Thermal Effects," 14th In te m at i on al Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF). Washington. DC, 10-15 August 2008. 6 UNCLASSIFIED Page 7 UNCLASSIFIED "Exciting New Scic lid.': Potential Clean Energy." Abstracts. 14 ' International Conference un Condensed Malici" Nuclear Science and Imeni aliona I Conference un Coki Fusion (ICCF). Wasli ingioi), DC. 10-15 August 2008. 12 Mosier-Boss. et al. 'Triple Tracks in CR-39 as ilie Restili of Pd/D Co-deposition: Evidence of Energetic Neutrons," Naturwissenschaften. 96. 2009. 135-142. II Mosier-Boss. et al., Navy SP AW AR briefing. American Chemical Society annua! meeting. March 2009. 14 "Exciting New Science: Potential Clean Energy." Abstracts. 14th International Conference on Condensed Mailer Nuclear Science and Ini em aliona I Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF). Washington. DC. 10-15 August 2008. 15 Transmutations only occur when nuclear panicles interact and are exchanged io produce different elements. lfi Iwamura. Yashiro. et al., "Transmutaiion Reaction;, Induced by D2 Cas Permeation Through Pd Complexes (Pd/CaO/Pd) 14th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF), Washington, DC, 10-15 August 2008. 17 Yamaguchi. Tatsuya. et al.. "Investigation of Nuclear Transinuiaiion Using Muliilavcivd CaO/X/Pd Samples Under Deuterium Permeation." 14th Internal i on al Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF). Washington. DC, 10-15 August 2008. '"iwamura, Yashiro. et al., "Elemental Analysis of Pd Complexes: Effects of D, Cas Permeation. "Japan Journal of Applied Physics, Vol 41. 2002, pp. 4642-4650. 19 Arata. Y.. "Anomalous Effects in Charging of Pd Powders with High Density ilvdrogen Isotopes," Physics Letters A, 373,2009, pp 3109-3112. 20 Violante, V. et al., "On the Correlation of PdD Alloy Material Properties with the Occurrence of Excess Power." briefing presented at 14thInternational Conference on ColdFusion (ICCF). Washington. DC. 10-15 August 2008. 21 Prelas. M.A..et al.. "A review of Transmutation and Clustering in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions." briefing presented at Vice Chancellor for Research Seminar on LENR. University of Missouri. May 2009. " Briefings presented at Navy SPAWAR San Diego. LENR meeting, 4-5 August. 2009. 21 Mosier-Boss. et al. "Triple Tracks in CR-39as the Result of Pd/D Co-deposition: Evidence of Energetic Neutrons," Naturwissenschaften, 96, 2009, 135-142. 24Mizuno. Tadahiko. "Neutron Emission Induced by Nuclear Reaction in Condensed Matter." briefing presented at Vice Chancellor for Research Seminar on LENR. University of Missouri. May 2009. "' Zhang, el al.. "On ihe Explosion in a DcLilcriiiin/PalladiLim Electrolytic System." Third Inicrnaitonal conference on Cold Fusion. 1992. Nagoya. Japan. 26 Biberian. Jean-Paul. "Unexplained Explosion During an Electrolysis Experiment in an Open Cell Mass flow Calorimeter." Journal of Condensed Matter, Nuclear Science. 2 (2009) pp. 1-6. 27 Zhang, et al.. "On the Explosion in aDeuierium/Palladiuin electrolytic System." Third International conference on Cold Fusion. 1992. Nagoya. Japan. 20 Lesin. et al.. "Ultrasonica!!y-Exciteci Electrolysis Experiments at Energetic Technologies." Energetics Technologies. Omer. Israel, briefing presented ai 14"' International Conference on ColdFusion (ICCF). Washington. DC. 10-15 August 2008 Jayaraman. K.S.. "Cold Fusion is Hot Again." Nature India. 2008. Published online 17 Jan 2008. http://www.lenr- eaiir.org/aeroha i/.lay animai iKcokHusion.pdf III Mosier-Boss. et al., multiple briefings presented ai Navy SPAWAR Pacific. August 4-5. 2009. 11 McKubre. Michael. "Studies of the Fleischinann-Pons Effect at SRI International." briefing presented at Vice Chancellor for Research Seminar'on LENR. University of Missouri. May 2009. 12 Spzak. Stan, et al.. "Evidence of Nuclear Reactions in the Pd Lattice." Naturwissenschaften. 92. 2005. 394-397. ' Szpak. Stan, et al.. "Thermal Behavior of Polarized Pd/D Electrodes Prepared by Co-Deposition." Thermochimica Acto. 410, 2004. 101-107. 14 Mosier-Boss. et al.. "Triple Tracks in CR-39 as the Result of Pd/D Co-deposition: Evidence of Energetic Neutrons." Naturwissenschaften. 96. 2009. 135-142. "1= Spzak. Stan, et al.. "Evidence of Nuclear Reactions in the Pd Lattice." Naturwissenschaften. 92. 2005. 394-397. y' The identity of a chemical element is determined by the number of protons in its atomic nucleus. Transmutation occurs when one chemical element is changed into another one. This normally occurs during radioactive decay, bul can occur from any number of nuclear processes that add or subtract protons from the atomic nucleus. '"' Mosier-Boss. et al.. Navy SPAWAR briefing. American Chemical Society annual meeting. March 2009. ""McKubre. Michael. "Studies of the Fleischmann-Pons Effect at SRI International." briefing presented at Vice Chancellor for Research Seminar: Excess Ileal and Panicle Tracks from Deuterium-Loaded Palladium. University of Missouri, 29 May 2009. 7 UNCLASSIFIED Page 8 UNCLASSIFIED Swartz. Mi telle]], et al., "The Impaci of Heavy Water {D:0) o it Nickel-Lid n Water Cold Fusion Systems." Proceedings of the 9'1' lutein aliona I Conference on Cold Fusion. ICCF-9. Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. May 19-24, 2002. Beijing, China, Tsinghua University Press. 2003. pp 335-342. 40 Miles. Melvin, et al.. -Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Systems," Final Report. NAWCWPNS TP 8302. Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division. 1996. 41 Hagelstein. Peter and Ir fan Chaudhary. "Modeling Excess ileal in the Fleischmann-Pons Experiment." briefing presented at Vice Chancellor for Research Seminaron LENR. University of Missouri. May 2009. 42 Olenik. V.P. and Yu.D. Arepjev. "Physical Mechanism of Nuclear Reactions at Low Energies." National Technical University of Ukraine. Kiev Polytechnic Institute 41 Srivastava. Y.N., O. Panella. A. Widom. "Instability of the Perturbation Theoretical Chiomodynamic Vacuum." LANL web site. arXiv:0811.3293vl 20 Nov 2008. 44 Hagelstein. Peter. MIT. Briefing. Navy SPAWARPacific, August 2009.. 4:> McDaniel. Patrick. "Electrochemicaliy Induced Nuclear Reactions." briefing, presented at Navy SPAWAR Pacific, August 2009. 46 Sinha. K.P. and A.Meulenberg. "Laser Stimulation of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions in Deuleraied Palladium." Current Science, Vol.91, No.7, 10 October, 2006, pp. 907-912 47 Lesin. et al., "Ultrasonieally-Exciied Electrolysis Experiments at Energetic Technologies." Energetics Technologies. Omer. Israel, briefing presented al I -i"1 Internationa! Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCFi. Washington. DC, 10-15 August 2008. 4HTsvetkov.. S.A., "Possibility of Using Cold Fusion for Nuclear Waste Products Transmutation." !0tb International Conference on Cold Fusion. Cambridge, MA. 2003. from LENR-CANR.org website. ' htp://wwrw.cbsnews.coiii/stones/2009/04/17/60ininLiles/inaiii-l9S2167.shlinl?lag-conletuMain:conteiifßody 50 Personal correspondence. Dr. Michael McKubre. SRI International. October. 2009. "' Forsley. L.. "Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions: Overview of an Unexpected Phenomena." First Colloquium on Nano-Nuclear Science FUniversiie catholique de Louvain. Belgium, May 4-5. 2009. "2 Personal correspondence. Mr. Lawrence Forsley. JWK International. October. 2009. 51 In Japan, the three major automakers are supporting LENR research. In Italy, Pirelli Labs is one of many corporate and governmental sponsors of LENR research. 54 Biberian. Jean-Paul. "Unexplained Explosion During an Electrolysis Experiment in an Open Cell Mass flow Calorimeter." Journal of Condensed Matter, Nuclear Science. 2 (2009) pp. 1-6. UNCLASSIFIED

I propose adding text from the leaked U.S. government secondary source Barnhart et al (2009) "Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance," Defense Analysis Report DIA-08-0911-003, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been verified as authentic by experienced editors of this article. In particular, I propose adding the material in the first yellow box, the first paragraph after the second yellow box, the bold statement on page 3, the contents of the third yellow box on page 3, the contents of the fourth yellow box on page 4, the entirety of page 5, and the first sentence at the top of page 6, all sourced to the DIA document. Any objections? 99.34.78.67 (talk) 00:28, 25 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

According to [reliable sources], "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published sources..." Has this been published? Olorinish (talk) 01:47, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. 99.34.78.67 (talk) 02:16, 25 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that does not count, alas. Your link does not show the DIA document was formally published by the DIA. It is merely a copy of an escaped/leaked document--essentially an informal publication. There is no way the sticklers-for-formality around here could accept that. V (talk) 16:12, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Has the 2004 DOE report been "published" ? It is used in our article, anyway, so I would say that we can use this DIA document too. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:20, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The DOE published it in its website with a press release[4]. The report and the comments of the director of the agency were covered by several newspapers and science magazines before and after the release. --Enric Naval (talk) 05:14, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

On page 5, it says Israel is one of the three most advanced countries studying the technology. The particular research facility specified has made claims of 2,500% excess power.[5] 99.191.74.146 (talk) 12:51, 26 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe the Israeli company claiming these numbers are the same guys that attempt to cure HIV and other illnesses with cold fusion waves. See this article and this on Dardik. The fact that they use this source in their document is proof that the DIA report is poorly reviewed. What an embarassment. But that's beside the point. An unplubished DIA report is not RS. PCarbonn's point about equating this with the DOE review is missing the point on several levels; the DOE review was publicly published, widely anticipated and widely reported by the NYT, Washington Post and other highly reliable sources. It's not even the same class of source as the DIA document. Phil153 (talk) 13:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you think any of the proposed additions from the document should be made, Phil? How about in the context of, "A 2009 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report said...?" 99.22.94.58 (talk) 18:48, 26 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

IMO, at most, we could use it to attribute an opinion/POV, and a fairly limited one as things stand - as lacking any evidence that it is out of the "draft" stage, we can only presume that the opinion is limited solely to the authors. Furthermore as I can tell it contains no verifiable quotes by any of the authors so even doing that would be sketchy. And when did we use "draft"s as sources? I can't think of a way to legitimately justify it right now. maybe when/if it gets published. Kevin Baas^talk 16:23, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Where are you seeing the word "draft"? Aren't leaks like this the only way any sensitive but unclassified DIA reports ever get published? Then again, I can't see why this one would be sensitive, unless the TSA is worried about people sneaking codeposition apparatus on planes, and that just isn't practical, even with 25x battery power. Shorting the batteries against something flammable would be more potentially damaging. 99.22.94.58 (talk) 21:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I don'tknow about you, but i rarely bother to write "draft" on my drafts. nonetheless, o long a it is subjet to being edited before being published, i.e. o long as it is not published, it is a draft. ofcoursee many type of documents, such as minutes of meetings, are never edited and "publihing" amount to being ditributed to those in attendance. but this is not one of those type of documents. Kevin Baas^talk 14:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

How do you know you don't know about me? Leaked DIA documents often end up taking a special historical significance. 99.27.201.92 (talk) 06:44, 29 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Is http://superwavefusion.com in New Jersey the same as, different from, or a part of Energetics in Omer, Israel? 99.22.94.58 (talk) 21:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I found the answer in a 2 second google search. Dardik is involved in both companies. The articles I linked above have further information. Phil153 (talk) 05:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you think the actual answer is, then? Same organization, different organization, part (if part, which is the parent?), or some other form of merger? Are you going to answer the question above about whether the material should be included attributed to the DIA? 99.27.134.160 (talk) 16:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Nature Magazine and the non-importance of failed replications

Introduction: In this opinion, Nature magazine makes fun of the skeptics. It tells the fictitious story of a Professor Madeline Hou who tours the country with an experimental demonstration of the failure of cold fusion; the problem is, the last time she conducts the demonstration, it ends us with an explosion, releasing energy "orders of magnitude higher than the total from any previous ‘controlled fusion’ experiment." It concludes : "With new energy sources critically important, the Department of Energy has scheduled its attempt to replicate Hou’s demonstration at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. "

This echoes what the DOE said in 1989: "Even a single short but valid cold fusion period would be revolutionary.(...) any good experiment that fails to find cold fusion can be discounted as merely not working for unknown reasons" Our article would be better if it included this important statement. It could be inserted in the experimental section. Alternatively, we could add a specific section discussing replication, as this is a key issue in the debate, and often misunderstood. Comments welcome.

By the way, many researchers have reported explosions from cold fusion devices : Fleischmann & Pons, in their original paper; Mizuno, Biberian. Mizuno's explosion was from an open cell, excluding the possibility of gas build-up or catastrophic recombination. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:42, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting we should cite a fictitious story to demonstrate the validity of cold fusion? I'm confused. Apart from that, I don't understand why the DOE statement you quoted matters. Perhaps you can clarify. Of course a VALID demonstration of cold fusion would be revolutionary. That's like saying a VALID demonstration of perpetual motion or ESP would be revolutionary. The importance of a VALID cold fusion demonstration is covered in the article already, with text such as These reports raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy in the lead and the "Reaction to the Announcement" section. Phil153 (talk) 07:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't figure out what that Nature opinion piece is supposed to mean. As for validity, when do we get to add the pairs (and triples, etc.) of independent confirmations of various experiments from the peer-reviewed primary sources? Why have those been objected to? 99.38.149.213 (talk) 07:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The Nature piece is from their recurring Futures section. It's a weekly one-page science fiction story, pure and simple: [6]. It's not an editorial, nor even an opinion piece. I would submit that "even a single short but valid observation of the Loch Ness monster would be revolutionary" — but as with cold fusion, the continued absence of evidence is entirely uninteresting. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 09:11, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Related side discussion

I partly agree and partly disagree. Do remember that the CF issue has two components. The first is the generation of heat energy in quantities greater than can be explained by ordinary means. The second is the interpretation that fusion is the event yielding the observed energy. So, we have a great many reliable observations of the first thing. That by itself should be far from "uninteresting"!! It demands a greater depth of research! What we don't have is adequate reliable observations that fusion has been involved. Isn't it logical that if a greater depth of research is conducted, we could perhaps either verify or rule out the hypothesis of fusion-as-explanation? "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." --but what might be said about anyone attempting to interfere with gathering appropriate evidence? By, say, insisting that the two parts of the CF issue must be combined in such a way as to muddy Wikipedia reporting, and consequent communication with potential readers/experimenters? (you talked about "absence of evidence" of what precisely???) V (talk) 16:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how the content of a Wikipedia article should interfere with experiments or evidence-gathering in the real world. In general, research programs and funding decisions are not governed by Wikipedia articles — and we certainly shouldn't be advocating particular research directions. Cold fusion advocates have had twenty years to verify fusion-as-explanation; 'absence of evidence' starts to look suspiciously like 'evidence of absence' after a couple of decades of failure. If they come up with something persuasive it will make it into Wikipedia, but until then it's not our role to Teach the Controversy. Meanwhile, excess heat that might not be from fusion looks to me like the cold fusion's world's answer to irreducible complexity that might not be from the Christian God. I really don't want to get into a religious argument with you. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Then I shall be happy to explain it to you. Some of the people who read Wikipedia are bright young kids who will go on to do great things -- provided they have information to work with that is as complete as possible, and not stifled by chosen-to-be-ignorant/out-of-date POV-pushers (you, for example, prove yourself to be one of them, since you don't know that roughly the last five years of your claimed "couple decades of failure" has been full of successful replications of excess energy production, regardless of whatever has caused it). It is the future experiments of those grown kids that will be affected negatively by such inaccurate/out-of-date/incomplete reporting (kids do not normally have easy access to technical journals) -- some might not even bother to try. And as for your nonsense about "teaching controversy", it is exactly nonsense since this article is already about a controversial subject (therefore both sides need to be presented in excellent detail), and not about taking a well-understood subject and making it controversial. And no, fusion wasn't so super-well-understood that surprises such as muon-catalyzed fusion could not be discovered. How do you know for certain that no other surprises wait to be found? Something is causing excess energy to appear in various deuterium-saturated experiments, and not causing it to appear in equivalent plain-hydrogen experiments. That's the basic fact. Whether or not fusion is involved is unimportant compared to attempts to say, in effect, "The claim that fusion is involved means nobody should bother investigating the basic fact." <--THAT'S the prime stupidity about which I am most strenuously objecting! V (talk) 20:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry; you were right. I didn't understand your point until you started insulting me. Clearly I agree completely with your Truth, and I know now that we need to protect the children. You don't need to argue any further to persuade me. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no insult in simple truth. You stated, and I quote, "...'absence of evidence' starts to look suspiciously like 'evidence of absence' after a couple of decades of failure." The statement is false, since the last half-decade has not been full of failed experiments. Now, either you didn't know that (in which case saying you were ignorant is simple truth and not an insult), or you were lying outright. If that was true it would technically not be an insult to say you were a liar. (Kind of like calling a female dog a "bitch" --it is precisely the correct terminology, regardless of connotations.) You can see which assumption I made, about your statement, in my previous post. Because I'm well aware that quite a few experts in the field of hot fusion, once they dismissed the idea of cold fusion, never bothered to keep up with experimental developments; ignorance is the more probable explanation for your statement. You are welcome, of course, to correct me by stating you were lying...but I will not stand still while you claim, in essence, that simple truths are inherently insulting. V (talk) 22:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Am I ignorant, or am I a liar? Mu. I hope that you someday learn how to interact with people who disagree with you. Until then, please find somewhere else to vent your spleen. (Incidentally, you also seem to be confused about the history of muon-catalyzed fusion. μCF had a sound theoretical basis compatible with existing nuclear physics, and was in fact predicted years before it was observed. You probably ought to be more careful about your research before making extraordinary claims.) I'm done with you. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Tsk, tsk, your feeble attempt at a rebuttal does not change the fact that you made a false statement --and your failure to provide a third explanation for making that statement only reinforces the validity of the question ("mu" is thus not an applicable response --because if it was applicable, there would be a reason why, that could be explained). In my book, anyone who makes a false statement, and avoids explaining it, deserves short shrift in the politeness department. Not to mention that the people who actually discovered muon catalyzed fusion in action were not immediately aware of that dusty theoretical work; they were indeed surprised by the discovery (even if only temporarily). I do know some of the story, if not all the details. Next, are you not aware that Pons & Fleischmann conducted their original experiments on the speculative basis that perhaps a Quantum-Mechanical version of the classical multi-body-problem might offer another pathway toward low-energy fusion? In their minds, therefore, they had what they thought was a reasonable hypothesis to test. Was their hypothesis taken seriously enough to find theoretical flaws in it? No (nor has most any other proposed explanation). The evidence of the last twenty years suggests that the top theorists were so convinced that the claims were flawed, of excess energy production, that they didn't feel any need to bother with any proposal that fusion might be happening. Now it is of course possible that fusion is not happening in those experiments, but it is extremely improbable, now, that the experimental results, of excess energy production, are still flawed. (It even got published in Physics Letters A as experimental replication, a few months ago.) Some explanation for the phenomenon is therefore required. So, if not fusion, then what? Care to try again, regarding explaining your false statement? V (talk) 23:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for article: I'm not suggesting that we should quote the Nature story. I'm suggesting to include statements explaining that failed replications do not matter, as the Nature story illustrates and as the DOE said in 1989. Our lead section says that the early failures to replicate were key elements in casting cold fusion as pathological science in the 1990's: this was a wrong argument, as was the theoretical one, but it is still used today very often by unreliable sources. As for VALID experiment, what do you think of the American Chemical Society's statement in March 2009: "Researchers are reporting compelling new scientific evidence for the existence of low energy nuclear reactions" ? (Their statement was reported in many other journals, giving it both the notability and reliability it needs to be included in the lead, in my opinion.) Pcarbonn (talk) 08:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The 2009 ACS meeting is already mentioned in three parts of the article: in the lead (in present footnote 11), in a later paragraph, and in a video link at the bottom. Even so, Pcarbonn wants to include more discussion of it in order to make the wikipedia article more pro-CF. For those who may not know, this is the kind of activity that led to his ban a year ago. Olorinish (talk) 15:06, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

For those who may not know, Olorinish is right when he describes the ban as having been the result of a content dispute. Shame! When will the article reflect the fact that the peer-reviewed literature hasn't seen an article critical of cold fusion for over five years, and in that same span of time has seen dozens of independent replications and other articles from the same point of view that anyone who has ever been banned from this article tried to represent in the article? 99.25.115.5 (talk) 19:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC) corrected by: 99.27.201.92 (talk) 06:55, 29 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Am I right to conclude from the discussion above that the 2004 DOE quote ("Even a single short but valid cold fusion period would be revolutionary. any good experiment that fails to find cold fusion can be discounted as merely not working for unknown reasons") is not controversial ? If so, I would propose to add it to the History section where the DOE is discussed. Comments welcome. Content dispute do not automatically result in a ban, if there are properly addressed using dispute resolution mechanism. By the way, the record shows that editors on both sides of the cold fusion debate have been banned in the past. If there is still a dispute on this article, it should be addressed by a DR process such as mediation. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, the quote is not controversial at all; in fact it is so obvious that adding it to the article would add nothing, and instead would distract the reader. Olorinish (talk) 14:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

ah, there you go: by that logic it fails the notability/significance test. i'd also add that it's a POV and thus if it were to be included it should be so as attributed opinion, which raises the notability bar. Kevin Baas^talk 14:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

What the DOE considers "revolutionary" is not notable exactly why again please? 99.27.201.92 (talk) 06:48, 29 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

it's not notable because the truth of the statement is fairly obvious. the strength/nature of the words in the sentence has no bearing on notability, it's the how improbable the assertion is. and in this case, the assertion is highly probable. i.e. no one disputes that IF there were a "short but valid cold fusion period" that would be "revolutionary", that is, it would call in to question much of what we take for granted about nuclear physics. that is really quite obvious. any particular source stating the obvious is really quite un-extraordinary. To put it more technically, "notability" means we want to have a high density of information in the article. And that is measured by "surprise", or, more formally, Kullback-Leibler divergence. And since that assertion agrees with most models of physics and scientific progress, the KL-divergence of it is nearly zero. I would be like saying, "Oh, and grass is green." (And adding emphasis, such as "Oh, and like the grass is TOTALLY green, man." doesn't make the assertion any less trivial.) Kevin Baas^talk 18:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

How could the statement possibly be obvious to a non-technical reader, or even a technically literate reader unfamiliar with the field? Can you point to any other statement in the entire encyclopedia which has ever been excluded from a controversial article because it was obvious? 208.54.5.73 (talk) 20:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Anything taht's been excluded on account of undue weight, lack of notability, or in certain caes, POV-porblem (e.g. repetition), was excluded for the same reason. Quite regardless of whether or not the article, or the material for that matter, was controversial. Kevin Baas^talk 13:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

On furhter investigation, the policy - perhaps on account of it being written from a classical paradigm rather than a more modern approach - only mentions it briefly and vaguely (in WP:DUE): "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." Here they use "significance", which is more complex, but include the aforementioned "surprise". Suffice it to say that my little KL-divergence note goes much deeper: the fact that we/speak or write at all presumes that we have information to convey; that there is KL-divergence between the model we communicate and the reciever's preconcieved model; i.e. that reading comprehension amounts to something of a "bayesian update". were this not the case our words might as well be a random combination of letters. fdgahfkghrdgiulrehlrehnvrevwrmvmer my point is that this is a fact inherent in language - and even deeper than that - in communication - whether between two humans, two computers, or two brain cells. You can't avoid it. But you can use it to write better articles. And it's pivotal for neutrality. For further clarification I guess you can read the neutrality ection of my user page. Kevin Baas^talk 14:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

An alternative proposal. I'm wondering why we say the following in the lead : "Enthusiasm turned to scepticism as replication failures were weighed in view of several reasons cold fusion should not be possible (...)". It is obvious that these two arguments cannot be recognized as valid by any scientists worth its salt, and the sources we provide don't explicitly say it either, as far as I can see. Shouldn't we remove it, in view of the discussion we just had ?

It is not obvious to me how the first argument (replication failures) cannot be recognized as a valid reason to become skeptical. It might be interesting if statistics could be gathered regarding the manufacturing methods used for the pieces of palladium used in each of the replication-attempts. There were not very many successful replications in the early days; some of the failures might be attributable to ending the experiment prior to adequate deuterium loading; most of the rest could be blamed on the bad luck of having a piece of palladium with an inappropriate microstructure. The few who were lucky simply got drowned out, which is not entirely unreasonable. Science depends on reliable replications of experiments, after all. The part that is not reasonable was the backlash about fusion being involved (obviously it could not be reasonably expected to be involved in any experiment that failed to produce anomalous energy! Not enough experimenters succeeded at the primary replication stage, for Science to be able to rationally proceed to the stage of trying to find out if fusion was causing the anomalous energy. Only in the past five years or so has the rate of replication-of-production-of-anomalous-energy become high enough for that second stage to become an investigation-priority. On the other hand, due to the overall controversy of the topic, it seems to me that the actual highest priority for people in the CF field is to get the word out, that now enough is known that most experimenters should be able to fairly reliably produce anomalous energy. Succeed at that, and nothing will stand in the way of serious investigation as to the source of that energy. Pcarbonn, I think your proposal below should be modified to retain the current text regarding early replicaton failures. V (talk) 16:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The lead would then say something like this: "Enthusiasm turned to scepticism when possible sources of experimental errors were discovered, and when it became evident that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected the expected nuclear reaction byproducts." Pcarbonn (talk) 20:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

"Loading Time" discussion

In the "Another Proposal" section currently near the top of this page I described some edits, only the last of which was disputed in that section. The other day I decided it was time to start implementing the edits, and in doing so invited others to add appropriate references. Now Hipocrite has come along and deleted the text on the basis, apparently, that the references were not added. This is ridiculous! If references were not available, regarding the text I added, I would have expected Hipocrite to have raised that point in the original discussion above. This is the text that was removed (from the "Experimental Details" section, just before the "Excess heat observations" subsection): "Note that even when anomalous heat does appear, it can take weeks for it to begin to appear, and this is known as the "loading time", for the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis. However, in a significant advance, the SPAWAR team pioneered a "co-deposition" technique for greatly reducing the loading time; palladium metal is electroplated out of solution at the same time deuterium gas is being released, allowing the gas to merge with the metal without having to permeate the metal's volume. They report typically observing excess heat within a day."

I'm sure someone around here knows of specific RS references that support those statements. Especially in the case of the definition of "loading time" ---for example, here is a Non-RS link in which the phrase is used so casually the author appears to be assuming any reader will know what it is: http://amasci.com/weird/anode.txt --the text describes an experiment in which this is claimed: "2. It is *totally reproducible* -- at will -- with no loading time as in the Pd/heavy water experiments" (The text also mentions publication of the experiment in 1950 in the RS "Journal of the Electrochemical Society", but that's not really relevant to this particular discussion.) What is highly relevant is that the text refers to an "upcoming issue" of the non-RS magazine "Infinite Energy" as being issue #20 --that magazine publishes 6 times a year, and the current issue is #88, so this means that the text I've linked, that so casually talks about "loading time", is plenty old enough for appropriate RS sources to exist, regarding it.

My Google search that found the above linked text also found this item: http://www.springerlink.com/content/q05420j448382338/ --an RS article dated June 1990, about an attempted/failed replication of the original P&F experiment. The Google search found this text: "It is believed that the loading time scales with the thickness of the piece, squared. ... volved in the so-called cold fusion experiments." --which I think probably exists somewhere in the depths of the actual article, and not on the abstract page that Google presented. It's kind of interesting that this experiment was terminated after only 3 weeks of (possibly inadequate) loading time, while deuterium that had gotten into the palladium was still coming out 8 weeks later. Since it is now known that the microstructure of the metal (how was it fabricated?) plays a role, it is possible that no amount of loading time would have sufficed for that particular experiment. Again, though, this experiment isn't as important here as the fact that the report is more evidence that the phrase "loading time" has been in use for a long time in the CF research field! The article here should have this in it! V (talk) 13:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Recent data has shown that even something you think would be as simple as loading behavior is not well understood by the empiricists. That presents dim prospects for finding any source not recognizing the oscillatory behavior of loading which anyone paying attention would call reliable. 99.27.134.160 (talk) 16:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

all SPAWAR papers:

• "Characterization of Tracks in CR-39 Detectors Obtained as a Result of Pd/D Co-deposition," Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., (2009). It describes the charging procedure as follows: "Palladium is then plated out onto the cathode substrate using a charging profile of 100 μA for 24 h, followed by 200 μA for 48 h followed by 500 μA until the palladium has been plated out. (...) After the palladium has been electrochemically plated out, the cathodic current is increased to 1 mA for 2 h, 2 mA for 6 h, 5 mA for 24 h, 10 mA for 24 h, 25 mA for 24 h, 50 mA for 24 h, 75 mA for 24 h , and 100 mA for 24 h."

• Reply to comment on 'The use of CR-39 in Pd/D co-deposition experiments': a response to Kowalski," European Physical Journal, Applied Physics, Vol. 44, p. 291–295 (2008) No comment on charging

• "Triple Tracks in CR-39 as the Result of Pd–D Co-deposition: Evidence of Energetic Neutrons," , Naturwissenschaften, 2008 : " Upon completion of the experiment, which typically run 2–3 weeks,(...)"

• “Detection of Energetic Particles and Neutrons Emitted during Pd:D Co-deposition", Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Source Book, American Chemical Society , Chapter 14, pp 311-334. (2008).

• “Use of CR-39 in Pd/D Co-deposition Experiments”, EPJ Applied Physics, 40, 293 (2007). Same procedure as the first paper above

• “Further Evidence of Nuclear Reactions in the Pd/D Lattice: Emission of Charged Particles”, Naturwissenschaften,, 94, 511 (2007). No comment on charging procedure

• “Evidence of Nuclear Reactions in the Pd Lattice”, Naturwissenschaften, 92, 394 (2005). "For the present case, the cell current profile was as follows: 1 mA for the first 24 h followed by 3.0 mA for a period necessary to reduce all Pd2+ ions (i.e., when the solution becomes colorless). (...) The far from equilibrium condition is realized by increasing the cell current to 100 mA or higher."

• “The Effect of an External Electric Field on Surface Morphology of Co-Deposited Pd/D Films”, J. Electroanal. Chem., 580, 284 (2005). "1.0 mAcm-2 for 8 h, 3 mA cm-2 for 8 h and at 5.0 mA cm-2 until all Pd2+ ions were reduced, i.e. when, by visual inspection, the solution becomes colorless. Upon completion of the Pd deposition, the cell current was increased to a value needed to maintain a visible gas evolution (usually 30–50 mA cm-2) for the next 2–3 h followed by the cell placement in an electric field (500– 3000 V cm-1) with the cell current increased to about 100 mA cm-2 for the next 48 h or longer. "

• “Thermal Behavior of Polarized Pd/D Electrodes Prepared by Co-Deposition”, Thermochimica Acta, 410, 101 (2004). "No re-filling of the cells was necessary due to the short time period of these experiments (8 days) and the low current that were used for the first 5 days" The chart do show some temperature increase in the beginning of the experiment though.

So, experiments typically last several days, and a graph in the last document shows that thermal effects have been observed in the beginning of these experiments. However, I could not find any statement that could be quoted here. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. The graph may be adequate. We are allowed to write descriptions, after all. I was aware that my text "within a day" was possibly not completely correct, and half-expected that when a reference was found, it would be edited --"within days" could be better, especially when the source is a graph.

We stil need an appropriate reference regarding the definition of "loading time", though. V (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Ultradense Deuterium

Not hugely relevant to improving this article yet, this compressed block is for letting editors here be informed of some possibly-relevant news.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/01/winterberg-on-ultradense-deuterium.html They are talking about hot fusion, of course. However, if this is true: http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/05/university-of-gothenberg-making.html then what about the possibility of such a "phase change" happening inside a palladium metal lattice? This is Original Research, of course, but if I can think if it, eventually so will someone else (who is in a position to publish in a Reliable Source). I'm relatively sure that if this phase change did happen, it would enhance the possibility that electron-screened fusion might occur, equivalent to the "hydrino" hypothesis. V (talk) 19:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Neutrons from glow discharge cathode deuterium fusion for transmuting nuclear waste and medical isotopes

This 2002 unreviewed(?) primary source describes decontamination of radioactive waste with 10⁴ neutrons/cm² and 4 MeV gammas, citing Karabut et al (1991) "The investigation of deuterium fusion at glow discharge cathode," J. Fusion Technology 20:924-8. In 1992 the same team claimed stronger results (Karabut, A.B., Y.R. Kucherov, and I.B. Savvatimova. Possible Nuclear Reactions Mechanisms at Glow Discharge in Deuterium. in Third International Conference on Cold Fusion, "Frontiers of Cold Fusion". 1992. Nagoya Japan: Universal Academy Press, Inc., Tokyo, Japan.)

We should mention this in a new "Applications" section sourced to the bottom of page 3 of the secondary 2009 DIA report, and include the note about the peer-reviewed 1991 and the academic press 1992 Karabut et al publications to support the neutron flux and energies necessary. The problem of nuclear waste is really a substantial problem, with huge implications for the planet's ability to address climate change.

At least one other of the DIA's unanticipated applications listed, medical isotope generation, should also be included, because the North American continent ran out of technetium-99m and other short-lived nuclear medicine isotopes briefly last year. If deuterium fusion at glow discharge cathodes is a useful source of neutrons, it could easily have far more commercial potential than power generation. Dual Use (talk) 03:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, do we really want to waste our time on discussing unpublished, unreviewed sources that speculate on possible applications of a hypothetical characteristic of a technology of which we can't find solid evidence? Somehow it seems a rather long stretch of WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NOT#CRYSTAL all at once. Why? LeadSongDog come howl 04:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Does a DoE report with a press release from a few years back take precedence over a DIA government secondary source without a press release from less than a year ago? Since when did having a press release have anything to do with whether something was published or not?

Also, are the 1991 peer-reviewed and 1992 academic press articles validated by the late 200x confirmations of neutrons? Dual Use (talk) 06:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I referred to the unpublished docstoc source (effectively an uncontrolled publisher), but press releases are not normally WP:RS either. LeadSongDog come howl 06:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, my fault; the source for that is: Tsvetkov, S.A. Possibility Of Using Of Cold Fusion For Nuclear Waste Products Transmutation. in Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003. Cambridge, MA. So it is certainly published, just not peer reviewed. Does it count as giving "significant attention in the press" to the peer reviewed paper it cites for experimental data? Dual Use (talk) 19:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

No. There is a walled garden of publications about cold fusion. To gain "significant attention in the press," you need to break out from that. Hipocrite (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

That is not a correct usage of the term "walled garden". Nobody "inside the garden" is erecting or maintaining any "walls". It is completely without walls. Whether one chooses to enter the garden, plant anything in it, or eat anything from it, has no affect on whether or not the garden has walls. And one cannot judge it's "wall-status", so to speak, by the flora or what climate it grows in or who chooses to plant it or eat it or water it or what have you. Kevin Baas^talk 16:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

There are multiple peer reviewed publications in pertinent academic journals, from the early 1990s through late 2000s which all agree that a neutron flux on the order of 10⁴/cm² and ~4 MeV gamma rays are produced by certain cold fusion processes. There are multiple peer-reviewed, and generally uncontroversial (as far as I can tell) academic journal articles saying that kind of neutron source can be used to decontaminate nuclear waste and manufacture nuclear medicine isotopes. And there's a non-reviewed conference paper from 2003 which ties cold fusion to nuclear waste decontamination, which received attention in the government secondary source from the DIA. That government secondary source also says the same process could possibly be used to produce medical isotopes and decommission nuclear weapons. Where is the wall on the walled garden, and what would need to happen for that wall to be breached? Dual Use (talk) 20:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Not hugely relevant to improving this article yet, this compressed block is for letting editors here be informed of some possibly-relevant info.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My own education in the field of nuclear chemistry indicates that a neutron flux is more likely to create radioactive atoms (good for medical tracers) than to stabilize radioactive atoms (not good for dealing with radwaste). SOME radioactive isotopes (positron emitters) can be directly stabilized by adding neutrons, sure. But not the majority of them, and especially not fission-product radwaste from nuclear power plants (they are radioactive because they already have an excess of neutrons, so adding more is not obviously a solution). On the other hand, there is one additional factor about which I don't know enough. The greater the excess in neutrons an isotope has, the more unstable it generally is (the faster it decays to a more-stable form). In some cases it would be possible to start with a very dangerous isotope (say, a 30-year half-life), add a neutron to change it to an isotope that has a 10-minute half-life (even more dangerous, but obviously only in the short term!), and when it decays it is now either stable or it has a much-less-dangerous half-life like 20,000 years. The trouble with this is that in order to be done efficiently we need most-excellent large-scale isotope-separation processes in place (so that the appropriate neutron flux can be applied to isotopes that will benefit from the treatment), and we don't have that technology, hardly at all (except for specialized purposes like extracting Uranium-235 or Deuterium). The preceding means I can't agree that discussions on this topic are very worthwhile at this time. Also, regardless of how effective certain "cold-fusion"-related systems might be as a neutron source, it is currently known that the Farnsworth fusor is quite a good neutron source, and it operates in a vacuum, which means its neutron flux can be more-directly applied to the things we want it applied to (just coat the inside walls of the device), than being applied to simply everything immediately surrounding a CF-type of source, including normal stuff that doesn't need that treatment (and would become radioactive unnecessarily). So, I'm saying that this is technically inefficient/impractical, even if it works, and there is a better alternative, so we don't need to put a lot of discussion here into it. V (talk) 15:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC) i was going to say that a fusor's pretty efficient in production of nuetrons, in that it's pretty direct - you just use electricity to rip them apart - but actually you use electricity to *smash* them apart and the kinetic energy from those smashes get thermalized, making it difficult to recover. so in that sense it's not very efficient. but a lot of that kinetic energy used to be mass so... well as far as we know, "cold fusion" (if there is such a thing) releases KE the same way so it's no better in that regard, and nothing suggests it would be a better neutron source anyways, in fact there's often a conspicuous lack of neutrons that lead some to think that there might be a stronger d+d->he pathway, which would make it a worse neutron source. so yeah, i'd say even that "might be" part is a tough sell. Kevin Baastalk 16:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC) actually slash that - the KE of a fusion in a fusor is initially transmitted radially in a high vacuum. so arguably thermalization is minimial until it hits something, such as the walls of the vacuum chamber. thus its theoretically possible to recover much more of the energy. in fact, the polywell (in theory) uses this fact to achieve a high energy conversion efficiency - much better than a steam turbine of a conventional reactor. score one for the fusor. Kevin Baastalk

1. No, there are not, and 2. "a non-reviewed conference paper from 2003" is not a reliable source for exciting new developments. What was your old account, please? Hipocrite (talk) 20:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

What are you saying there aren't any of? The 2009 DIA secondary government report reiterates the exciting development; you're the one saying it's new. I don't want to tell you the name of my old account for reasons we have already discussed. How about trying to make good faith attempts to improve instead of attacking editors? Dual Use (talk) 00:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

A reliable secondary (or even tertiary) source that can be quoted in support of the proposed statement is the Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, a peer-reviewed book referenced in a thread above, which says : "Recent experiments suggest the possibility of using the transmutation reactions to clean up the radioactive material that results from nuclear fission reactions." Here is the full reference:

Krivit, S.B, “Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions,” Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 255–270, ISBN 9780444520937

Pcarbonn (talk) 11:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I question if any article contributed by Krivit is a reliable source. He's not a scientist, he's an advocate. Hipocrite (talk) 12:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a source for saying that "he is an advocate" ? His list of publication on newenergytimes.com shows that he is endorsed by many organisations and publications. He has also been cited many times in the press. In this case, he has been invited to contribute to an encyclopedia published by Elsevier, and the paper has been peer-reviewed. Because this topic is controversial, we could attribute the proposed sentence, and say: "Proponents say that ...". If you have any doubt that this is not a reliable source, we can ask the RS noticeboard. Pcarbonn (talk) 13:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Krivit has been steadfastly adamant about not knowing whether any actual fusion is occurring. He also is the sole author of the only two peer-reviewed secondary sources published by an academic press on the topic (Krivit, S.B. (2009) "Cold Fusion: History," p. 271–6; "Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions," p. 255-70, Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol. 2, Garche et al, eds. (Amsterdam: Elsevier) ISBN 9780444520937) and one of the two editors of the only peer-reviewed secondary source from an academic press instead of a journal.

Think about that for a few moments, please. There are now comprehensive peer-reviewed secondary sources published by multiple academic presses, all of them more comprehensive than Biberian's journal "Update," and two of them much more so. I propose that Krivit's peer reviewed secondary sources be used to update the article immediately. Dual Use (talk) 17:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Specific proposal for "Applications" section

The empty heading "Discussion" should be removed and all of its sub-headings promoted to ==-level headings in the article, with "Proposed explanations" followed by a new top-level section "Applications" to include all of the potential applications listed in the 2009 DIA report, sourced to the DIA report as well as the peer reviewed journal articles and conference papers supporting each potential application. Dual Use (talk) 19:17, 10 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

What is wrong with the heading "Discussion"? Separately, the applications section you describe would probably give too much weight to what is essentially a self-published report. Olorinish (talk) 23:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no text between "Discussion" and the next heading. Why are the previous sections any less of a discussion? Why are you calling a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency essentially self-published? Dual Use (talk) 14:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the way the DIA report was disseminated was through a leak, rather than through a release authorized by the relevant officials in the DIA. If I am right, that is better described as self-publication than publication. Has something changed? Olorinish (talk) 16:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe you are mistaken. The publication was made by the agency, whether it was a leak or not. Is there any source, policy, or guideline suggesting otherwise? Dual Use (talk) 16:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Leaked drafts are not published documents. Hipocrite (talk) 17:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"The publication was made by the agency,..." Does anyone know a link for that? I apologize if I missed something. Olorinish (talk) 17:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

link to leaked document, see in this same talk page the section titled "Leaked DIA document". --Enric Naval (talk) 18:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Community ban discussion of Pcarbonn

Is still on-going here and in the !vote on the parent section. Interested parties who have not yet weighed in on the subject should come by and express their views. --GoRight (talk) 22:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Another Proposal

In the "Further Developments" section of the main article is this: "The interest in cold fusion in India had been rekindled earlier that year by a demonstration in Bangalore by Japanese researcher Yoshiaki Arata." What I propose is that at the end of the "Experimental Details" section we add a couple of sentences.

First, we should add something to this existing paragraph: "The most basic setup of a cold fusion cell consists of two electrodes submerged in a solution of palladium and heavy water. The electrodes are then connected to a power source to transmit electricity from one electrode to the other through the solution." We should note that it can take weeks for anomalous heat to begin to appear, and this is known as the loading time, for the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis.

Second, we could mention the SPAWAR co-deposition technique for reducing the loading time; palladium is electroplated out of solution at the same time deuterium gas is being released, allowing the gas to merge with the metal without having to permeate the metal's volume.

Then we add something like this: "Yoshiaki Arata greatly reduced the loading time by demonstrating a new class of CF experiments involving direct pressurization of powdered palladium with deuterium gas, and others have tried this approach also." --and we use this as the reference for it: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2009.06.061 (This is an RS document which verifies that others have tried Arata's approach, and anyone who accesses that journal article should be able to find a reference to Arata's experiments; so far as I know there are no direct RS-good-enough-for-Wikipedia references for Arata's work, although another reference regarding this approach appears to be http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.surfcoat.2006.03.062 --#77 on the long list.) It appears that Arata had been doing it for a while, but didn't get widely noticed until 2008. V (talk) 18:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

At this point I've only pulled up the abstract, but it seems clear that Arata is talking about excess energies of 2.4 vs 1.8 eV/atom for D2 vice H2 loading. This difference is plain electrochemistry. If it was any kind of fusion, we'd be looking for MeV, not eV. It is perhaps of interest to people making expensive batteries and fuel cells, e.g. for satellite applications. LeadSongDog come howl 17:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

hmmmm...how is he calculating that? (Better question; how can it be "electrochemistry" when there is no electricity going through the palladium powder in a direct-pressurization experiment?) Could perhaps he be figuring total number of deuterium atoms pressurized into the metal compared to total anomalous-energy? The obvious simple interpretation of that would be, IF fusion is happening, that only a fraction of all the deuteriums were actually involved in releasing the energy detected. Also, what is the time-frame for deciding what "total" of anomalous energy has been released? If it can happen for weeks or months, then the total would grow.... V (talk) 18:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Does the word "fusion" even appear in the paper? It's not in the abstract. Electrochemistry involves processes that happen one electron at a time, including the simple ionization and recombination of H2. See doi:10.1021/j100155a010 for example.LeadSongDog come howl 19:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Your attempts to confuse the issue will get you nowhere. There is no water involved in the gas pressurization experiments. And the abstract does have this as its last sentence: "The sample charged with D2 also showed significantly positive output energy in the second phase after the deuteride formation." (my emphasis). Do remember that the title of the article mentions "anomalous effects", and that last abstract-sentence is precisely about an anomalous effect (energy production). That word "after" that I emphasized means that the chemistry is done. So, if not fusion (and of course the authors could not use that word; the article wouldn't have been published in that RS journal with that word in it, and you know it!), what other sources of energy would you care to propose, to explain energy that appears when deuterium is pressured into palladium powder, and not when ordinary hydrogen is used? 17:07, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

This article should probably not be discussed in an article on cold fusion since the authors do not appear to be claiming that fusion is taking place. In other words, the word "after" does not clearly indicate that chemical reactions are done. In any event, Arata is not an author, so this article does not do much to document the Arata work. Olorinish (talk) 20:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Olorinish, your own feeble attempts to confuse the issue will also get you nowhere. I said nothing about Arata being an author of this article; I said Arata's work is REFERENCED by that article. Why do you suppose the authors of this article did that? Simply because Arata was first to find anomalous energy in that sort of experiment! This article's reference is the RS that Arata actually did earlier experiments along these lines. I don't care in the slightest that this article doesn't talk about fusion; Arata talked about it plenty, even if all such talk has been restricted to sources that Wikipedia calls "non-RS". How about we allow one of those references to Arata's work, if you don't like this one? (No? Fine; this one is still RS enough!) V (talk) 16:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I was not "attempting" to confuse the issue. In fact, I think it was impolite of Objectivist to suggest I was acting in bad faith. In any event, I don't see how my comments made anything more confusing. Authors hinting that they have produced fusion (by mentioning Arata's work) is far different from authors asserting that they have produced fusion. Since we are building an encyclopedia, we should be very careful about representing sources accurately. If a document link is inserted in a way that supports claims of cold fusion, whether the article "doesn't talk about fusion" is a big deal, at least in my view. Olorinish (talk) 17:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

You ARE attempting to confuse the issue when you say nonsense like "this article should probably not be discussed in an article on cold fusion since the authors do not appear to be claiming that fusion is taking place" --and the reason I say that is simple: We have plenty of references in the article to things that don't talk about fusion taking place. Just look in the region of the very first paragraph in the main article and you will see links to heavy water, pathological science, calorimeter, electrolysis, neutrons, tritium, and US Department of Energy. It is not vital that something specifically mention "fusion" (or "cold fusion") to be relevant to the CF article! --and the proof is in that (easily extended) list I just presented. Next, the CF situation breaks down into two main parts. First, there are the reports of anomalous energy production in experiments that use deuterium instead of ordinary hydrogen. Second, there is the interpretation that fusion is responsible for the anomalous energy. This RS article in Physics Letters A is certainly about the first part of the CF situation. And the fact that it references the work of Arata, who has forthrightly connected pressurized-deuterium experiments to fusion, gives us an indirect link to the second part of the CF situation. That should be more than sufficient to any neutral Wikipedia editor. Arata's work is not "too recent to be mentionable"; this Phys Letters A article is appropriate secondary-RS for it, and that's the main reason for including it. V (talk) 18:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Facts can be supportive of a claim without the messenger having a bias either way. They can also be relevant, pertinent, significant, what have you, irrespective. Furthermore, references in wikipedia are used for the verification of pieces of information in the article, sentence by sentence. Unless the sentence is specifically about the opinion of the author referenced, the author's opinion -- or lack thereof -- does not determine -- or speak to -- whether said reference verifies the sentence. (Or, for that matter, whether it meets the WP:RS criteria for that usage.) That is what matters. Looking for opinions is not supported by WP policies and seems to me like it would unnecessarily introduce risk of bias to otherwise objective reasoning. In sum, I believe that V has made his point clear and is correct. Kevin Baas^talk 21:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

[unindent] Given that there have been no other comments in this section for more than a week, the changes suggested here will likely be posted to the main article in the near future. V (talk) 14:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The changes described above would give undue weight to the Kitamura link, considering that the link does not assert that fusion is taking place. Maybe if that line of research is on the increase, it would make sense ("At least 3 groups are currently investigating fusion induced without electrochemical implantation..."), but I don't see evidence of that happening. Keep in mind that we can afford to wait; if that method produces clear evidence of nuclear reactions, someone will report on it and at that time this article can link to it. Olorinish (talk) 14:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Just because you claim "undue weight" does not mean the claim is true. Prove it --and please get over your silly notion that every reference of this article must mention "fusion". Please DO remember that the purpose of the link is to provide evidence that Arata's experiment actually took place. The text I proposed talks about others imitating Arata's experiment; even if Kitamura's group had not found anomalous energy, their experiment would still have been an imitation of Arata's! V (talk) 19:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The reason I said that it would be undue weight is that this article is titled "Cold fusion" and the Kitamura link does not provide any real information about cold fusion. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of facts; the goal is to help readers. You imply that it is important to inform readers about the Arata experiment, but I don't see why that is the case. He had a demonstration in front of some reporters, but didn't give any evidence that nuclear reactions were happening. As far as I can tell, he did not show an article with evidence for nuclear reactions yet. Has he done so? Olorinish (talk) 20:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The "evidence" you claim didn't exist was the production of anomalous energy. Arata claimed the logical source was fusion, and whether or not he is correct in that interpretation, it suffices to be relevant to this article (which mostly is about claims of production of anomalous energy and fusion-as-explanation), especially since the anomalous energy production was replicated by Kitamura's team. I see you haven't got over the silly notion that somehow everything relevant to cold fusion must actually talk about cold fusion. WRONG. According to you, then, we need to delete from the article references to such things as electrolysis and calorimeter. Wrong again. Background information is almost always about something other than the topic that needs the background information, and the two Wikipedia references just mentioned are appropriate background information for ordinary cold fusion experiments. But Arata has specified something altogether different, and therefore different background information becomes exactly as relevant, for his experiment. It would be Original Research or Synthesis for an editor here to come up with some alternate CF experiment and describe it, but Arata has already done that OR/S, and therefore we are free to report that. However, we are also limited with regard to Reliable Sources, and the only RS currently available, that Arata did his experiment, is this Kitamura article. (I find it humorous/ironic that the reference inside the excellently-RS Kitamura article, to Arata's experiment, is not considered RS by Wikipedia!) Regardless of whether or not Kitamura mentions fusion, he does describe the general kind of experiment that Arata performed (background information!) Finally, of the edits I proposed at the start of this section, only one sentence is about Arata's experiment. If that qualifies as "undue weight" in an article considered over-long by some editors, then you have a strange way of measuring "weight". V (talk) 15:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added the first parts of the proposed change; nobody posted any objections to them. The last part I'll hold off for a bit; the text I just added probably needs an associated reference and possibly a tweak. Unfortunately, my past attempts at adding references failed miserably; there is some trick to it that I don't yet know. V (talk) 18:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it does need a link, and the "last part" you mention. Objectivist, in the future please make related edits at the same time so peoeple can evaluate the full point you are trying to make. Olorinish (talk) 18:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Even without the last part, about Arata's experiment, the text I added is relevant. There is no other place in the article that mentions "loading time" (not that uses that phrasing, anyway). Arata's experiment is, basically, an alternate route to reducing the loading time, so text about it can be added any time after the first part is stabilized with a reference (or even two!). V (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The first sentence of the added text is asserts the disputed claim of anomalous heat as fact, which is NPOV. The whole added text is completely unreferenced, which would need to be fixed. --Noren (talk) 14:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

You have a point; I forgot that sometimes no excess heat ever appears in some of the experiments. Unreliable excess heat production has been, as we know, a major problem. Reliability has improved in recent years, but excess heat production is as yet still not a certain thing, in the typical electrolysis experiment. (On the other hand, the SPAWAR codeposition variation may in fact be very reliable, if they can claim excess heat observed after only a day.) I will tweak the added text. V (talk) 16:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Another Proposal (continues)

I'm going to paste here some stuff from farther-down in the discussion, partly to prevent premature archiving of this section, and partly as a reminder that this proposal has mostly passed discussion and still awaits implementation. V (talk) 18:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• “Thermal Behavior of Polarized Pd/D Electrodes Prepared by Co-Deposition”, Thermochimica Acta, 410, 101 (2004). "No re-filling of the cells was necessary due to the short time period of these experiments (8 days) and the low current that were used for the first 5 days" The chart do show some temperature increase in the beginning of the experiment though.

So, experiments typically last several days, and a graph in the last document shows that thermal effects have been observed in the beginning of these experiments. However, I could not find any statement that could be quoted here. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. The graph may be adequate. We are allowed to write descriptions, after all. I was aware that my text "within a day" was possibly not completely correct, and half-expected that when a reference was found, it would be edited --"within days" could be better, especially when the source is a graph.

We still need an appropriate reference regarding the definition of "loading time", though. V (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

When Objectivist said that "this proposal has mostly passed discussion" he/she implied that there was no significant objection to this proposal, which I consider insulting. For the record, this is not the first example of Objectivist's incivility ([7]) and ([8]). Olorinish (talk) 19:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You offered an objection that I countered, and since you didn't dispute that, I assumed you were tacitly admitting that your objection was flawed, which in my book counts as "passing discussion", at least with you. (And ditto with the paltry few other objectors.) You are of course welcome to try to poke any holes you can find into my original countering of your objection. I won't even ask why you took so long. V (talk) 20:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Apparently Objectivist thinks that Noren's description of the new text as "completely unreferenced" is unimportant. I want to remind everyone that the cold fusion talk page is subject to discretionary sanctions [9]. Olorinish (talk) 14:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

That sounds to me very much like a bad faith accusation and a thinly veiled threat. I strongly disapprove of such things. Kevin Baas^talk

Tsk, tsk. I quote from above (Dec 28): "I've added the first parts of the proposed change; nobody posted any objections to them." --That was entirely true at that time. I continue the quote: "The last part I'll hold off for a bit; the text I just added probably needs an associated reference and possibly a tweak." --I just added stress there; I knew full well that a reference was likely needed. But I also wrote: "Unfortunately, my past attempts at adding references failed miserably; there is some trick to it that I don't yet know." --That was an invitation for someone else, who knows the trick, to add a reference. What kind of an editing group is this, where one person invites others to assist in a manner that should have been easy, and instead the others would rather not? [Noren, who agreed a reference was needed, but didn't bother adding it, or Hipocrite, who deleted the text I added because nobody had got around to adding the reference yet!]

So: Here again is the [most recent tweaked version of the] "first parts of the proposed change" (for the "Experimental Details" section of the article, just before the "Excess heat observations" subsection): "Note that even when anomalous heat does appear, it can take weeks for it to begin to appear, and this is known as the "loading time", for the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis. However, in a significant advance, the SPAWAR team pioneered a "co-deposition" technique for greatly reducing the loading time; palladium metal is electroplated out of solution at the same time deuterium gas is being released, allowing the gas to merge with the metal without having to permeate the metal's volume. They report typically observing excess heat within days." A possibly valid reference for "loading time" is this: http://www.springerlink.com/content/q05420j448382338/ --access to the body of the article, not just the abstract, is essential. And Pcarbonn found this link in support of the SPARWAR group's fast loading time: Thermal Behavior of Polarized Pd/D Electrodes Prepared by Co-Deposition”, Thermochimica Acta, 410, 101 (2004).

NOW: If I once more add the text to the article, will someone tie it to the references?!?! V (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"What kind of editing group is this..?" It is the kind that has mulitple opinions, which means that if you want assistance, it would help to be more clear and persuasive about your requests. Typing "?!?!" does not help. Olorinish (talk) 16:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe when V said that the text he added "probably needs an associated reference", he was being "clear and persuasive" about his requests. I believe what he just said, in a rather "clear and pursuasive" manner, was that he hasn't found others particularly constructive on this matter, and is frustrated by that. Now responding to something like that with apathy and ascerbic criticism is probably not the most socially prudent way to go about things. Kevin Baas^talk 16:51, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've just re-added the first sentence, that describes "loading time". I don't know that that sentence really needs a reference, due to the phrase being commonly/widely used in this field. A proposed reference I added in my "Edit Summary", so anyone here who knows the reference-adding trick could (presumably easily) add it to my edit. It may not be the best choice of reference for that purpose, though. Discussion? V (talk) 13:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I see Hipocrite wasted no time altering the edit, removing the part "for the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis.". In his Edit Summary he made the claim "Assumes facts not in evidence" --which is an outright lie, since what else is the "loading time" about? It is only about the time it takes for significant amounts of deuterium to permeate the palladium! I'm beginning to wonder if Hipocrite has any idea at all what happens when water is electrolyzed. A great deal of the hydrogen and oxygen gas produced bubbles away from the electrodes, even when the hydrogen-producing electrode is palladium, and the water is heavy water. At any moment only a small part of the hydrogen being produced will permeate into the body of the palladium. That is a significant reason why it can take a long time for a solid electrode to get a lot of hydrogen into it --and I'm not even mentioning the fact that some of the hydrogen that goes in can also come out again. It is only the relatively vast quantities being produced by electrolysis that allows more go flow in than flows out, of the metal. Furthermore, the reference I offered something like this in its abstract (my description here is copied from the "Loading Time discussion" below): "It's kind of interesting that this experiment was terminated after only 3 weeks of (possibly inadequate) loading time, while deuterium that had gotten into the palladium was still coming out 8 weeks later." It is this that makes Hipocrite's claim a lie. V (talk) 16:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Your edit stated as plain fact that "anomalous heat does appear." This is not accurate. Your edit stated as plain fact that the reason that the reason the anomalous heat might take weeks to appear is "the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis." This is not accurate. In fact, anomalous heat does not appear - it is merely reported (due to experimental error, deliberate fraud or incompetence, take your pick), and the "loading time" for the heat to appear is postulated by some to be due to loading the cathode, but by others to be "the time it takes to fuck up the temperature taking apparatus" or "the time it takes for the researcher to become frusterated at the lack of progress and digress into fraud" or "the time it takes for the experimental error to become manifest." Hipocrite (talk) 17:06, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

How nice of you to quote out of context when feebly trying to make a point. I wrote "Even when anomalous heat does appear" --DUH, "even when" is equivalent to an "IF" --that is a requirement for the anomaly to be reportable! The reason why it appeared (including error as the explanation for the anomaly, but not including fraud) is irrelevant, as regards to reporting. "Fraud" is not a good explanation any more, because fraud requires secrecy, and too many people have been reporting anomalous heat for too long, for frauds to have continued unexposed. (Side/old-old joke: "In the Soviet Union, when 4 conspirators gather, 3 of them are fools and the 4th is a police spy.") Do remember that the "60 Minutes" team invited an independent expert (Robert Duncan) to investigate; instead of finding fraud, he became a convert. So, get over the stupid "fraud" thing, will you?

Now, I don't mind your edit to specify reporting of anomalous heat; my complaint here regards the removal of the description of what "loading time" is about. The RS reference I offered (one that is NOT pro-CF!) specifically talks about loading deuterium into the palladium (per the Google search in the "Loading Time discussion" section): "It is believed that the loading time scales with the thickness of the piece, squared. ... volved in the so-called cold fusion experiments." --that's what Google reported, and my only assumption is that that text exists somewhere in the body of the reference; I have no reason to think Google pulled it out of some other document. If YOU think some other definitions of "loading time" are correct, then obviously they should belong in the article, so why don't you add text about them, too, and provide references for them!!??? V (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Provide sources for your various assertions. Hipocrite (talk) 18:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I did. If you don't understand them, tough. (Example, "60 Minutes" would have been quite happy to report fraud; they've certainly done plenty of that in other fields! So their first step, always when technicalities are important, is to find an independent expert to investigate.) On the off-chance that what you just wrote has a different interpretation, regarding "include sources in the article", I can only say that I did not explicitly require that degree of "provide" when I used that word. I have certainly provided sources on this page, supporting various assertions (and I've invited others to get them into the reference list). I don't insist you do more than that. V (talk) 19:14, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

You do realize that your assertions are equally invalid. Kevin Baas^talk 18:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It's good I'm not putting them in the article, like your friend V is, no? Hipocrite (talk) 18:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, i recognized that. Do you have any suggestions on how to better word what "[my] friend V" has proposed? Kevin Baas^talk 18:50, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is disagreement about the notability and the correct definition of "loading time." Has there been a lot of discussion of it in the literature? (PF? Mosier-Boss? others?) If there hasn't, maybe we should wait until there is. Keep in mind that if it is important and the problem has been solved, future articles will describe it and we can cite those articles at that time. Olorinish (talk) 18:45, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I would imagine there are sufficient sources on the loading time of palladium, it seems liek a fairly scientifially standard thing. But even if it's not determined exactly how to calculate loading time, I don't think it's disputed whether or not loading time for palladium exists and is substantial. And one could say the same thing about gravity, but we have a whole article for that! Kevin Baas^talk 18:55, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

"Loading Time" convenience break

(unindent) I'd still like to add some explanation regarding "why" there is a "loading time". Perhaps this could qualify as sufficiently NPOV: "The presumption that deuterium is fusing inside the palladium first requires the metal to become loaded with some minimal amount of deuterium, a process that takes time." V (talk) 17:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Objectivist, can you find one or more articles that you think do a good job of describing loading time? Olorinish (talk) 20:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I haven't any idea about where to look for a whole article on a small thing that everyone in the field takes for granted and uses casually (as I described in the "Loading Time discussion" section farther down). V (talk) 17:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to indentify such articles before making any edits about loading time, since that term is not well known by typical readers of this article. Olorinish (talk) 17:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, well, this link that I'm copying from its current location near the bottom of the page ( http://www.ensmp.fr/aflb/AFLB-331/aflb331m629.pdf ) has something to say about loading time (on its second page): "Finally an important factor is time. These reactions take time to appear, one of the main reasons being the time it takes to load palladium with deuterium." All we need to do is decide whether or not that source is RS....

Discussion of what 'loading time' really is

Let me try to add some rationality to this discussion. As Kevin Baas suggested, studies on loading time are well know in the palladium hydride chemistry business. ‘Loading time’ would formally be the time it takes for a Pd sample to reach the equilibrium H/M condition (or perhaps steady-state in a membrane case) under a given set of conditions. There are two primary controlling factors, surface-to-volume ratio (SVR) and surface condition. The lower the SVR, the longer it takes to load. I have presented a poster (long ago) with a Figure on it comparing the loading (i.e. pressure drop vs. time) of a Pd foil vs. a supported Pd powder. While the Pd foil was still loading after several minutes, the powder was complete within 30 seconds. The surface condition is important because surface contaminants can block hydrogen absorption. I have a new publication coming out on a La-Ni-Al alloy study where I ‘passivate’ the material by air exposure. At room temperature, the passivated alloy’s hydrogen absorption is hindered to the extent that what normally takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete was not complete after an overnight period. That works on Pd too. The standard F&P experiment uses electromotive force to drive H into the Pd instead of pressure, but the idea is the same. Low SVR will lead to slow loading, and in fact the CF mythology is that only low SVR electrodes are good for getting CF. The SPAWAR co-deposition technique however, produces a high SVR Pd, which means it will load faster. Whether having H2 present due to the codep reaction actually increases this loading significantly is an open question. I don’t believe that issue has been studied. In standard F&P cells, what is erroneously called ‘loading time’ here is actually a combination of the real loading time and what should properly be called an ‘induction period’ required to form the ‘special active state’ needed for the FPHE. Those are technically separable concepts. Forming the special active state can be excruciatingly slow, and often doesn’t occur at all. On the other hand, in some cases, it can occur reasonable quickly. The SPAWAR technique also seems to form the active state as part of the process, which gives us normal scientists a good clue that it is involved with the particular surface structure of the deposited Pd. I would also add that the early successes obtaining the FPHE effect without reaching H/M>.9 (which is touted today as a necessity for obtaining CF) suggests the true controlling factor is whether or not the ‘special active state’ is developed or not. In the Arata experiments, they are using a high SVR powder that leads to rapid loading. They have not ‘improved’ the loading time, they are just observing what was already well know as far as loading rate goes. The idea that their method produces extremely high H/M values is suspect. People have been doing this kind of gas loading for years and do not observe what Arata claims. As I noted on my user talk page with the Kitamura paper, the problem is usually not understanding the true chemistry that is going on with unactivated Pd. Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:02, 20 January 2010 (UTC) Thank you, Kirk. One aspect of the situation that I haven't seen others discuss involves the freedom of hydrogen inside metal to exit the metal. I suspect this is the real reason why it takes a long time in an ordinary CF experiment to reach an active state (should it ever do that). If the gas could be prevented from leaking out of the metal.... Note that nobody before Arata (so far as I know) tried pressuring pure deuterium into the metal (an equivalent thing to preventing the gas from leaking out!). It is that difference which certainly makes a difference with respect to loading time, and is claimed to make a difference with respect to anomalous energy production. V (talk) 18:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC) The ‘freedom of hydrogen inside metal to exit the metal’? There is an equilibrium at the electrode surface. That means the rate of hydrogen entering the metal is balanced by the rate of hydrogen exiting the metal. The H is absolutely free to exit at any time, unless the surface is contaminated, which is known to block desorption too. The absorption on such a surface would also be hindered if from molecular hydrogen, but the electrochemical loading method proceeds through the atomic form. (This also means the blocking effect of contaminants would be modified.) What you are hinting at with your other comments is that considerable effort has been expended by CFers to limit cracks in the Pd and to insure even field distributions on the electrode surfaces, especially at the edges and corners. This is because if the field is lowered at any particular spot say inside a crack or by a portion of the Pd being further from the counter-electrode, then that provides less driving force to load and the equilibrium loading level at those points is lower than the rest of the Pd. That produces an exit point, where H injected into the Pd at the higher field points will diffuse to the lower field points, creating a local oversupply of H, which is reduced by extra loss of H to the surface where it recombines to molecular H2 and forms a bubble. This is a problem with electrochemical loading, and is not relevant in the gas phase loading scenarios. Note that this is why H2 bubbles grow as well. This is only a problem for CF if you religiously adhere to the >0.9 mantra, which as I indicated above is not really a limiting factor. In fact Storms and Dash have reported CF on Pt electrodes, which DO NOT hydride at all (i.e. H/M=0), and Ni is claimed to do CF with light water and Ni also does not hydride until extreme pressures are reached. While it may develop a real H/M under electrochemical loading, it most likely would not reach the ’magic’ .9 number. And people have placed D into Pd for years before Arata even thought of doing it. But, as usual, you’re not getting the point. First, F&P cells are radically different environments from a gas loading cell. You cannot easily relate the two. In F&P cells it is the formation of the ‘special active state’ that is critical, not the loading level. Second, in the Arata-type gas-loading experiments, they never reach the .9 mark anyway because they don’t go to high enough pressure. Third, the so-called anomalous energy Arata ‘demonstrated’ is not convincing, it is a one-shot deal that most likely is either an equipment malfunction or a failure to understand heat transfer dynamics of the system. And finally, ‘loading time’ is not relevant, the induction period for formation of the active state is. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC) I see you are not making logical sense, again. I quote YOU, from above: (1) "The H is absolutely free to exit at any time, unless the surface is contaminated,...; (2) "in the Arata-type gas-loading experiments, they never reach the .9 mark anyway because they don’t go to high enough pressure". Tsk, tsk. Ordinary electrolytic CF experiments operate at near-ordinary room pressure; therefore none of them should ever reach .9 loading, by your "logic". Yet it is claimed that such loading can be reached at ordinary pressure (and I thought someone around here mentioned a reference about X-ray spectrometry being used to determine the amount of loading). Therefore you aren't making sense, as I've said before. Especially when I know full well that if you have two equal-volume containers, one of which holds a vacuum while the other is solidly full of palladium, you can put MORE hydrogen into the palladium container than into the vacuum, at the same pressure! H-absorption by Pd is exothermic (temporarily), which explains that phenomenon, and makes you look illogical. I will not dispute your claim that experiments with deuterium pressurization into Pd were done before Arata, but I also don't know about how much pressure they used, nor how much loading they obtained...while I do know Arata specifically sought a high-enough loading for anomalous energy to appear. Whether the loading was .9 or less, his claims of success were sufficient for a generic replication experiment to have been done-and-published in Physics Letters A (also claiming to detect anomalous energy). To my mind the replication of claimed success, sufficiently published to put careers on the line, is more important than whatever amount of loading led to those claims. V (talk) 22:02, 20 January 2010 (UTC) Once again V proves he is incapable of being rational about cold fusion. I don't know why this is, but it does only seem to come out when he is challenged on scientific points, and that seems to be primarily when I comment. So, as I note below, since he is unteachable by me, I need to cut it off here. For the rest of you, when V proposes to edit the CF article with scientific sounding additions, be cautious. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Once again Kirk resorts to personal attack instead of defending his "logic", or even attempting to point out a logical error in my reasoning. Go ahead, Kirk, please tell us how .9 loading can't be achieved when palladium is exposed to high-pressure gas, but can be achieved when exposed to room-pressure gas. Please? V (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC) V is really good at insinuation, and as I stated I am not going to waste more time on him. For the rest of you however, if you have any inclination to believe V, please participate here so I can clear up any issues you might have. My purpose in this is in trying to insure that the CF article has a good technical basis. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Please remember to comment on edits, not editors. LeadSongDog come howl 19:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Up until the point where an editor becomes abusive and in need of a ban. V reached that point long ago in relation to his responses to my comments here. Please check my user talk page for more examples, and then track back into the archives to see how I attempted to deal with him originally. When a person deliberately refuses to listen (or read) and just seeks to misrepresent, he or she needs to go elsewhere. There are numerous examples of this with V, the most recent of which is right above. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC) This is not the place for discussions of user behaviour. This is an article talk page. If a specific edit or talkpage comment is problematic, it can be referred to using a WP:DIFF without ever mentioning the editor. If it is necessary to pursue WP:Dispute resolution on pattern behaviour, civility, or worse, don't do it here. The topic is contentious enough without personality conflicts being added to the mix. LeadSongDog come howl 21:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Please make sure you inform V of that. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC) I can be civil when appropriate. But civility apparently doesn't work all the time, such as when it is necessary to point out irrationality or nonsense or illogic, that someone claiming to be an Authority wants you to swallow without question (and worse, calls it "teaching" when "brainwashing" is more accurate), and who also refuses to answer the questions. Authority that is unwilling to explain itself is inherently despicable; and while it is never "civil" to point out when Authority is being despicable, it must be pointed out, lest freedom-of-thought become forever suppressed. V (talk) 14:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC) LSD, are you paying attention? We now know why V is unteachable by me, he/she has decided that I am trying to 'brainwash' him/her. That'a quite an interesting statement don't you think? V, care to explain how you arrived at that conclusion? Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC) If you think I am talking about you specifically, in my prior post above, instead of making a general point, then perhaps you are guilty of spouting nonsense and expecting others to swallow it in spite of any questions, just like a brainwasher. Are you? V (talk) 17:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Nice attempt at a recovery V, but it just doesn't wash (pun intended). Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey, folks, why all the inactivity lately? Perhaps I should study up on that trick for getting a reference into the article, and see what happens if I add that new ( http://www.ensmp.fr/aflb/AFLB-331/aflb331m629.pdf ) reference? V (talk) 15:32, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

2008 Oxford Sourcebook

Was Marwan, Jan and Krivit, Steven B., eds., Low energy nuclear reactions sourcebook (American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press, 2008; ISBN 978-0-8412-6966-8) peer reviewed? Dual Use (talk) 08:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The publisher does not so indicate here. In general, a symposium is not reviewed (by peers or otherwise). A collection of symposium presentations is just that. It appears that the editors are essentially the only assurance of review. Any published evidence to the contrary would be interesting. LeadSongDog come howl 05:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is the foreword of that book, signed by the "ACS Books Department":

"The ACS symposium series was first published in 1974 to provide a mechanism for publishing symposia quickly in book form. The purpose of the series is to publish timely, comprehensive books developed from ACS sponsored symposia based on current scientific research. Occasionally, books are developed from symposia sponsored by other organizations when the topic is of keen interest to the chemistry audience."

"Before agreeing to publish a book, the proposed table of contents is reviewed for appropriate and comprehensive coverage and for interest to the audience. Some papers may be excluded to better focus the book; others may be added to provide comprehensiveness. When appropriate, overview or introductory chapters are added. Drafts of chapters are peer-reviewed prior to final acceptance or rejection, and manuscripts are prepared in camera-ready format."

"As a rule, only original research papers and original review papers are included in the volumes. Verbatim reproductions of previously published papers are not accepted.

Pcarbonn (talk) 14:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Who makes the peer reviews? --Enric Naval (talk) 16:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That one would seem to have been performed by the American Chemical Society. Dual Use (talk) 17:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

From the last discussion I gathered that the peer reviewers were suggested by the editors of the book, both editors being CF supporters, and one of them being an outspoken CF advocate (Krivit) this is a bit of a problem.

The comments by Shanahan, Edchem, Mathsci and Bilby are quite informative. Among other issues, there are plenty of RS books calling the whole thing a fiasco, including other university press books that had glowing reviewsm, while the Sourcebook only had a review in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. This lack of reviews gives an idea an idea of how little relevant the Sourcebook is, specially when compared to the DOE reports, which got extensive coverage that mentioned how important they were to the field.

In other words, the Sourcebook has very little weight, the reliability is suspect, the "peer-reviewed" label is not an automatic warranty for inclusion in an article, and this was discussed and rejected before. (and I sound a bit harsh because of having to discuss the same thing so many times, sorry if all of this is news to you). --Enric Naval (talk) 18:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

P.D.: please notice the difference between "citing the book in the bibliography" (good) and "using a fringe book to change well-supported stuff in the article" (bad). --Enric Naval (talk) 18:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I looked through the discussion you linked to, but I saw no indication of "plenty of RS books calling the whole thing a fiasco" -- to which books are you referring? Dual Use (talk) 18:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

these books. Specially Huizenga's "Cold fusion: the scientific fiasco of the century". This doesn't account all the other books that don't use the word "fiasco", like Park's "Voodoo science: the road from foolishness to fraud". --Enric Naval (talk) 19:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Those are all much older than 2008. Were any of them written subsequent to the availability of the 2008 peer-reviewed secondary sourcebook we are discussing? Dual Use (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

You mean that they are all prior to 2008. And there is no RS outside of CF supporters saying that the situation has improved since 1989. The only paper that has reached mainstream since 2004 is Mossier-Boss, and only when it was announced at the same time as the 20th anniversary of CF. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Enric, that's not entirely true. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2009.06.061 is very much a mainstream article; even if that experiment didn't use electrolysis, it still involved deuterium and palladium and anomalous energy production. V (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I corrected the mistake before I saw your reply. What are you using for a definition of "mainstream"? I count at least six academic journals in Europe and the U.S. which have all had cold fusion papers pass editorial board review in the past five years, and many more if we include Japan. Dual Use (talk) 21:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

With "mainstream" I refer to what is variously named as "most scientists", "the scientific community", "the mainstream scientific community", "mainstream scientific publications", "mainstream magazines and journals", etc. Another definition would be "all non-fringe scientists and scientific publications". Depending on context, it might include mainstream publications that don't usually report in science, like Fox News, China Daily, heise online, etc. (P.D.: See also google books search for "cold fusion mainstream" for a few examples of usage in a variety of books.)

for the number of papers, see my other comments on weight, WP:REDFLAG and WP:FRINGE. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:52, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Under that definition, why wouldn't the editorial boards of the growing number of high-impact academic journals publishing reports of cold fusion over the past ten years be considered mainstream? Dual Use (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

(sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

You seem to forget that wikipedia is a WP:NPOV encyclopedia, not a "mainstream" encyclopedia, whatever that means. WP:NPOV is non-negotiable, as the policy says. This means that significant view points, even in the minority, deserves fair representation, as ArbComm has stated many times. This page has a summary of the ArbComm ruling on fringe science, and in particular, the first one: "Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience."

The ACS endorsements of last year, with its 154,000 scientists, certainly meets the inclusion criteria. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Pcarbonn was just community banned. The reliable source criteria has already vindicated his point of view as far superior to that of his critics in the accuracy department. I wonder how they will feel when they come to realize that. Does anyone suppose they will act to reverse their support for his ban? Dual Use (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC) (sock of User:Nrcprm2026) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the ACS, which I am a member of, does not 'endorse' cold fusion. Their Press Office did release a press release, but nowhere in it does it say that the ACS endorses CF. Please stop trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's accurate to use the phrase "endorse CF". I think it's kind of a red herring. really what they're endorsing is particular research into certain poorly understood phenomena, or perhaps not even that, perhaps jsut the quality of certain experiments, or reports, or scientists. In any case, not of them are saying "I like the process of cold fusion", or "I don't agree with what cold fusion has to say". So "endorse CF" is not what anybody really means to say and because of that we will find that NOBODY says they "endorse CF". That would just be silly. It may seem like a subtlety but when you compare end results it shows itself to be an important distinction. Kevin Baas^talk 14:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Pcarbonn above says 'The ACS endorsements of last year'. There were no such ACS "endorsements". Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

EEPS vs DoE

Is there any reason that either of the unreviewed technical reports from the Department of Energy should have any precedence over Krivit's peer reviewed articles in Elsevier's Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources?

Are there any reasons that the final paragraph of the article's introduction should not be a paragraph summarizing the peer-reviewed secondary academic press sources instead of the unreviewed government technical reports? Would it be better to summarize all of those in the introduction? Dual Use (talk) 22:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The 2004 DoE panel was a peer review, and one far more extensive than is typical, with more reviewers and more time spent. Are you objecting because the report on the peer review was not itself peer reviewed again? This is absurd.--Noren (talk) 13:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There is information in the archives about this: The DoE panels never gave the authors a chance to respond to the comments, so they never claimed it was a peer review. I believe the DoE used the term "survey" for both of their reports, but I could be mistaken. Do any sources claim that the DoE reports were peer reviewed? Dual Use (talk) 17:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

See the report itself. It's titled "Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" and goes on with stuff like "the Office of Science agreed to a peer review (...) conducted a peer review of the submitted material (...) [Hagelstein's document] was sent out for peer review by mail (...) Nine scientists with appropriate scientific backgrounds (...) were identified by DOE, and were given approximately one month to review (...)" etc, Sounds to me like a groups of peers conducting a review (aka "peer-review").

Can we drop now the "DOE report is not peer-reviewed meme"? The DOE report is a peer-review. The CF supporters asked for a peer-review of the new data since 1989 and they got one. You are asking for a peer-review of a peer-review. There are no RS saying that such thing is necessary, or that there was any error in the DOE report that could have avoided by having it peer-reviewed, or that a peer-review of the report was adequate, necessary or desirable. Please don't bring the topic again until you have an RS suggesting so. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll agree to that for the 2005 review, but not for the 1989 review. In any case, we now have much newer secondary peer-reviewed sources, and the reliable source criteria instructs us to prefer the newest of otherwise-equivalent sources, does it not? Also isn't there something in WP:RS about how academic journals and academic press scholarship are preferable to otherwise-equivalent government work? Dual Use (talk) 18:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:RS has to be applied in the context of the subject at hand. There are RS saying that mainstream abandoned the field and that only a small group of researchers continued in it. Only those researchers keep publishing papers, and no one at mainstream bothers to reply (someone wanted to reply to Mosier-Boss in Naturwissenschaft, but I don't know if they finally did it). And that's why there are no critical papers. WP:REDFLAG applies here, and so does WP:FRINGE. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There was a critique of Moser-Boss in EPJAP, to which she replied (Reply to comment on 'The use of CR-39 in Pd/D co-deposition experiments': a response to Kowalski," European Physical Journal, Applied Physics, Vol. 44, p. 291–295 (2008)). Pcarbonn (talk) 09:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Link for reference: Kowalki's critique of CR-39 results

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KowalskiLcommentson.pdf

I was talking about a possible reply to their January 2009 paper, that was mentioned somewhere in this talk page. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't even know how to respond unless you're willing to say what you mean by "mainstream". Dual Use (talk) 23:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Specific proposal for the introduction

The final paragraph of the introduction should be replaced with:

LENR experiments have continued to demonstrate increasingly convincing evidence for a nuclear process or processes year after year. In the early days of the field, few researchers continued working in it long enough to see progress and understanding of the phenomena. Most researchers gave up within six weeks, finding it easier to dismiss the claim in its entirety.

Those statements appear in the Introduction and Conclusions of the peer-reviewed 2009 secondary source: Krivit, S.B. (2009) "Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions," Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol. 2, Garche et al, eds. (Amsterdam: Elsevier; ISBN 9780444520937) pp. 255-70.

Is there any reason that the summary of the Department of Energy sources should remain? Dual Use (talk) 18:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, see my comment above about weight, reviews, reliability, etc. Without supporting coverage from non-advocate/non-fringe sources, this could only be added as "cold fusion advocate Krivit says that experiments have been demonstrating increasingly convincing evidence of cold fusion, and that the early attempts lasted too little to understand the phenomena fully.". --Enric Naval (talk) 18:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree to leaving the summary of the older DoE reviews in the introduction, in accordance with WP:NPOV. What do you propose as a source for the word "advocate"? Dual Use (talk) 19:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's use "supporter" instead, as a less loaded word.

Note that Krivit's assertion is contradicted by Derry 2002[10], and Labinger 2005 [11] (search for "So there matters stand"), which should also go into the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

An unreviewed 2001 monograph classified under "Biographies & Autobiographies" and an unreviewed 2005 essay in a Dutch chemistry journal? Calling Krivit a "cold fusion supporter" would be a mistake because he always insists that the LENR processes may not involve fusion at all. How about this for the final paragraph of the introduction:

In 1989, the majority of a panel organized by the US Department of Energy (DOE) found that the evidence for the discovery of a new nuclear process was not persuasive. A second DOE review, convened in 2004 to look at new research, reached conclusions similar to the first, but with a smaller majority. LENR experiments have continued to demonstrate increasingly convincing evidence for a nuclear process or processes every year. In the early days of the field, most researchers gave up within six weeks, finding it easier to dismiss the claim in its entirety than work on it long enough to see progress and understanding.

If we must qualify Krivit, is it fair to say that he is "an author and editor of three out of the handful of peer-reviewed literature reviews of the field published since 1990"? Dual Use (talk) 21:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

"but with a smaller majority" is OR since DOE 1989 never said how many reviewers supported each point, it only says "the Panel concludes", "the Panel recommends", etc

Enric, that phrase is a condensation that resulted from considerable investigation by Abd. I don't recall where he found data about the 1989 panel vote-breakdown, but I do recall that he found something, which allowed it to be compared to the 2004 panel. V (talk) 14:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You haven't included the attribution to Krivit of the "increasingly convincing evidence" thing. Idem for the "finding it easier to dismiss the claim in its entirety" bit, which is an opinion held by the CF supporters.

For "but they are not peer-reviewed" thing, see WP:REDFLAG and WP:FRINGE. Mainstream no longer bothers to reply to CF claims so you won't find high quality papers and will have to do with other sources more adequate to the fringe status of CF. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the DoE did provide the survey proportions for both the 1989 and the 2004 panels. Do you agree with my proposed descriptions of Krivit's qualifications? What is your definition of "mainstream"? There have been several reports in the mass media just over the past year. Dual Use (talk) 23:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the DOE 1989 report[12] and I don't see anything like "half the panel thinks" or "some members of the panel think X while others think Y". I only see references to "we" or to "the Panel". I can't find any page where the proportions of voting in the Panel are explained. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The sentence you are objecting to is one that is already in the article, and has been for a long time. As V states above, the support for it is discussed in detail in the archives. Do you have any objections to the new text which is being proposed? Dual Use (talk) 16:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The reliability of a source depends on its publisher and review process more than on its author. In this case, the ACS has endorsed Krivit's book, and the ACS is "outside the CF supporters". I agree that the proposed statement should be mentionned in the lead section. I would also propose to cite the ACS press release of March 2009 in the lead, possibly with attribution: "Researchers are reporting compelling new scientific evidence for the existence of low energy nuclear reactions". That statement was reported by many other journals, giving it both the notability and reliability it needs. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The Mosier-Boss presentation at the ACS is already in the article, at the end of "Further_developments". Cherrypicking one impressive phrase is not helpful. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Enric please don't be a hipocrite. Cherry picking is the name of the game! As an example, Scaramuzzi (a CF researcher and advocate is repeatedly quoted in the article in such a manner as to be seen as a reliable (and recent from your viewpoint) "critic" of CF. So, when I publish in a 2010 peer-reviewed journal:

"This accounts for the observations in CMNS of excess heat, in both p-p and d-d reactions, and the observations (or absence) of tritium, 3He, neutrons, and 4He in the d-d reaction. This variation (unpredictability) of results, heretofore the stumbling block to acceptability of CMNS, is now perhaps the greatest validation of its existence. Furthermore, the proposed mechanism accounts for observed “transmutation,” something that we didn’t accept for a long time."

the only thing that you might allow to be quoted from that paper will be things like:

"Conventional physics sees as reasons for considering the Cold Fusion results as impossible: the LENR results of overcoming of the Coulomb barrier at low temperatures/energies; the distortion of the fragmentation ratio (p:n = 50:50 from E > 22 MeV); the high quantities of 4He; and, more recently, transmutation of elements."

- - Aqm2241 (talk) 19:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I concur with Pcarbonn. Dual Use (talk) 23:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The proposed sentence starting with "In the early days..." implies that establishment scientists do not have a correct "understanding" of cold fusion, something which has not been established. Olorinish (talk) 23:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Apparently the peer reviewers retained by Elsevier in their publication of Krivit's tertiary source do not agree with your opinion. Dual Use (talk) 15:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for "Popular Culture" mention

Would anyone object to a sentence about appearances of cold fusion in popular culture? We could put the following sentence at the end of the introduction: "Cold fusion has been mentioned in movies such as Back to the Future, The Saint, Chain Reaction, Goldmember, and ..." Olorinish (talk) 17:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd object to an "In Popular Culture" section (Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles), but I wouldn't object to a section on fictional uses of Cold Fusion. It would be nice if there was a source that discussed how it was used across many mentions - I recall reading something like that - I'll check. Hipocrite (talk) 18:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

One should try to be accurate in mentioning fictional references to "cold fusion". For example, while the "Mr. Fusion" unit in "Back to the Future" was nice and compact, there was nothing said about its operating process. Also, the first BtoF movie came out in 1985, well before the original 1989 P&F announcement. (For another story along those lines, here's one from 1960: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24064/24064-8.txt ). And the movie "Chain Reaction" more likely dealt with bubble fusion than the stuff we discuss in this article. V (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Such a section used to be in this article, you could take a look around at previous versions for a starting point. Some of the references were explicitly to Cold Fusion -The Saint (film) comes to mind as actually using cold fusion as a genuine plot point. However, most of the list was composed of brief, offhand references to make a power supply gizmo sound futuristic. It was in essence a list of trivia, which is not encyclopedic. If I recall correctly that list was removed from the article as cruft. --Noren (talk) 01:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

the 60 minutes video and mainstream acceptance

60 minutes is a program from the CBS, right? Turns out that some years the CBS news covered Joseph Newman. You know, the guy who says that he has the design of a perpetual motion machine. They covered him twice, in a way that endorsed him as a believable inventor with a plausible invention. The first time he was endorsed by two physicists. The second time he was endorsed despite his machine having failed the test of the NBS (today's NIST). Details at the Science book pages 111-113.

In the following pages the book goes on to explain how Patterson got his CETI bead cells featured in ABC's Good Morning America, with him explaining how he was able to remove radioactivity from radioactive stuff. (pages 114-118 in Voodoo Science) (transcript).

I'll note that Joseph Newman's invention was endorsed by one physicist (Roger Hastings). Similarly, the CF video has a cold fusion company being endorsed by one physicist (Robert Duncan).

I'll note that Robert Duncan is endorsing Energetics Technologies, a company claiming 2500% output power. The CEO being Dardik, the one saying that he could cure HIV, Parkinson and depression using SuperWaves. Dardik then lost his medical license for "fraud and explotation". Then he founded Energetics Technologies in Israel and he now claims that those same waves were producing cold fusion excess output. See Washington Post articles and New Energy Times page. That is the guy and the scientific theory that Robert Duncan was endorsing.

(Dardik was already discussed at #Leaked DIA document because the DIA document lists a document from this company as a legit source, which also casts a little doubt in the quality and fact-checking of the DIA document....)

The 60 minutes video about Cold Fusion comes from a source that has been described by a RS as giving for good claims that are outrageously false with no apparently no check of veracity. Either that, or having a willingness to ignore the falsity of the claims in benefit of giving good spectacle.

The 60 minutes video only shows that stories about CF sell well. It's not a RS. We have a RS dedicated to denouncing bad science (the Vodoo Science book) saying that it doesn't seem to have any fact checking against scientific standards of any type. The video doesn't indicate anything about mainstream acceptance (otherwise we'll have to accept that Joseph Newman's claims are also accepted by mainstream). --Enric Naval (talk) 23:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice twisting, Enric, but you missed a couple of points. Do you know that the original version of the video said that 60 Minutes contacted some organization like the American Physical Society for a qualified person to investigate cold fusion claims? After the video came out with support for the claims, there was an edit to remove that bit; the organization didn't want to be connected to such a result. Tsk, tsk. The fact remains that Robert Duncan is an expert in thermal measurements, and therefore was properly qualified to be an investigator. Now I recognize the guy is human and thus is possible to be bamboozled, but this is less likely in his field of expertise, than for other people. That is, how many magic tricks fool professional magicians? So, Energetics Technologies not only needed to have data sufficient in quantity to convince an expert, that data needed to have a certain internal logical consistency, lest it be declared fraudulent by an expert in such measurements. Next, Duncan plainly indicated that the company could not yet reliably (as in "almost all the time") get positive results. Just like other outfits studying CF; nothing new there. Reliability has improved since 1989, but the conventional CF experiment is still too unreliable to be worthy of lots of notice by the mainstream. It is the reliabilty problem, regardless of the occasional super-success, that is the biggest problem with the CF research field. However, to the extent that techniques like the SPAWAR co-deposition variant, or Arata's direct gas pressurization idea, prove more reliable (more verifications needed!) at producing anomalous energy, that is the extent to which this field has developed an opportunity to put its "fringe" status behind it. I'm not going to care about the actual cause of that energy, while those two developments contine to develop, on the "reliability" front. V (talk) 13:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why for all of the successes of whatever crazy plot you're on right now you can't produce just one dead graduate student. Hipocrite (talk) 14:16, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

No scientist reaches conclusions based on new media reports. The 60 Minuters video is only RS for points regarding the public history of the 'cold fusion fiasco', because , yes, they did actually air a story. Trying to use 60 minutes as justification of CF claims is not RS. Their track record shows they are easily fooled. Kirk shanahan (talk) 14:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

60_minutes#Controversies makes for a fun read. Also Killian documents controversy. TechDirt also complained about one recent report: swallowing whole the arguments of the MPAA, not checking easy-to-verify figures, presenting uncritically only one side of the argument, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite, what if the reported anomalous energy is real, but not a result of nuclear fusion? Would you expect dead graduate students in that case? This is why I say it is much more important for researchers to focus at this time on trying to make the experiments reliable (and for the article to focus on that aspect), than it is to worry about the cause of the reported anomalies. If a point is reached where nobody can dispute the existence of anomalous energy in these experiments, then there will be a mad mainstream scramble to find out just what the energy source really is. If that happens to be fusion, and such is proved, then rest-assured they will also eventually find out why there have been no dead graduate students.

Kirk, Robert Duncan didn't reach his conclusions based on media reports. Sure other mainstream researchers now have his media-presented words, rather than the data Duncan saw, as an input to decision-making --but you might recall there was a college-produced video (see link below) in which Duncan offered to discuss the data, and was turned down. Is a pre-existing opinion any better than the media, with respect to the relevance of up-to-date data, when making a decision?

Enric, are you suggesting that Robert Duncan failed to notice the reasons why nuclear fusion wasn't supposed to be possible? Did you fail to see that other video? Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgRiTphJRkg V (talk) 17:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is an interesting question how Robert Duncan reached his conclusions. I don't know, if I were asked to visit a laboratory to confirm the existence of an anomalous effect and its explanation, I would seek out alternative explanations to consider. I've never seen any evidence Duncan considered the CCS, and the ET experiments appear to be another excellent example of just that. Now, Duncan might not have known of my work prior to his public pronouncement, but afterwards I sent him a copy of my papers. He never bothered to reply. Yep, it really raises some questions. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:20, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

SO? I don't recall you ever bothering to reply with an explanation for observed melted electrodes. I've pointed out on several occasions that it takes actual heat to do that, not illusory heat. Why should Duncan bother to reply to an "explanation" that doesn't actually explain real observations that have (admittedly too rarely for the mainstream) been replicated in different laboratories, and even occasionally photographed? I'm pretty sure even Duncan would like to see a higher percentage of replications; I've no doubt that his becoming a CF proponent has put him in a precarious professional position. V (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Collapsed per WP:TALK, please discuss changes to the article, or discuss sources that can be used.

First off, you are not a scientist, and this is not a forum to conduct scientific discussions. The primary reason I didn't bother to respond to you before is that you have proven many times over that you are unteachable, at least by me, so it's a waste of my time. Take the post above for example. You have a completely warped picture of what goes on in an electrolysis cell. What do you think makes the operating temperature go up to 50-90C or higher? What do you think comes out of the 'microexplosions' that the SPAWAR group photographed? Answer: heat, sometimes highly localized and often deposited 'in a flash'. Lots of heat around obviously. And you are not clear which 'melted electrodes' you refer to. There are those that come out of the explosion in Fleishman's lab. The melted appearance there is likely due to the explosion, not cold fusion. Or are you referring to the seemingly melted nodules found near pits in some of the SPAWAR papers? Those are even easier to attribute to the microexplosions, or a process akin to steam embrittlement, or just to highly localized current flow. The 'heat' I disagree with is the idea that there is a compelling reason to believe there is detectable excess heat. And also, Duncan should bother to respond because a) we are supposedly both scientists, and b) my CCS theory potentially explains the ET results for apparent excess heat. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC) The melting point of palladium is more than 1500C. There has to be a rationale for how so much heat can be deposited in a flash (where did it come from?); if the average temperature is 90C, then 1500C is so far out on the heat-distribution bell curve as to be an inadequate explanation for the quantity of melted spots. Something else is needed. V (talk) 15:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC) That would be the calibration shift due to recombination. (j/k) 18:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC) No no, that has nothing to do with it. First, you can begin to see sintering effects at half the melting point of a material. Second, the H2+O2 explosion has one of the fastest flame speeds of any explosive around, so the heat from that reation would be liberated very quickly. Then you have to consider how fast it would bleed away into the bulk. If deposited fast enough, it could easily reach high temps, perhaps big enought to sinter a protrusion of Pd that may have originated from a subsurface bubble nucleation and bursting process at a different time (as happens in steam embrittlement with dissolved O (in the metal) reacting with also dissolved H (C instead of O gives you methane embrittlement)). The loading levels in F&P type cells are supposed to be above 0.9, and that requires 2 kbar or greater gas pressure in gas loading experiments, and Fukai suggests that H2 bubbles can self-nucelate in high pressure loading scenarios. So, an H2 bubble could form near the surface (or migrate there), pop, and then my at-the-electrode H2+O2 explosion could smooth the rough protrusion off a bit. The point is, all the processses are known to occur, and none of them are considered by the CFers. Just another example of selective data interpretation on their part. Oh and back in the 95-98 time frame when I was considering the Patterson Power Cell, I found a paper by a chem engineer who was blowing a mix of hydrocarbons and O2 down a tube that has a Pt wire grid in it. He was blowing very fast to limit the level of oxidation (he was trying to make oxygenated hydrocarbons, not CO2), yet the Pt wire grid became white-hot. That takes about 900C to do that. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC) A chemical explosion inside the metal can only be possible if oxygen gets into it at least half as easily as hydrogen gets into palladium (due to 2:1 molecular ratio: 2H2 + 02 = 2H2O). There is no evidence that oxygen can do that. So, some other explanation for the concentrated heat, inside the metal, causing it to explode outwards, with results that have been photographed, is needed. Also, while hydrogen adsorption by palladium is exothermic, this cannot be a chemical reaction (the two elements have the same electronegativity!), and besides, it doesn't yield that much energy, anyway. The only other chemical reaction candidate I know of is monatomic hydrogen combination: H+H->H2, but I don't know that that is good enough, either, especially if one of the things that happens when hydrogen is adsorbed by palladium is for the molecule to break apart, as the first step toward that final exothermic release of energy. V (talk) 19:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Thank you for providing your unique insights on this case. Please cease using this talk page to discuss cold fusion. This talk page is for the discussion of the wikipedia article, cold fusion. Hipocrite (talk) 19:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Hipocrite, any article requires the editors know the facts regarding background information, if they want to write something that doesn't contradict known facts. Lots of background information, sometimes. V (talk) 20:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC) You are not providing sources for your assertions - in fact, those assertions are your personal theories. Stop it. Hipocrite (talk) 20:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC) I believe he's talking basic chemistry. Thus saying " those assertions are your personal theories" would be like saying on a math article that the assertion "2+5=7" is "your personal theory". Now if the chemistry is wrong, that's another thing altogether - (particularly that, as V stated, it is imperative to have the facts correct before writing). But as far as application goes, we don't even require a source for 2+5=7 when it's asserted in an article, nonetheless a talk page. Kevin Baastalk 20:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Having said that, it's all provided that the facts are relevant to article content or potential article content. We should be wary lest we go on long tangents about things that are never going to be relevant to anything that would ever go in the article because it's not really discussed in any sufficient depth in any C.F.-related literature. Kevin Baastalk 20:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC) 1. The facts are not relevant at all to the article because, yet again, no edit is proposed. 2. "A chemical explosion inside the metal can only be possible if oxygen gets into it at least half as easily as hydrogen gets into palladium" - Bullshit. Here, let me try for you - and I don't know, or care, if any of this is right. Oxygen "gets in the metal" 1/100th as "easily" (whatever the f those words mean in this context). After 6 units of time, there are 5000 units of hydrogen, and 50 units of oxygen "in the metal". All of the oxygen then ignites with nearby hydrogen. This leaves 50 units of water, 4900 units of hydrogen and no oxygen. Can we now please stop engaging in OR on this talk page and talk about the article? Hipocrite (talk) 20:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC) 1. No edit is proposed NOW, but if a bad edit is proposed later by someone ignorant of certain facts, then this data would still need to be presented. What's wrong with presenting it now to prevent such bad edits later? 2. I admit I could have phrased that a little better. However, it remains true that oxygen has an extremely low permeability into metal, compared to hydrogen. Even HELIUM, which has a smaller atom than hydrogen (to say nothing of the hydrogen molecule) permeates metals much less easily than hydrogen. It is a fact that hydrogen does something special/unique when it permeates metal, that other gases just don't do. Next, you are neglecting the metal atoms present, occupying space, when you say, "All of the oxygen then ignites with nearby hydrogen." Do you understand the word "dilution"? Try reacting pure liquid hydrogen chloride with pure sodium hydroxide, and comparing it to reacting water solutions of hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. Dilution has a significant effect on how much energy can be released in a specified volume! All the preceding are plain physical facts, well-known to various specialists, but not necessarily well-known to average Wikipedia editors. And which need to be known to editors of this article, in particular. It is both the permeation factor and the dilution factor, together, that renders extremely unlikely Shanahan's proposed oxygen-hydrogen reaction, inside metal, as a cause of melting. The dilution factor alone makes an unlikely cause-of-melting out of the H+H->H2 reaction (which is powerful enough--has the highest specific impulse of any chemical reaction products--to have been seriously proposed for rocket propulsion). Some sources: http://home.c2i.net/astandne/help_htm/english/example/electronegativity-table.htm (Hydrogen and palladium have same electronegativity) http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ic50139a050 (Hydrogen permeation mechanism is not well understood) http://www.standnes.no/chemix/periodictable/atomic-radius-elements.htm (Helium is a smaller atom than hydrogen) http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6103028.html (Helium permeation of a palladium alloy intended to filter hydrogen; see Example 4 near bottom: "The permeation of helium through the membrane was undetectable. " http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/JOHT/joht13rocketprop.htm (Monatomic hydrogen as rocket fuel --search for "Single H") http://jjap.ipap.jp/link?JJAP/39/1953/ (Hydrogen permeation into palladium is exothermic, but only to a point)

Two more proposed sources

These two sources were proposed to me on my Talk page, possibly by one of the banned editors. It is claimed they are peer-reviewed and "secondary" (I haven't checked yet, been busy). Obviously these sources exist regardless of who proposes them (and, equally obviously, banned proponents are more likely to find such references than other people who are busy doing other things, like myself). I'm just letting you know about them so you-all can decide if they really do qualify as RS for purposes of this article.

Sheldon, E. (2008) "An overview of almost 20 years' research on cold fusion. A review of 'The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction: A Comprehensive Compilation of Evidence and Explanations about Cold Fusion.'" Contemporary Physics. Volume: 49, Issue: 5, Pages: 375-378. Full text: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a906882120&fulltext=713240928

Biberian, J.-P.; Armamet, N. (2008) "An update on condensed matter nuclear science (cold fusion)." Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie. Volume: 33, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 45-51. ( http://www.ensmp.fr/aflb/AFLB-331/aflb331m629.pdf )

Have fun! V (talk) 17:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)